2017 World Series of Poker Dates Announced
May 30 marks the start of the 48th World Series of Poker (WSOP) at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
"We want to wish everyone Happy Holidays and best wishes for a safe and successful 2017," said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart in a release. "We are busy trying to finalize the entire 2017 WSOP schedule. We anticipate a similar series to last year with a few new wrinkles, but ensuring a broad array of options to satisfy every potential participant."
The longest-running tournament series, will run through July 17 with gold bracelet events, satellites, cash games and daily deepstack tournaments three times a day for 49 consecutive days.
The WSOP Main Event will play down to a final table of nine on July 17.
The 2017 schedule will feature Colossus III, the world’s largest live poker event as the opening weekend event, a three-day $565 buy in reentry no-limit hold’em tournament from June 2 through June 4. During its first two years, the event had 43,987 entries.
Events back on the schedule from prior years include Millionaire Maker, Monster Stack, Little One for ONE DROP, Seniors Event and Ladies Championship.
The $10,000 buy in No-Limit Hold’em WSOP Main Event Championship will kick off July 8 and run across 10 consecutive days, until July 17. The starting flights are as follows: July 8, July 9 and July 10.
The first event on the schedule is the Casino Employees event on May 31 with a $565 buy in no-limit hold’em tournament. The tourney will run two days and have a single reentry format.
The Seniors Event will feature a $1,000 buy in no-limit hold’em format on June 16 with a single reentry option.
The average WSOP gold bracelet event in 2016 had a $3,205,961 prize pool with $555,475 going to the winner. The events below represent the top five field sizes of the year across the poker world, adding up to 49,228 entries.
Stats from 2016
| Event | Field Size |
|---|---|
| Main Event | 6,737 |
| Millionaire Maker | 7,190 |
| Monster Stack | 6,927 |
| Crazy Eights | 6,761 |
| Colossus | 21,613 |
The total entries at the WSOP event last year were the highest in the WSOP’s 47-year history: 107,833. With the new 15 percent payout structure, a record 15,767 entrants came away with prize money this past year. Qui Nguyen won the WSOP Main Event, which attracted 6,737 players and was televised by ESPN for its 15th consecutive year.
Buy-ins for tournaments at the Rio start as low as $75. Live games will begin May 30 and run every day throughout the seven-week series. This is the 13th time it will again take place in the Rio Convention Center.
WSOP.com’s real money online poker offerings will be the keys into seats for the WSOP events and are exclusively in New Jersey and Nevada. Satellites will run regularly there. 888poker is the international poker partner with satellite qualifications to win a seat into the WSOP.
The tournament will set up nearly 500 poker tables in anticipation of the crowd coming. Last year’s crowd generated prize pools over $221 million with participants hailing from 107 countries.
So far, the WSOP plans for over 70 official gold bracelet events and weekends readied for no-limit hold’em weekend warriors and entry-level and championship-level buy-ins for many poker variations.
Reservations for Caesar’s Las Vegas properties can be made now by visiting Las Vegas – WSOP for 2017, but individual event online pre-registration won’t open up until March, after the events have been confirmed and submitted to regulators.
WSOP announced they will answer to “wrinkles and more additions” and the specific event schedule in the New Year. WSOP will release the full event-by-event scheduled sometime in February, but has stipulated that all of the event information is subject to change.
Lead image courtesy of Jayne Furman
