The World Series Of Poker just got a whole lot bigger. Already the biggest poker festival in the world, the 2012 World Series of Poker will likely break many record. First of all, 22 people have already confirmed their entries for a massive $1 Million entry fee WSOP event. Since there is a minimum of 22 players required to make it a bracelet event, with the 22nd confirmation today it makes the event official.
Now that the tourney is officially a bracelet event, it could draw some serious publicity and possibly plenty of new high rollers. With $22 Million already in the prize pool, and over $8 Million to first place, with only 7 more entrants it would become the largest WSOP prize pool in history. The winner would get paid more than Jamie Gold’s main event record.
The high roller event is definitely cool, but is it taking away from the grandeur of the main event due to it’s massive prize pool? It almost certainly will get at least 7 new players and probably many more than that by the time the 2012 WSOP rolls around next summer. While it is predicted to be an insanely popular and talked about event, it doesn’t take anything away from the main event.
Even the prize pool will be bigger in the new million dollar event, it’s just too exclusive for most people to dream about playing in. In addition to that, nothing can beat working your way through thousands of players to end up at the main event final table and November Nine. In the poker world, tradition and history play a huge part in what is respected and what is not, so the high roller event has a long way to go before it has as much prestige to it as the real WSOP main event.
In the end, it is pretty crazy that the winner of this high roller only event at the WSOP will make more than the $12 for first place that Jamie Gold won for beating out a humongous field of 8,772. Then again, the players in that tournament “only” had to put up 10k each, while this million dollar event truly is for the highest of the high rollers. The winner will already get more than this year’s November Nine winner, Pius Heinz . The massive prize pool gives ballers from around the world every reason to come play in this tournament, because it looks like the winner will become the all time WSOP money leader, with one swift win. That is some serious bragging rights for at least a year, until 2013’s event rolls around.
One interesting tidbit to note is that the casino will not be taking a 10% fee for the tournament, but rather 11% of the entire prize pool will be donated to a charity instead.
So who are the high rollers already entered in the event? While some of them have been publicly announced and others have kept quiet so far, we now know that Bobby Baldwin, Daniel Negreanu, Tom Dwan and poker legend Johnny Chan are all going to pony up $1,000,000 for the entry fee.