Hold’em Events Prevail in the World Series of Poker Schedule

The World Series of Poker is one of the most attractive poker tournaments, which is held every summer in Las Vegas ever since 1970 when it started.

It all began with the American gambling legend Benny Binion, who back in the beginning of the 70s invited seven of the best poker players at the time, to take part in a single tournament with specific start and end time, where the winner was decided by a secret voting.

The winner of each year’s tourney gets not only fame and money, but also the extremely desired and valuable World Series of Poker Bracelet, which usually opens a lot of doors in the future of the winners.

Some figures

Hold’em events prevail significantly at WSOP tournament

• It started in 1970
• There will be 65 events this year
• 39 events will be a variation of Hold’em

Since 2005 WSOP is sponsored by Caesars Entertainment and it gained a lot of respect throughout the years, as the number of events and participants increased significantly as well.

Every year the $10,000 no-limit Hold’em Main event marks the end of the tournament and determines the final winner among thousands participants. Winning the bracelet brings its owner the status of the World Champion of Poker and makes them preferred opponents at international and US poker rooms.

Since 2012, there are around 60 events at the WSOP, which feature different poker variations, however the Texas Hold’em prevails significantly. Therefore, the whole tournament is often referred to as World Series of Hold’em.

It is interesting that in the last couple of years since 2008, the Main Event final table happens later, usually in November, despite the fact that all the other events are taking place in the summer.

This year WSOPM

There will be 65 events this year and 39 of them will be a variation of Hold’em, which represent 60% of all the events part of WSOP 2014.

For comparison, in 2006 there were a total of 45 events and 34 of them were Hold’em, rounding it up to around 75% of all events.

It seems that 2014 will be one of the years when Hold’em events have the lowest proportion, compared to previous tourneys.

Despite the decrease of Hold’em events, it is still the most frequent one every year, and specialists give several reasons for that: it is considered the easiest game for players to learn and be good at, and it also gives one of the highest opportunities to win big.

Great example of the amazing interest and prize pool comes from last year, when 6,343 entrants joined the $1,500 buy-in Millionaire Maker event, and the winner Benny Chen took home the amazing $1,198,780 award.

Other games

Of course, WSOP, which follows all US gambling laws, also offers plenty of other games despite Hold’em.

This year there will be 7 mixed games’ events, which is the most throughout the history of WSOP along with 2012. Also, 2014 will offer 4 lowball events.

Omaha and Stud variations are much less popular compared to previous decades, but still they form a third of all events this year with a total of 15 games – 6 Stud and 9 Omaha variations. Some experts say that Omaha is currently in its good years, as the 9 events this year make it to the fourth most so far.

One of the most visible differences between 2014 and previous tourneys is the high number of big buy-in events. Around five years ago, no series had more than three tourneys with big buy-in of $10,000 or more, but in 2008 there were nine such. The total of large buy-in events will be 16 this year, which is almost 25% of the whole schedule.