Last year we had the schedule by now.
Anyone have information on a release date?

Almost posted the same thing yesterday lol

On a radio show yesterday Greg Chochon, one of the WSOP execs, said:

- Schedule not finalized, mainly because they will add many special events this year (50th edition)
- 2019 WSOP will start late May as usual
- some dates might be published this week (I guess Main Event, Colossus, Monster…)


On Twitter, we learned later that the complete schedule will probably be released in January.

Let's hope they don't have a $50 buy in bracelet event to commemorate the 50th year of the WSOP. I'm only kidding......I think.

Normally it was early feb but it came out super early last year.

Here are release dates for past series (as best as I could find them). If we ignore 2017, the average release date is 1/17 and the median release date is 1/26. Last year was definitely a pleasant surprise.

2018 – 12/12/2017
2017 – 12/21/2016 (prelim), 01/24/2017 (final)
2016 – 02/24/2016
2015 – 02/2/2015
2014 – 02/11/2014
2013 – 02/14/2013
2012 – 02/01/2012
2011 – 01/24/2011
2010 – 12/17/2009
2009 – 01/26/2009
2008 – 12/11/2007
2007 – 01/09/2007

While it would be nice to have had it out by now, there has been enough consistency to where some basic travel plans and reservations could be made. Hotel rooms will be cheaper to book now and the dates can always be modified if necessary once the schedule is actually posted.

Same thing will hold true with airfare...although without status, there could be a hundred or so involved in changing the dates. But cheaper airfare and hotel room rates may offset that...

Weekend events schedules are up!

http://www.wsop.com/news/2018/Dec/10...-OF-POKER.html

It looks like starting chip stack (and tournament structures) will be changing for all events (for better or worse). Goodbye 5x buyin starting stacks (and possibly 25 denomination chips).

Based on small amount of data in link (and assuming that it carries over to all events):
$1k = 20k chips (previously 5k)
$1.5k = 25k chips (previously 7.5k)
$10k = 60k chips (previously 50k)

Also, WSOP ME remains around July 4th weekend.

Hmm,

Could this mean all NLH events are BB ante?

For speculation/fun (and with no insider info), I guess the following structures:

1. Starting blinds in NLHE, PLO, PLO8, and other big bet games: 100/200 (no 25 chips):

NLHE
100/200
200/300 (instead of 150/300)
200/400
300/500 (instead of 250/500)
300/600 + 100 ante or BB ante for 600

2. Starting limits in limit tournaments: 250/500 with coloring up 25 chips after playing 300/600 level (first break, start of level 3). Although, I think 300/600 (modified 100 ante) could be more effective too and help finish tournaments in 3 days.

Hopefully, they will stop having unscheduled bonus 4th days which seemed to be prevalent. (Although it's good for those who make it that deep, it's not great for those with airplane tickets).

I played a couple of BB ante tournaments at Planet Hollywood last summer where they add a 700/1400 level and a 7k/14k level. Add these since some of the earlier ones will be out would be a good trade.

I hope not...such a move is what is keeping me from the February series at the Rio as well as the upcoming DSE at the Venetian. I shall miss playing tournaments, but at least there is still HORSE, Stud and O8 on the schedules...

Huge difference in the starting stacks - So it will be interesting to see the structures as you point out.

Looked on website and didnt see Colossus, is Big-50 this years version of Collosus?

So for something like the Big 50 where there are four separate Day 1s and a person can re-enter each day I have a question. Let’s say you bag chips at the end of Day 1A. Can you re-enter on Day 1B and if you have chips at the end of that day can you combine the two stacks for Day 2? Or does having a stack of chips at the end of day 1A preclude you from playing on the later day 1s?

No but you can mincash a flight, bust before bagging, and then reenter.

I will venture:
100/200
200/400
300/600
300/600 + 600 BBA
400/800 + 800 BBA
500/1000 + 1000 BBA
This would make the 20k chips slightly deeper than last year with 5k chips in a 1k event.

I will be very curious to see what these huge starting stacks will mean for structure and/or rake. If the structures don’t change much these events will take longer to run, and hence be more expensive to run. And if they keep rakes the same, then they’ll have to loosen the structure to finish in a timely manner. Plog’s structure analysis and prior year comparison will definitely be interesting this series.

Definitely digging the Big 50 structure for only $500

I'd be surprised if the big blind ante isn't the reason. Game over , the tournament directors are gleeful while some players are still asking "why" . LOL

There is no way the structure is going to be able to be even somewhat the same for 1k and 1500s. 4x and over 3x than previous ss, tournaments would take minimum five days if structure was the same. I understand they did this to please majority of recs who’s only concern is more physical chips. See zero reason to change 10ks from 50 to 60 ss and hope this doesn’t change the amazing 10k structures.

Having played in the Main Event when it was only $10K starting stack and $1500 buy in with 1500 in chips as well as last year in the Senior and Super Senior with a 5K stack I would agree with your assessment that the increased stacks were for we Rec players because it is much more consistent with the the stack sizes we are used to from say the HPT or even the circuit events.

Playing with a starting "short stack" does impact the early stages of a tournament fairly significantly on both a real and IMO even more so on a psychological basis. Expanding the stack to 20K will require both a change in structure as you note but also a change in player approach to be successful. I personally think they over did the increase ............ $10K in a $1K buyin would have been more than adequate.

Funny WSOP didn't solicit my opinion before implementing the change

I had a funny online exchange with a fellow poker player in one of my local card rooms. He's of the opinion that collecting 1 ante takes less time than collecting 9 antes, so therefore BBA is better. Case closed. He, of course, ignores any downside to the structure and is not really interested in understanding exactly how big a benefit it is. These views are his prerogative.

But there was a instance when I was explaining to him the relatively paltry time saved (~10 seconds) by eliminating antes and he was adamant that my numbers could not be correct. He believed it was on the order of three times that. He didn't care that I at least made some effort to collect empirical data whereas he was relying on what he "felt" about it.

Anyhow, at some point in the exchange, he posted a 30 second video showing the pre-deal activities in a hand as "proof" that I was wrong. Ignoring the idea that a single instance means anything in this debate, I found it really amusing that his 30 second video proof depicted exactly 6 seconds of ante-collection. And the rest of the time was taken up by all the other things that occur prior to a hand being dealt (fixing the deck, shuffling, etc, etc.). I pointed this out to him... that his video was basically making my point... ante collection does not represent a significant portion of the time it takes to play a hand, and therefore eliminating it, or reducing it, doesn't save a lot of time. But he would have none of it. In his mind, the process took 30 seconds. It really goes to show, the folks who feel this way are experiencing a different reality than me (at least). I think it would make for a fascinating psychological study.

Anyways, the BBA is definitely here to stay until such time as technology eliminates chips. I have no idea if the BBA will be the reason for structure changes at the WSOP, but given the chip stack changes, some sort of structure changes will likely be necessary.