Dreamstime/Amelia Martin 2021 may not have the smallest WSOP Main Event field since 2005 after all.
The World Series of Poker hasn’t yet announced an official tally or prize pool. All we have to go on right now are the unofficial single day totals reported over the course of the event’s six starting flights.
Adding those up, however, we get a total of 6,360. If the official numbers confirm that, then this year’s Main Event beat 2013’s attendance by a mere eight entries. That year marked the WSOP’s lowest point of the past 15 years, as the poker world was still reeling from the events of Black Friday.
It’s still a substantial drop from recent years either way. That’s assuming we don’t count last year’s Main Event which took place almost entirely online, and without a supporting series. The last time things took place as usual was 2019, and 8,569 players participated in that year’s event.
This year’s field is therefore down about 26% from 2019. That may sound like a lot, but it’s a pretty good number all things considered. Where direct year-to-year comparisons were possible, most of the series’ events saw drops of around one-third, and some were down significantly more.
Online Poker Report’s projection , based on comparable events like the Millionaire Maker and Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, was that the Main Event would be down by close to the series average, or perhaps a little more. We felt the 2005 total of 5,619 might be a reasonable over/under betting line.
Our readers on Twitter have consistently been more optimistic when we’ve polled them, and they’ve proven to be correct. In one poll, over 80% said the series would beat 2005. In another, about two-thirds said it would beat 2013 as well. Entries pile in during later flights
Sunday is always a big day for tournaments, so it was inevitable that Flight D on Nov. 7 would be the biggest of the six. Indeed, with 2,550 entries, that one day accounted for 40% of all entries to the tournament.
Even knowing that, however, the numbers for the early flights looked worrisome. […]
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