The Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas will host once again the WSOP. As usual the first event of the world championship of poker will be the $500 Casino Employees No Limit Hold’em Tournament – a tournament that is addressed, as indicated by its name, only to casino employees and stuff.

The program also includes the $50.000 Player’s Championship but the event will be held near the end of the WSOP. In fact, this event is the 55th in the tournament list and it is scheduled for July 2nd.

Caesars Entertainment decided this year to change the time-schedule of the tournaments in order not to keep the participants till early morning hours. For the tournaments – excluding the Main Event – that start at 12 noon there will be only 10 blind levels while those that are schdeled for 5.00 pm there will be only 8 blind levels. The events scheduled at 12 will continue at 2.30 pm of the next day wile the other at 3.00 pm the next day.

Obviously, the Main Event is an integral part of the program. Once again the Day 1 will be concluded in 4 days range. The Main event – which is the last of the WSOP (event #58) will start at July 7^th and will concluded at July 19^th. As last year, the new “November 9 finalists” will renew their appointment for the final table of the tournament next November. The pre-registrations for the tournament will begin on 7^th of February. Take a look at the complete program for this year’s World Series of Poker.

2011 World Series of Poker Schedule

Here are the profiles of the players that will participate to the WSOPE final table.

Position 1: Roland de Wolfe (1,377,000 Chips)

He is a 37 year old professional poker player and the only one on the final table with a WSOP bracelet in his possession ($5.000 PL Omaha Event, 2009). His first big cash was back in 2005. Since then he has participated in numerous tournaments, having 2.5 million dollars in profits. He is a member of few-elite group with victories in all three major poker events – WSOP, WPT and EPT.

Position 2: Mark Inizan (349,000 Chips)

He is a 24 years old professional poker player. He has scored six major cashes, including a third place in the Main Event of the EPT in Berlin. This is his first attendance at a final table of a WSOP Event – in this year’s WSOP $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha championship finished at 13th spot.

Position 3: Nicolas Levi (428,000 Chips)

He is a 27 years old professional poker player. He has several cashes in recent years in European tournaments – including the WSOPE Main Event in 2007. He stood fifth in the recent $5,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Shootout event.

Position 4: Fabrizio Baldassari (697,000 Chips)

A professional poker player with several cashes in major European tournaments within the last three years. This is, however, his first opportunity to cash in a WSOP event.

Position 5: Brian Powell – (842,000 Chips)

He is a 28 years old from Kentucky, USA, and he is also a professional player. This is the fifth cash out opportunity at a WSOP event. His best position so far was the 13th in the $10,000 buy-in Mixed event 2 years ago. Powell also cash in to the 2009 WSOP Main Event as he finished in 66th position among 6,000 participants.

Position 6: Danny Steinberg – (1,520,000 Chips)

Danny is 22 years old but he is a professional poker player. He has already 2 cashes this year on the WSOP in Las Vegas – one of which at the Main Event.

Position 7: James Bord – (1,331,000 Chips)

He is a 29 years old professional poker player. He used to work in a bank but he decided that is more profitable to be a successful poker player. So far he has 7 WSOP cashes, including a sixth place in the Deuce-to-Seven Lowball championship this year. He, however, is best known for his performance in cash games as he usually can be found in Las Vegas, playing at tables $300-$600 and $400-$800 on some of the largest poker rooms.

Position 8: Ronald Lee – (1,899,000 Chips)

He is a 24 years old professional poker player. He scored his first major cash in the final table of the EPT in Monte Carlo in 2008. He has also cashes in the 2009 WSOP Main Event and on the Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em championship earlier this year in Las Vegas. He is currently second in chips.

Position 9: Dan Fleyshman – (1,946,000 Chips)

He is 29 year old and he works for an online poker company. This is the first time that he reaches the cash prizes in a WSOP Event. This is also his first appearance at the final table of a big tournament with television coverage. Dan Fleyshman was the founder of the company that produces the isotonic drink “Who’s Your Daddy” at age 23.

This year there are 5 events scheduled and as the number of entries increase every year so do the prizes. A similar increase was experienced also at the WSOP this summer in Las Vegas. On this year’s program there is only one non Hold’em event which is the £5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha. This event is expected to attract without any doubt many of the high profile names of the offline and online poker world – something that has also happened in previous years as the participants for these events reached an average of 160.

In place of Hold’em /Omaha event organizers have added two new events: the £2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event and the £10,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up event.

World Series of Poker Europe Schedule:

Event # 1: 6-handed NL Hold’em , Buy – in: £ 2.650, 14-16 September
Event # 2: Pot Limit Omaha , Buy – in: £ 5.250, 16-18 September
Event # 3: NL Hold’em , Buy – in: £ 1.075, 17-21 September
Event # 4: NL Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up, Buy – in: £ 10.350, 21-23 September
Event # 5: NL Hold’em Championship (Main Event), Buy – in: £ 10.350, 23-28 September

For the first three events the online registrations have closed, while they are still open for the events 4 and 5. Players who wish to participate in the first three events should register at the Empire Casino. For the last two events, you can visit www.wsop.com/registration/.

Apparently the “main” dish for this year’s WSOP-E is no other than September 23’s NL Hold’em Championship (Main Event). In the previous two years the level of competition was extremely high, something that was commended by one of the top poker players of the world, Daniel Negreanu of PokerStars, Negreanu was able to reach the final table of both last two WSOP-E Main Events, a tremendous achievement which did not come to accomplishment, however, to a WSOPE bracelet. Let us remember the last WSOPE hand that gave the Bracelet to Shulman despite the fact that was counting only on two outs!

Qualifiers and sub qualifiers have currently stopped running on Betfair Poker, Full Tilt Poker and Bodog Poker; but players can buyin directly required they have a functional account; new players can select to sign up with Betfair Rakeback, with the Full Tilt Poker Referral Code that will unlock $600 in sign up bonus or the Bodog Poker Bonus Code which will unlock up to $1000 in sign up bonus respectively.

Team PokerStars Online was created last year after gathering more than 2,000 PokerStars Supernova VIP players. Ultimately, 23 players were selected and this number has reached now to 26 after Schmidt’s latest addition.

Dusty said he was very busy lately, writing a new book on poker and playing on more live poker events than ever before, but is planning to now focus on pursuing a SuperNova Elite status further in 2010. Commenting on the perks of becoming a player with that status, Schmidt said: “It is a huge case. All grinders are aware that winning the SuperNova Elite status can secure more than $100,000 a year as income, even with 0 profits at the tables!

The benefits are amazing. Even when you go to the WSOP as a Super Nova Elite everything is fantastic. This year we participated in the PokerStars party as VIP guests with Snoop Dogg.”

Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt is primarily an online multi-tabling No-Limit Hold ‘em specialist and in his career features more than 8 million hands played till this day while he managed to raise $3 million in profits without suffering a single losing month!

If you care to read more about the Super Nova Elite status and the PokerStars VIP program reach out to the PokerStars rakeback equivalent section.

Looking at the demographic data of statistics, the only group of viewers that has increased its numbers is the group of men aged over 55 years old. The increase was approximately 8.1%. On all other categories there was a decline. After the first introductory episode for July’s 20th WSOP, there was a two-hour broadcast of Poker Player’s Championship. This episode had increased number of viewers by 15% compared to the one of 2009’s.

The broadcasts continued with the Tournament of Champions and the first days of the Main Event with live analysis and comments from famous poker stars such as Johnny Chan, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Doyle Brunson and others. However, ESPN did not manage to achieve the numbers of viewers that the station managers originally estimated. ESPN broadcasts for the WSOP will continue for the next ten weeks until the start of the Main Event’s final table which is scheduled for November.

Its worth mentioning that rival poker rooms online have recently cut off rakeback players as simply said offering rakeback on top of sign up bonus was just proving to be a non efficient business therefore leading to the decision to cut off players with accounts offering rakeback payments; we would say that pokerstars.com has once again stood on to their position widely with the usual policy which simply clarifies to rivals a strategy saying “once your done with your experiments and left broke; we’ll step in and get the job done”; wise?

Well yes as being the worlds largest online poker room is a title that does not come for free and pokerstars.com has surely played its own cards correctly as It has replayed the same strategy twice when it use to give maximum 100% sign up bonus for deposits up to $50 when other rooms where tossing out 200% up to €1000 plus 30% rakeback on top of that and after everybody else was left breathless and penniless the popular card room stepped in and said as from today we give players 100% up to $600; so how’s that?

Simply said competition attempted to fool themselves by faking the numbers by offering more than they could really afford and forcing skin or white label owners to sustain the losses that resulted from a non efficient and non effective marketing strategy. In poker and generally in online gaming businesses the trick is not getting players in its keeping them in by having something to offer them and in this case it’s mathematically clear that when you pay the player all that money to get him in your realistically left with no liquidity to keep the tables busy by running attractive promotions attractive tournaments or being able to reward the players that will keep your site alive; meaning that sooner or later you’ll be left with a dead network and a lot of expensively paid acquisitions. Wise? Well I wouldn’t really say so.

The bottom line is that with the UIGEA still in act and candidate threat for the position of the world’s largest card room partypoker.com out of the competition zone for now pokerstars.com is still enjoying the luxury of the valuable time to gain liquidity and seal its position as market leader as its only serious rival in the booming US market is Full Tilt Poker and maybe UB.com therefore allowing the card room to make poker promotions as attractive as the Micromania PokerStars Promotion which will be running this July.

All said pokerstars.com is today offering players not only 12 times the old bonus but even more a revised rakeback equivalent program which makes rakeback look meaningless; timing might be a contributing factor but the marketing strategy followed by pokerstars.com can be very much fit for a good practice case study. Important note* The PokerStars VIP Program can be enjoyed by both new and existing players where the new sign up bonus which is applicable with use of the PokerStars Bonus Code and the PokerStars Marketing Code is only available for players that do not have an account at pokerstars.som. New players have the luxury to enjoy both the sign up bonus and the rewards that come with the PokerStars Rakeback equivalent.

If you would like to participate to a WSOP event and to live the excitement of a high level tournament you can register now through the official WSOP web page. As an alternative you can win a WSOP package by participating on online poker rooms freeroll and freeroll satellites and qualifier satellited for main events where the way to the final tournament can be achieved via satellites or directly by participating to the final table.

What is unique this year is the number of low buy-in events. The tournament officials decided to satisfy the public demand who still eyes large pots but with reasonable buy-ins. All the popular games are offered to buy-ins that vary from $1,000 to $50,000. The WSOP started with the Casino Employees Championship with a buy-in of $500 and 721 entries who battled for the $324,000 prize pool. Pham was the winner of that event who went back to his casino work $71,000 richer! The second event was the glamorous $50,000 Player’s Championship tournament. 116 professional poker players battled for the prize pool of $5,568,000. The winner was no other than Michael Mizrachi who managed to eliminate all the other participants and he won 1,559,000.

The $5,000 No Limit Holdem shootout event enjoyed a 30% increase comparing to 2009 where 358 players battled for the $1,682,600 prize pool. The winner on that event was Joshua Tieman who cashed out his chips worth of $441,692! On June 7th 150 poker players gathered to Rio hotel in order to participate to the $10,000 Seven-card Stud tournament and get a share of the $1,410,000 prize pool. The winner was no other than the Men “The Master” Nguyen who won his seventh World Series of Poker Bracelet and $394,800. Yesterday, Russ “Dutch” Boyd celebrated his second WSOP bracelet as he was the winner of the $2,500 shorthanded Limit Holdem event #23 which
attracted 384 players and a prize pool worth of 883,200.

Jack Effel WSOP tournament director explained that the specific player was playing a poker hand with someone else during the announcement of the 20 minutes break. As soon as the break was announced the players that were on the table but not participating to the hand left the poker table. The two remaining players played the hand and the winner was the ‘offender’. The card dealer gave him the pot and the man started to pick up his chips. However, he used his body to hide his side player chips out of the dealer’s eye line and using his second hand pushed some chips towards his stack.

The security camera was able to detect the event and a few minutes later the man received a visit from Harrah’s security stuff. Jack Effel concluded with the statement that the player will disqualify for life from all the WSOP events.

So far, World Series of Poker is a great success. On the official WSOP page was a post with comments of some famous and veteran WSOP players who express their opinions regarding the WSOP 2010. The players were delighted as they describe the event as a spectacle similar to Grand Canyon. The poker room in the Rio Hotel features 9.300 square meters of action, 378 poker tables, 1000 dealers, thousand spectators and the ability to host over 3,760 active poker players per day.

For all those who would like to play on the WSOP there is still plenty of time as the last event is scheduled for July 5 – it is the famous $10,000 Buy-in No limit Texas Holdem event. Please note that many poker rooms online offer the opportunity to win a WSOP full sponsored package in order to live the greatest poker event of the planet. More information regarding the WSOP schedule can be found on the previous hyperlink.

The “nine finalists” will return in November to duel for the coveted title. The action starts today with the $500 Casino Employees no limit hold’em event and the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.
The Poker Player’s Championship replaced the old high-limit HORSE event, and is really a true test of all skills a poker player might have. The format includes eight different games: Limit Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo Split, Seven Card Razz, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split, No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. The first of several $ 1,000 No Limit Hold’em events will take place tomorrow, Saturday and are expected to attract nearly 4000 participants. The $ 1,000 No Limit Hold’em events have become popular in the World Series events alongside the main event and therefore added several program this year.

Players will have the opportunity n ‘fight to a $1,000 No Limit event every weekend of the tournament. On June 27 the WSOP will present the World Series’ Tournament of Champions an equivalent all-star game. Overall 27 players will participate in the $ 1 million freeroll Tournament of Champions; amongst them three former winners of the Tournament of Champions: Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton. The rest of the field is to be determined by public voting on the site of the World Series, at wsop.com. Until recently more than 300,000 votes were registered, with Phil Ivey taking unsurprisingly most. The vote is open until June 15, with 20 top votes to take seats for this event.

Finally the WSOP officials said they did not intend to change the venue of the World Series, at least for the coming year, despite rumors circulating in recent weeks about a possible sale of the Rio by Harrah’s Entertainment. The Caesars Palace, which is owned by Harrah’s had been mentioned as a possible future alternative location for the World Series.

Players interested in claiming the opportunity to win a WSOP package for Life (20 years is the duration of the term Life) need to be either Bronze, Silver or Gold level player in terms of the Party Poker VIP Program. The goal is to earn as many points as possible through regular poker play starting from 24th May through June 20th in order to climb up higher in the WSOP for Life leader board standings currently running at Party Poker. The top ranking player will receive a WSOP for Life Package while players ranking on spots 2,3 and 4 will also receive a WSOP package for the 2010 event.

Furthermore the top 500 players will share a prize pool of $50,000. More information regarding the promotion can be found directly at partypoker.com Main page.

Someone can say that winning a WSOP package through an online poker rooms is almost impossible to happen but history has proven this wrong as a number of current world recognized poker players including world famous Chris Moneymaker managed to win a WSOP packages through a PokerStars.com freeroll.

Now players that cannot compete with the big wallets who will earn points much faster than others will be pleased to know that partypoker.com has figured out the solution with opportunities to join the daily freeroll “WSOP for Life Satellites” where the top 25 players qualify for the $1 next level satellite. There, for every $35 in the prize pool an entry will open for the $32+$3 qualifying tournament. Entries to the $32+$3 tournament are also available to the $4 satellite where 1 place for every 10 players will gain an entry. Players reaching the $32+$3 qualifier then again 1 entry for the Main WSOP for Life Grand Final $300+$20will be available for every 10 players. The above mentioned satellites run on daily basis so there are no excuses. Of course, all those who would like to buy-in an entry to the final tournament the cost is $300+$20 and it is scheduled for Sunday June 20th at 15:35 ET.

On the particular event, the winner will receive the WSOP for Life Package while those ranking on spots 2,3,4 will have the opportunity to claim a WSOP 2010 package for the main event #57, those on spots 5th to 50th will share the prize pool on a sliding scale. More information regarding the promotion can be found at the Partypoker.com Main page.

Want even more? If you think that the satellites procedure is too boring or the Buy-in of the final tournament is too expensive; try the STT Jackpots. The STT jackpots will book for you a seat to the WSOP for Life Final. The rules are quite simple as all you have to do is to win 5 single table tournaments in a row between May24th to June 18th.

You need to win 1 * $50,000 Gold Jackpot available in the $55 buy-in tournaments, OR 3 * $20,000 silver Jackpots ($12 to $54 buy-ins) OR 5 $10,000 bronze jackpots ($3 to $11 buy-ins).

About PartyPoker.com

Partypoker.com also known as Party Poker is a European facing online poker room running under the wing of the popular PARTYGAMING (PRTY.L) family which is a Gibraltar based and London Stock Exchange listed company offering online gaming and online gambling solutions for online casinos, online poker, web bingo and online betting. Party Poker currently ranks as #1 stand alone online poker room in Europe based on ring game revenue and number of players. New players have the opportunity to claim a 100% sign up bonus for deposits up to $500 with the use of the Party Poker Bonus Code: LUCKYROOM which ensures 5 x the normal bonus. Returning players have the opportunity to take advantage of an excellent loyalty program offered at Party Poker which allows indirect returns equivalent to 40% Party Poker Returns. Read more under the Party Poker Rakeback section or alternatively read more about Party Gaming and all the products under its wing under Party Gaming on Wikipedia.