The 2023 WSOP Series has enjoyed many successful events and records broken, but that's all in the past now! As of yesterday, we're officially looking ahead to the 2024 WSOP, which once again has no secret ambitions to become the biggest and brightest poker festival in history.
The official opening of this year's festival took place yesterday, when Canada's local Las Vegas Golden Knights player Jonathan Marchessault officially kicked off the new edition with the words "Shuffle up and deal". Jack Effel and the crew of past Main Event winners Greg Raymer, Ryan Riess, Daniel Weinman, Koray Aldemir and the legendary Dan Harrington were also in attendance.
The first bracelet event
Not counting the recently concluded Tournament of Champions that took place in Los Angeles, the first WSOP event of the year is the $5k Champions Reunion event, which saw 22 WSOP Main Event champions jump into the event. Each of them was given a bounty worth $10k worth of tickets to this year's Main Event. The video managed to capture, for example, the moment when perhaps the most legendary champion in recent history, Chris Moneymaker, had to hand over his bounty.
Main Event Champ on Main Event Champ crime over here in @WSOP event #1 $5k Champions Reunion 😱
- Faraz Jaka (@FarazJaka) May 29, 2024
If you knock out a champ you get $10k. @CMONEYMAKER 4b shoves from small blind vs @ItsJohnnyChan in the big blind. pic.twitter.com/2Ws7ol6iKT
This tournament has produced a total of 493 entries, which puts the $2,267,800 prizepool in play. The current chipleader is one of the champions, Qui Nguyen, but Dan Harrington, Jamie Gold, Daniel Weinman, Greg Merson, Joe McKeehen and Huck Seed are also still in the running.
Published WSOP Schedule Online
Alongside the live WSOP event, an online version of the event will also be played each year, promising players an additional 30 gold bracelets this year. These will be played for on a brand new app that promises players from Nevada, New Jersey and Michigan a great action and gaming experience. WSOP Online will run from June 1 to July 21 and the bracelet buy-ins will range from $333 to $10,000.
Can't go to the toilet in the all-in?
Finally, we'll bring you one more story brought to you by the #2 event, which is a $500 tournament for casino employees only. At one of the tables, a player (mildly under the influence) decided to 4-bet shove, after which he stood up and went to the bathroom. His opponent, meanwhile, was watching the situation and tanking, but the floor caller quickly stopped the player and explained that his hand was still live, so he couldn't leave the table.
Someone at my table just four-bet all in and then left to go to the bathroom while his opponent was thinking #wsop pic.twitter.com/rFJnx1HeXr
- Connor Richards (@crichards1995) May 29, 2024
The aforementioned player, who has worked as a dealer in California for many years, got into an argument with Flohr, arguing that since he couldn't take any more action, he might be allowed to leave the table and go to the bathroom. But the WSOP floor disagreed, so the player had to wait at the table while his opponent folded and only then was he allowed to go to the bathroom. How would you resolve such a situation?
Source - Twitter (X), WSOP, PokerNews, VIP-Grinders, Poker.org
