The internationally-recognized tournament needs solutions for its participation drop The World Series of Poker was first held in Downtown Las Veags in 1970. The World Series of Poker (WSOP) and its million-dollar prize pools made an in-person return to Las Vegas on Sept. 30 after a 26-month hiatus due to COVID-19.
Normally, the main event that usually begins each spring, but this year’s 52nd Annual WSOP will run until right before Thanksgiving on Nov. 23.
Officially, there was a WSOP in 2020, but it was a virtual event with 85 online tournaments, and each one awarding the traditional gold bracelet to the winner.
What was less-traditional was the high percentage of No Limit Hold’em (NLH) events in both the entirely-online 2020 WSOP schedule, and the online portion of the 2021 schedule.
Other poker tournament series have largely become all- or almost-all NLH, as it is easier to deal and many casino operators see it as a quicker way to generate revenue — mainly, by getting fast player bust-outs and getting those players into more lucrative house games such as craps, slot machine play, or even live poker.
What makes the WSOP special and unique is that all forms of poker have always been well-represented on each year’s schedule, no matter the current poker “flavor of the day.” Today, that’s NLH, but in the 1970s was Draw Poker, in the ’80s Seven Card Stud, and in the ’90s, when Limit Hold’em was king.
WSOP executive director Ty Stewart explained that current software is not capable of running all the different online tournament poker variations.
What is perplexing about this almost-exclusively NLH online lineup is that 15 years ago, Full Tilt Poker ran the “Mini Series of Poker” (MSOP) online each year for five straight years. Every form of poker played in those years’ WSOP events was held in those online MSOPs.
Further, there were far more entries in each of those MSOP events than in the live WSOP, and it all went smoothly with no hitches, despite thousands of entries in many events.For a long time, the technology has existed to hold a traditional World Series of […]
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