Bigger and better games

The revised schedule at the WSOP has seen the participant numbers shoot up with thousands more taking part; however, prize money does seem to be down.

If one looks at the statistics for the first half of this year’s World Series of Poker then it seems as if the new schedule greatly increased entry to the tournaments.
The first twenty nine events of the series saw 30,552 entries registered which is almost 7 percent more than last year.

On the other hand, last year’s WSOP had larger prizes given out and bigger prize pools. This year $53.6 million was given out over the first 29 events where as last year it was $56.3 million. Also, no event this year has beaten last year’s ‘Stimulus Special’ $1,000 buy in NLHE event. It featured 6,0,12 contestants which is a record for an event which is not the main event.

Despite the difficult economic climate last year, the first $1,500 NLHE event attracted 2,791 participants, this year it has only attracted 2,092 a whole 25 percent less.

However, a few other events have done better than last year, and it is possible that the rest of the schedule will even the statistics out. For instance, this year the $1,000 buy-in Seniors No-Limit Hold’em, event 34, had 3,141 participants this year which is far more than the 2,707 of last year’s.

This year’s Seven Card Stud World Championship and the Seven Card Stud High-Low Split both feature $10,000 buy-ins and had higher entry numbers than last years. The World Championship was up by 5.6 percent and the High-Low Split was up by 3.7 percent.

The $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event had almost 21 percent more entrants this year than last, also the $1,500 Seven Card Stud High-Low Split event had entries up 38 percent and the $1,500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed had entries up 14 percent.

As normal, the majority of the winner’s bracelets have gone to players from the United States, they have claimed 20 of them so far. The UK and Canada have had three each and Hungry, New Zealand and France have also won one each.
So far the most of the bracelets have been won by professional players with only six amateur contestants managing to win an event. There have been five players this year who have entered the select group of those who have managed to win more than one bracelet at the World Series of Poker over multiple tournaments.