I would think that for the purpose of any bet that doesn’t explicitly specify an attendance threshold, a “normal Main Event” would be any open poker event with a $10k buy-in conducted entirely live in Las Vegas that the WSOP brand styles as their Main Event.

Yep. That's why all bets that I know of have some kind of stipulation about number of participants in the ME. And at least in my bets, that number is high enough that a WSOP excluding most international players would most likely not qualify.

I wonder how much the 2021 Tokyo Olympic committee is sweating right now. Will the games be played this summer?

Just want to throw out there: Texas has been having large tournament fields already for several months, all gone off without a hitch. By late May, a majority of Americans will have had the opportunity to get the vaccine and the infection rate should be much, much smaller than it is now. Id be surprised if WSOP start time gets pushed back beyond late May, more surprised if it gets pushed back, and *stunned* if it gets canceled for 2021 entirely.

I hope your optimistic perspective is right but with all the new mutations being found and uncertainty about the effectiveness of the vaccines against the mutations, it might be a little too early for such a rosy outlook.

Mutations are a good thing. That’s how, in part, pandemics end. Generally each mutation is weaker, and eventually it mutates enough that it’s no longer a threat. So basically pandemics end up mutating themselves out of existence.

Yyyeeeaaahhhh a lot of iffy assumptions here. First, how do you define a pandemic? WHO or CDC (I can’t remember which) defines it as any disease with global reach and says we get them fairly frequently. But we only get ones of this magnitude fairly rarely so making generic statements about mutations being good and ending pandemics isn’t necessarily the case here. Second, viral mutations happen frequently and are generally benign. The ones we are seeing now show sharp increases in transmission but there’s not enough data yet on lethality. So we can’t say if it’s a good thing or a bad thing at all yet. We just don’t know. Third, mutations CAN make a virus more dangerous and lethal. Again, we just don’t know with this one yet.

Yes, mutations CAN be good but not always. No, they don’t mutate themselves out of existence. Yes, they can mutate to where the human body can fight them off better. No, that isn’t always the case.

Right now they question if they would have lost less money by just canceling early instead of rescheduling to something that’s going to be a mostly made-for-TV only event.

OTOH, UEFA is thrilled that they had decided on going the multi-city route anyway for EURO 2020 because they didn’t want to let Turkey host it.

If the WSOP had a real TV contract, the 2021 series would already be scheduled.

A footrace can go a lot of different ways. It can be a 50 local people or have thousands of runners (think Boston Marathon.) People who know how to organize races can adapt to different situations. I ran a sanctioned midnight race at downtown in a big city and a local race in temperatures well below freezing.

What I did when I ran the first Detroit Marathon would be illegal now. We ran across an international border (from Windsor, Canada to Detroit, Michigan, twice, out and back. The organizers adapted and the course has been changed, perhaps many times.

Nobody is doubting that 0.0002 = 0.02%, it was the way that Grafshoom couldn't see that the first guy had already said it.

Wowoowowow I'm so sorry pls forgive me

Just a sobering reminder: from the advent of the Salk vaccine, it took 20 years to eradicate polio. So, while the COVID vaccination now ongoing should lead to a huge decline in the number of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, the virus is still likely to be around for a long time. And it still remains to be figured out how often booster inoculations will be required, as immunity from the initial vaccination wanes.

Still, I imagine that once vaccinations are widespread, a lot of poker players will be returning to the live felt.

open bravo for 1 minute dude

Overall poker room traffic in LV is way down. It's the same in other parts of the country, or worse in the case of states where the rooms are still shuttered. And so with the subject of the thread being the 2021 World Series, speculation and projection on the impact of the vaccines is highly relevant. Certainly more so than your dismissal suggests.

im going to WSOP 2021 to play two 1500 events. no cash games, no other tournies. I'm going with 4k. im rich, *****. ill be the giant headed fat guy angling everybody.

This is an argument against it. Open Bravo to see 30% of games pre-covid with pretty much nothing bigger than 5/10 that barely runs.

There’s a good comparison to poker tournaments. Hosting one for 50 local people shouldn’t be too difficult right now especially if you’re flexible. But that number of runners means for example that you won’t be on public roads.

The Boston Marathon already postponed their 2021 race to the Fall, same as all other Super6 marathons. There’s so much time and money going into organizing that race that you need several months to organize it. Same as the WSOP. They can’t just announce a 50+ event series 6 weeks ahead of time. At least not if you want to have a decent number of attendants. IIRC, roughly 30% of Boston Marathon runners are from the Northeast, 40% from the rest of the US and 30% international. That’s pretty comparable to the WSOP.

I think I already posted what the tournament director of our largest local marathon told me in the late summer: Large running races are off right now because people don’t sign up for them. Not because organizers wouldn’t be allowed to host them. For a marathon in an urban area, you need at least ~2k people signed up for it a couple months in advance just to make sure you can pay for security/police. If you don’t get to that number, your race is off.

I don't think we can compare high level long distance runners...who I'd imagine are hyper concerned with their short and long term health...and poker players.

Almost everyone I know who races competitively has been doing so over the last couple of months. Trail races including big ones like Javelina did happen over the Fall. Only my triathlon friends are SOL because except for IM Florida, the Pro-only Daytona and a couple smaller races, everything has been canceled.

If WSOP 2021 happens, is it likely to be at the new Caesars Forum event center?

with the covid situation getting worse more death in uk a day now than ever before,is USA the same or have they got sum light at end of tunnel???because WSOP 2021 looks a nonette

I guess they are doing all circuit events online this year.

I hope you get to participate in a live WSOP event soon. I've been driving up to Vegas every summer to play an event or two and there's nothing else like it. I didn't go in 2020 of course. I'm hoping to do so in 2021. I'll be 71 in a couple of weeks. I'm not getting old, I'm already old. I will get vaccinated in three weeks. I hope to participate in another WSOP while I am still able to withstand the rigors of a multi-day event and while I still have my wits about me. I hope the WSOP goes off this year -- for you and me both. Very sad that I couldn't do it last year.

Eddie would go.

Best of luck, Eddie.

I wonder if the WSOP will ever be the same? Ive never been able to make it out to vegas, but its always been a dream of mine.