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Dates for 2019 World Series of Poker Set

Are you ready for the 2019 World Series of Poker? On Thursday, WSOP officials released the dates for the 50th Edition of the World Series of Poker. The event will run from May 28 through July 16, 2019 with a limited smattering of WSOP events announced.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary, WSOP officials have announced a special rake-free tournament with a $5 million prize pool..

Opening Weekend to Feature Big 50 Event

The opening weekend of the 2019 WSOP will feature the $500 Big 50 Event. Players will get 50,000 in starting chips with 50-minute levels. The event will feature four starting flights and players can re-enter once each flight. Also, the event will feature a massive $5 million guarantee with $1 million to the winner.

This is similar to the Colossus event from the past couple of years with one big exception. The initial buy-in for the event will be rake-free. However, if you re-enter the event, you will have to pay the standard rake.

WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart spoke on the event, stating, “We’re excited to commence our golden event. We expect our opening weekend Big 50 event to be one of the largest in our history, and certainly one of the best value tournaments ever offered. This is part of our concerted plans to make the 2019 WSOP a better value all-around.”

Main Event to Start July 3rd

A limited selection of tournaments was announced on Thursday. Some of the events listed include the following:

June 7 – $1,500 Millionaire Maker with $1 million to the winner
June 13 – $1,000 Seniors NL Hold’em
June 14 – $1,000 Double Stack NL Hold’em
June 21 – $1,500 Monster Stack NL Hold’em
June 28 – $888 Crazy Eights NL Hold’em with $888,888 to the winner

The 2019 WSOP Main Event will kick off on July 3 and have three starting flights. It is not known as of yet whether this event will close out the series or if other events will run after the start of the Main Event as it did in 2018.

Full Schedule to Be Released in First Quarter 2019

Like in past years, this announcement is more of a teaser release to let players know the general dates. A full schedule of events will be released at some point during the first quarter of 2019. There were no announcements regarding specialty events or whether the WSOP will try and incorporate games such as Short Deck NL Hold’em into the schedule.

The announcement did anticipate that over $200 million will be awarded during the 2019 WSOP. In 2018, the series awarded over $266 million in prize money, but that is also including the $1 million Big One for One Drop which only runs every other year. You can expect the One Drop High Roller to be part of the schedule.

According to the announcement, nearly 500 poker tables will be available at the Rio across over 100,000 square-feet of space at the Rio. They will also run a wide variety of satellite events, side events, and cash games throughout the event center.

If you plan to attend the 2019 WSOP, there’s no better time to start making plans, especially if you plan to stay out for an extended period. Caesars has properties in Las Vegas with rooms as cheap as $33 a night but there are other properties that are affordable, depending on your modes of transportation to the Rio.

The World Series of Poker first ran at Binion’s Horseshoe in Downtown Las Vegas back in 1970. Over the years, it has become the premier poker event in the world. It will be interesting to see the full slate of events scheduled for next summer and whether they start approaching the “100 Bracelets” mark that I predicted a couple of years ago.

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