The World Series of Poker announce plans to launch their online poker site in the summer, as well as the reintroduction of the Carnivale of Poker, and Doyle Brunson announces his plans to skip the WSOP tournament schedule at 80-years of age.
With the World Series of Poker (WSOP) just a fortnight away the pairing of Executive Director Ty Stewart, and Tournament Director Jack Effel, hosted its annual WSOP media conference call and here are the finer details.
1# WSOP Player of the Year (POY)
The WSOP POY race is already underway after it was decided that the inaugural WSOP Asia Pacific (APAC) would be the first WSOP event of the season. WSOP-APAC Main Event winner Daniel Negreanu currently leads that race, and the WSOP team announced that the eventual winner will receive a trophy that will be presented in November as well as entries into all three WSOP Main Events in Las Vegas, Paris and Australia.
2# The Daily Deepstack
The Daily Deepstack will once again accompany the WSOP at the Rio, only this time a leaderboard will be established and the top performer will win entry into the $10,000 WSOP Main Event.
3# Televised and Internet Coverage
Once again ESPN have the job of delivering the ground level experience to those watching from home. There is an expected 40hrs of coverage this year and hand-for-hand coverage of the final table of the main event will return with hole cards on a 30-minute delay. All WSOP final tables will be rigged for live stream coverage, feature events will be hosted by David Tuchman and RIFD technology will be used for the hole cards.
4# Online Satellites
The team announced that WSOP.com plans to launch its own online offering in the state of Nevada some time in the summer, making it the second to do so after the recent launch of Ultimate Poker. A launch date was not announced but it was declared that satellites would be available for WSOP live events.
5# Carnivale of Poker
After a decade in hiding, the team announced that they are going to once again introduce The Carnvivale of Poker to run alongside the WSOP schedule. There will be 21-tournaments with buy-ins at the cheaper scale of things ($365-$1,675) and each winner will receive a gold and diamond medallion. Once again there will a leader board monitoring the action and the WSOP will provide a further $100,000 in prize money to be divided amongst the top 10-point earners.
Doyle Brunson Will Not Feature in the WSOP
But it was a WSOP announcement of a different kind that grabbed the spotlight yesterday, after Doyle Brunson issued a tweet declaring his intention to fade the WSOP tournament schedule this year.
“Afraid I am finally gonna give in to father Time and pass on tournament play at WSOP. #Toomanyhours’
Afraid I am finally gonna give in to Father Time and pass on tournament play at WSOP. #toomanyhours
— Doyle Brunson (@TexDolly) May 15, 2013
Texas Dolly has 394,001 twitter followers so you can imagine the news spread like wildfire. The 10-time WSOP bracelet holder is an octogenarian and so tweets like this get us a little bit worried, but his daughter Pamela Brunson put our mind at ease.
“I can’t believe everyone doesn’t realize, my Dad is mainly a cash game player. ALWAYS has been. He only played a lot of tourneys at the WSOP during the “poker boom” to promote Doyle’s Room. Now that Doyle’s room no longer exists, he doesn’t have a reason to play them. He’s NEVER been about the fame and bracelets. He doesn’t even have most of the ones he’s won. Gave them away or never picked them up! Usually, he plays the juicy cash games during the WSOP…. only plays a few tourneys. Otherwise he’d have A TON more bracelets!!!”
Brunson is fit and well and can be found playing cash games at the Aria or the Bellagio on a daily basis.
