Outline of 2011 World Series of Poker Schedule Released

The World Series of Poker has announced the start and end dates for the 2011 World Series of Poker, giving the public the first insights into what the 42^nd incarnation of the annual event will look like. The tournament series will begin on May 31, and end on Tuesday, July 19, before breaking after determining the “November Nine” in the Main Event.

The Main Event will begin on July 7^th, and feature four different start days for players. As has been the case in every year since 2005, the WSOP will take place in the Convention Center of the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

So far, the biggest announced change to standard WSOP policy has come in regards to the lengths of the days players will face. In the past, stubborn or large fields often faced marathon days while waiting for the final players to be eliminated so that a session could end. Now, hard stops are in place to ensure that players can have more certainty about when their play will end each day.

Essentially, each day of a tournament may still have a cutoff number of players after which no more poker will be played. However, tournaments will not be required to reach this number to stop play for the day; instead, days will be hard capped at 10 levels of play, regardless of the tournament situation. For instance, a tournament that features 90 minutes levels would feature no more than 15 hours of play in a single day, no matter what. While unlikely, this means that it is possible that some events may spill over into an additional day due to the hard stops.

The entire 2011 World Series of Poker schedule is expected to be released in January. This should include the schedules and structures for each individual tournament, along with dates, times and buy-ins for all events.