2015 WSOP Schedule Released
The official schedule for the 2015 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was released today, highlighted by a tournament which will award the first-ever online gold bracelet. Starting on Wednesday, May 27th, the 2015 WSOP will consist of 68 events in total, culminating, as always, with the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.
Event #64 is the online tournament, available exclusively on WSOP.com. Details for the event have yet to be announced, but it will be a $1,000 buy-in tournament, with the final two players competing heads-up at the Rio in Las Vegas for the bracelet. It appears that only players on the Nevada WSOP.com site will be able to participate. While it would be nice for New Jersey players to be allowed to compete as well, the two state sites have yet to be linked, so it would simply not work logistically. Keeping it on the Nevada site also allows for more people to play, as everyone visiting Vegas for the rest of the World Series of Poker will be able to login to WSOP.com and take a shot.
Ten other events will make their debut at the 2015 WSOP. Courtesy of WSOP.com, the list includes:
May 29-30: Event #5 – $565 Colossus No-Limit Hold’em – $5,000,000 guaranteed.
May 31: Event #6 – $1,000 Hyper No-Limit Hold’em.
June 20: Event #42 – $1,500 Extended Play No-Limit Hold’em – longer, 90-minute levels.
June 21: Event #43 – $1,000 Super Seniors No-Limit Hold’em – open to those 65-years of age and older.
June 26: Event #53 – $5,000 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em.
June 27: Event #55 – $1,500 DraftKings 50/50 No-Limit Hold’em – half the field will make the money.
June 29: Event #60 – $25,000 High Roller 8-handed Pot-Limit Omaha.
July 1: Event #62 – $1,500 Bounty No-Limit Hold’em – every player has a $500 bounty on their head.
July 3: Event #65 – $777 Lucky 7’s No-Limit Hold’em – gimmick.
July 3: Event #67 – $10,000 Dealers Choice – 19 variants – looking forward to someone being on the wrong game every hand.
Of particular interest is the new $565 Colossus No-Limit Hold’em, Event #5 on the schedule. It is the cheapest open WSOP event since 1980, but despite that, has a massive $5 million guaranteed prize pool. There will be four starting
flights, two on Friday, May 29th and two on Saturday, May 30th. Early flights on each day will begin at 10:00am, while late flights will begin at 6:00pm. The WSOP is hoping it will set the record the most entries in a live poker tournament, currently held by the 2006 WSOP Main Event, which had a field of 8,773 players. Aside from being a WSOP Main Event, that tournament was notable because it was during the peak of the poker boom, the last one before the UIGEA passed in the United States. Jamie Gold won the tournament after steamrolling his table for days, cashing in for $12 million.
The Colossus will be a re-entry event, with eliminated players being allowed to buy-in again on any subsequent day.
“If you’ve never thought about coming to Las Vegas for the WSOP, this is the year,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart in a press release. “Now more than ever, the WSOP has something for everyone and with this schedule we believe the value and the opportunity for player success exists in each and every event we are offering in 2015.”
The 2014 WSOP Main Event Bracelet
The $10,000 Main Event will begin on Sunday, July 5th so that players do not have to be cooped up in the poker room on the Independence Day holiday. There will be three starting flights, Sunday through Tuesday. There will also be two Day 2’s – Day 2A will be held on Wednesday, July 8th, for the survivors of Days 1A and 1B, while Day 2B will be on Thursday, July 9th, for the survivors of Day 1C. Day 2 is split up this way mainly because Day 1C is usually bigger than both Days 1A and 1B combined and, by extension, has more players making it to Day 2. For instance, Day 1C last year had a field of 3,768 players, while Days 1A and 1B had fewer than 3,000 between them. All survivors from the Day 2 flights will combine into a single field starting on Day 3.
There will be five two-hour levels each day of the Main Event until Day 7, when it will play down to nine players. Those nine will return in November for the final table and comprise this year’s “November Nine.” The exact dates for the November Nine have yet to be announced.
As previously reported, the Main Event will not have the $10 million guaranteed first prize that it had last year, but will instead go to a flatter payout structure, paying to a minimum of 1,000 places. That structure is contingent on there being at least 5,000 entrants, but there is almost no way that won’t happen.
The complete 2015 World Series of Poker schedule can be found here.
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