World Poker Views Blog

The schedule for the 2009 WSOP was released recently. This year’s series will have 57 events, two more than last year. After a two year break, the traditional $500 casino-employees only event has been moved back to the beginning of the schedule. That event will kick-start the festivities on May 27th. The series will continue daily through July 14th. At that time, nine players will be remaining in the Main Event. Like last year, these nine will return in November (7th-10th to be exact) to crown a new world champion. That is unless Peter Eastgate pulls off the near-impossible and defends his title.

Here are a few major things that stick-out on from the schedule:

• To mark the 40th anniversary of the WSOP and also to meet players’ demand for an ultra-high buy-in no-limit event, a $40,000 buy-in tournament will be held. This is the first open-field (meaning anyone can participate) tournament of the series. It will be interesting to see how a recession effects participation in this event. For fun, I’ll guess that 212 players will come together for this one.
• Rebuy events have been removed from the schedule. In recent years, players have complained that events like the $5,000 buy-in 2-7 Triple Draw with Rebuys event gave an unfair advantage to pros. The whole “buy a bracelet” argument is kind of a stupid one though, if you ask me. It still takes a ton of talent to win any rebuy event at the WSOP. Any bracelet won from such an event is fully deserved. Chalk this one up to another instance where a bunch of needless complaining ruined an otherwise problem-free operation.
• A new “triple chance” tournament added. Perhaps as a way to ease players into the idea of no rebuy tournaments, there is a $3,000 buy-in “triple chance” event. In this event, all players will be given a standard starting stack along with two lamers. These lamers can be redeemed for a second and third starting stack at any time. Certainly from a game theory standpoint, the lamers should be redeemed immediately. However, without a doubt, there will be some players who are too risk-averse to do this. But to be fair, a complete fish might actually be correct in not trading in their lamers right away. It gives them a couple extra chances to mess up.
• A $1,000 buy-in no-limit tournament is back on the schedule. Three years ago, $1,000 buy-in tournaments appeared in a few instances on the schedule. They were removed following player complaints that the buy-in is too small to award a bracelet to. This year, perhaps due to the recession, a $1,000 event has made its way back to the schedule. I think this was a good move. It makes it easier on amateur degenerates to convince their wives to let them sneak away to Vegas in a time where discretionary spending is tight. Smart move, Harrah’s!

Beyond that, the 2009 WSOP schedule is pretty straight forward. You can see it here: 2009 WSOP Schedule.