2008 WSOP Schedule Announced

As you’ve no doubt heard, Harrah’s has announced the full slate of events for the 2008 World Series of Poker. Click here for a look at the entire sked.

Again we see the plan is to host 55 events, same as last year. Am not surprised to see that number stay the same, as many had complained about the jump from 45 to 55 the year before. And like last year, those 55 events will again be squeezed into a frantic six-and-a-half week period. That means once again we’ll see a lot of overlapping in the schedule, as most of the events -- 50 of 55, by my count -- are scheduled as three-day events.

To give you an idea just how packed the schedule is, many days in June there will be a total of six events running per day. Indeed, it won’t be until mid-month before those poor reporters will have an “easy” day with just four or five events to cover.

A few other tidbits from the schedule:

-- 52 of the 55 events are so-called “open events,” the exceptions being the Ladies NLHE World Championship (Event No. 15, $1,000), the Seniors NLHE World Championship (Event No. 42, $1,000), and the Casino Employees NLHE event (Event No. 55, $500).

-- One event that will get a lot of attention, though probably not a lot of entrants, will be Event No. 8, the World Championship Mixed Event. With a hefty $10,000 buy-in, this event will feature no less than eight different games: LHE, Omaha/8, Razz, Stud, Stud/8, NLHE, PLO, and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. Harrah’s officials should get to work right now figuring out how the hell to create a decent structure for that bad boy. (Meanwhile, I hereby assign all of you to come up with a suitable acronym before spring.)

-- A total of 21 of the 55 events feature non-Hold ’em games, although five of those include HE as part of the mix (the three H.O.R.S.E. events, the World Championship Mixed Event, and the PLHE/PLO event). In other words, there will be 16 “non-HE” events (a little under a third of the schedule).

-- There are a total of eight events with $10,000 buy-ins. That’s the most ever by far. Long gone are the days when the $10K buy-in for the Main Event was the biggest game in town.

-- And, of course, there’s also the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event this year. Odds are quite good we’ll soon be hearing about how that event will be renamed to honor Chip Reese. (EDIT: Looks like they have already sort of done so.)

-- To enter all 55 events would cost $236,500 (also a record). Of course, only female casino employees aged fifty or older would be allowed to do such a thing.

Would be a blast to scheme some way to get out there this time around. Don’t you agree?

Well . . . we’ve all got six months to think about it.