Home / Poker News May 2011 / 42nd WSOP Kicks Off Today
42nd WSOP Kicks Off Today
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2011-05-31 04:42
The 42nd annual WSOP gets rolling on Tuesday at the Convention Center at the Rio, featuring 58 gold bracelet events, which beats last year’s yield by one. Whether participation will measure up to last year’s though remains to be seen. The Black Friday events certainly cast a grey pall over those prospects, due to the fact that because of them, US players can no longer take advantage of the various online qualifiers offered by the
online poker rooms. Last year, the number of participants who had obtained their seats through online poker rooms saw a huge spike. This year, that spike will pretty much be reversed, even though players from other countries will still be able to grab WSOP seats online.
There will be a few new events on the schedule, but a few old ones, like the Tournament of Champions will be gone. One of the new events is event #2, the $25k
NL Holdem Heads-Up Championship. The $500 Casino Employees event will be the one that kicks off the hostilities yet again. Event #2 will get going on the first day too.
For the biggest part, last year’s schedule will remain unaltered. There will also be a special Grudge Matches promotion, which will aim to recreate landmark WSOP moments. Two such matches were set up by the organizers between Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan (recreating the 1989 WSOP final stretch) and Chris Moneymaker and Sam Farha (the 2003 WSOP Main Event heads-up battle). The third Grudge Match was voted by the public and it will feature Erik Seidel vs Johnny Chan in an attempt to recreate the 1988
WSOP Main Event final.
The Grudge Matches take place in the Rio on June 2. They will be broadcast later by ESPN.
The $10k Main Event kicks off on July 7 and it will last for 13 days, wrapping up with the setting of the November 9 on July 19. The final table will once again reconvene in November.
