Harrah's Announces WSOP SKED

[Stew]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041025/lam136_1.html

Looks like they are anticipating 3000 to 6000 for the Main Event.

[theredwave]

Have they always had a short-handed no limit tourney?

[GrannyMae]

gonna be 10,000 for the main event. they are understating the estimates on purpose.

[lorinda]

gonna be 10,000 for the main event. they are understating the estimates on purpose.


I must be the only person on the planet expecting less runners this year.

What am I missing?

Lori

[jasonHoldEm]

[ QUOTE ]
gonna be 10,000 for the main event.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is that your official line?

J

[MicroBob]

Expanded TV coverage....more and more players.
I'm predicting 7k-8k or so.....but wouldn't be completely surprised by 9k-10k.


The TV series 'Tilt' (on ESPN in January from the guys that did the movie Rounders) will continue to feed the frenzy.
And all the WSOP-tour events on ESPN from AC and New Orleans etc will add to it.
The ESPN coverage is the key.
The WPT and the Fox-Sports Net stuff (PSI and other shows) don't even come close to the audiences that ESPN gets.


The WSOP went from 800 to 2600 mostly from ESPN showing the same 6 or 7 episodes of 2003 WSOP-championship coverage.


This year they are constantly showing ALL of the events over and over....not just the championship table.
They were showing the 7-card stud again today for example.


Fox-Net is showing a lot of poker-reruns too (PSI and others) although this doesn't have the same kind of influence.


More and more people I know that previously knew NOTHING about poker (had never seen WPT or anything) just can't avoid it on ESPN anymore.


Example: About 12-14 mths ago I read a post on a sportscasters' message-board (bunch of guys who mostly call high-school football, etc).
This guy described this bizarre 'poker coverage' that he saw on TV when he was at a friends' house and couldn't believe how ridiculous it was (I think he was watching WPT but I'm not sure).
"Can you believe Poker on TV?? How weird is that? I just had to tell you guys because I know you would all find this as hilarious as I did."
He made jokes about whether the 'play-by-play' (PxP) announcer should really be referred to as a 'card-by-card' (CxC) announcer.
Some of the responses he got on the forums from other sportscasters pretty much agreed that they thought that sounded really ridiculous.

Keep in mind, this was AFTER Moneymaker had won.

Less than 2 years ago I didn't know what a 'flop' or 'big-blind' and had never heard of Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, etc. So I can kinda/sorta identify with the "What the hell is poker?" type crowd because it wasn't too long ago I was part of that crowd.


Now, virtually everyone has run across some of the poker coverage on ESPN (and other channels).

We just hadn't reached the ultimate saturation point when the WSOP had 2600 last April. It's still been growing since then.

[Stew]

gonna be 10,000 for the main event. they are understating the estimates on purpose.

The problem with this is the room where they are going to hold the tourney's at in the Rio only holds 2500, they are basically capped at 2000 per day (when you figure in dealers, floor, TD's, press, etc). The Fire Marshall definitely will not allow them to exceeed this. I have this on very good authority from a friend (that I spoke to this evening) who is a poker dealer for a non-Vegas Harrah's property. They are going to fly him in to deal for the whole WSOP. His wife is a former Pit Boss at Harrah's in Vegas and is now in upper Management with Harrah's.

So, if they are going to exceed 6000, the only option they have is expanding the "Day One's".


He did say they were planning for 8000 and may cut out the Wed SUPER SAT day and make it Day One-I

[DoctorJ]

Nope - that would be new. Damn interesting, too. Also big changes in the start date (6 weeks later), and the buy-in for the 1st weekend of events (all $1500), and the number of events - up to 45 from 30-something last year. See y'all there...

Doctor J

[GrannyMae]

What am I missing?

that TV commercial (the audition) that played before EVERY single commercial break had an 800 number for people to call. this commercial will continue unabated thru the reruns.

Harrah's full page ads are already starting to appear inviting people to call.

Harrah's new wsop tour

Record numbers from the sites thru sattelites will eclipse the number sent by sites last year

Holding it at a convention center for the prelims.

[Cleveland Guy]

For the 7CS and Omaha games that don't say "No Limit" or "pot Limit" can we assume they are Limit?