The organisers of the world’s top poker festival – the World Series of Poker – have published the preliminary details for next year’s edition, the 48th year of the tournament.
The 2017 competition starts on Tuesday May 30 at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and will again include gold bracelet events, satellites, cash games and thrice daily deep stack tournaments running for 49 consecutive days, with the WSOP Main Event reaching its final nine players on Monday, 17 July 2017..
The opening weekend event of the 2017 schedule will once again feature the return of the world’s largest live poker event. Colossus III will be a $565 buy-in re-entry NLHE tournament featuring two starting flights a day over three consecutive days — 2-4 June. The format will include re-entry, allowing players to enter again if they fail to advance initially. This event has drawn 43,987 entries during its first two years, easily the largest live tournaments ever and allowing all-comers to pony up the $565 entry and try and turn it into $1 million in a matter of days.
Also back on the schedule in 2017 are the popular Millionaire Maker, Monster Stack, Little One for ONE DROP, Seniors Event and Ladies Championship.
The summer poker festival reaches its pinnacle with the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em WSOP Main Event championship, slated to run over ten consecutive days from 8-17 July 2017 and featuring three starting flights — 8-10 July.
The first event on the 48th WSOP schedule is the $565 buy-in Casino Employees NLHE event, which will take place on Wednesday, 31 May as a two-day tournament with a single re-entry format.
The date is also confirmed for this year’s Senior Event, which will again feature a $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em format for those aged 50 or older. It is set for 10 a.m. on Friday, 16 June. New is a single re-entry option.
The average WSOP gold bracelet event in 2016 featured a $3,205,961 prize pool with $555,475 going to the event’s winner. The 2016 WSOP featured the Top 5 field sizes of the year in all of poker with the Main Event (6,737), Millionaire Maker (7,190), Monster Stack (6,927), Crazy Eights (6,761) and Colossus (21,613) entries combining to attract 49,228 entries.
The 107,833 entries at the 2016 WSOP were the most in the event’s 47-year history. A record 15,767 entrants walked away with prize money.
WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart said in a statement Monday that the full schedule was currently being finalised, but would in general be similar to the 2016 event, with a broad array of options to satisfy every potential participant.
Nearly 500 poker tables will be set up across more than 100,000 square-feet of ballroom space to accommodate the thousands of players from around the world who attend poker’s annual Woodstock, he said.
The 48the WSOP will as usual be supported by myriad online satellite opportunities to win seats.
Stewart hopes to best this year’s WSOP, which boasted the largest attendance in the tournament’s 47-year history — generating prize pools of more than $221 million.