2008 WSOPOn December 11th 2007, Harrah’s announced the tournament schedule for the 39th World Series of Poker. Surprisingly, this announcement came and went very quietly throughout the poker world. On October 9th 2007, there was a small announcement on the website, stating that the dates for the 39th WSOP would be May 30th 2008 – July 17th 2008. At that time they announced that they would be opening the tournament room on May 26th giving a “soft opening” to allow players the opportunity to register thus avoiding the problems last year in the opening weekend of the extensive lines.

I played last years WSOP Event #2 the Casino Employee Event, and the lines were incredibly long, some of the players who made it to my table before they closed the event said they had already been in line for six hours. These lines were caused by the people trying to enter Event #3 $1500 No-Limit Hold’em event the next day, that event saw a record number of entrants for a non-main event tournament 2998 players.

The 39th WSOP will again consist of 55 events played over 6 weeks at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year there will be a record eight $10,000 World Championship events; there will be eight $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events. Each event winner will receive the exclusive Gold Braclet made by Corum, and as reported earlier the winner of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Event will also receive the Chip Reese Award. Jeffery Pollack Commissioner of the WSOP stated that the “Poker Tent” or annex to the poker room at the WSOP will not be used this year, He stated “We heard folks loud and clear last year and there will be no tents used for tournament play at the 2008 WSOP”.

On July 2nd Actor Don Cheadle and Professional Poker player Annie Duke will host the 2nd annual Ante Up for Africa Charity. This event was started at the 2007 WSOP and raised a whopping $700,000+ for charity. This charity was started by Cheadle, Duke and Norman Epstein in 2006 and is dedicated to raising money and awareness for Africans in need.

The 2007 WSOP drew 54,288 entrants had a total prize pool of nearly $160 Million USD, and had entrants from all walks of life and all age categories. The youngest being 21 Bracelet winner Steve Billirakis and the eldest being Main event participant Jack Ury at the tender age of 94. There was a player that was blind who finished in the money of the main event (Had a card reader who whispered in his ear what his hole cards where then read allowed what cards where on the board). There was a player who does not have use of his arms (He uses his feet to hold the cards). There were celebrities ranging from all media forms (Salvatore Erna lead singer of God Smack finished 237th in the top 5% as well as Tobey Maguire who plays spider man he finished 292nd also top 5%). This years WSOP should produce similar stories great heart break and an unlimited amount of “Bad-Beat” stories. I will do a event break down in two parts to follow soon the first part will cover Events 1 – 30 and the second part will cover Events 31 – 55. Till then stay safe and remember to avoid the cold deck.