The World Series of Poker is Here: There Can be Only One!

From the four corners of the earth they will come, battling silently through the multitudes, knowing that, ultimately, there can be only one.

But enough about my favorite movie, Highlander – we’re here to talk about the World Series of Poker.

The World Series is poker’s big dance, the most prestigious poker festival on the planet. On May 28, 2024, the 55^th annual WSOP will kick off at Paris, Las Vegas, with an all-new Champions Reunion event, featuring an array of top dogs from yesteryear.

A month and a half later, on July 17, someone will achieve poker immortality and be crowned world champion at the Horseshoe Las Vegas.  

Last year, Daniel Weinman, a 36-year-old professional player from Atlanta, Georgia, bested a record field of 10,042 other players to win the WSOP Main Event, claiming an eye-watering $12.1 million and the coveted gold bracelet.

It’s one of the biggest prizes in sport – more than four times as much as you get for winning Wimbledon.

How Many WSOP Events Are There?

Between the Champions Reunion curtain raiser and the Main Event final, there will be 97 events to suit all pockets and poker peccadillos, featuring mixed games, mystery bounties, tag team no-limit hold’em, and even an Omaha Double Board Bomb Pot event.

If some of these sound bewildering, then don’t worry – there’s a smorgasbord of regular no-limit hold’em events to get your teeth into.    

Can I Afford to Play in the WSOP?

Probably. These days there are more and more low buy-in events at the WSOP, making the series more accessible to players with modest bankrolls who still want to live the dream. Entry fees across all events range from $300 to $250K. Yes, that’s $250K just to enter the Super High-Roller event.

At the other end of the scale, there’s the $300 Gladiators of Poker no-limit hold’em event, which comes with a $3 million guaranteed prize pool, and the $400 Colossus no-limit hold’em tournament. These are just two of 14 events this year with buy-ins of under $1K.

Check out the full schedule here.

Welcome to the Cheap Seats

The Main Event itself costs $10K to enter, but if that’s too rich for your blood, you can try to work your way up through the ranks via step-satellites at WSOP and GGPoker for as little as $1.  

In 2003, mild-mannered Tennessee accountant Chris Moneymaker shocked the poker world when he won the main event after qualifying via an $86 satellite tournament on PokerStars. Taking home $2.6 million, Moneymaker was the first online qualifier to win the main event. This, and the unlikeliness of his name, captured the public’s imagination, kickstarting the poker boom of the mid-2000s. This, in turn, swelled tournament fields and prize pools at subsequent WSOPs, a phenomenon known as “the Moneymaker Effect.”  

Where Can I Watch the WSOP?

You can watch live streams from the WSOP on PokerGo, a subscription channel that’s available everywhere in the world except China. The channel plans to stream 300 hours of select bracelet events and the Main Event this year. The Main Event final table will be broadcast live on July 16 and 17. Check out the full schedule here.

Players to Watch

Because of the huge fields and variance involved in the modern main event, it’s quite likely that the main event final table will be a bunch of guys you’ve never heard of. Gone are the days when the same names cropped up in the final every year. But that’s why it is quite exciting when a “big name” player does make a deep run in the main event – like that time fan-favorite Daniel Negreanu finished 11^th in 2015, or the time Phil Ivey made the final table with a short stack, all the way back in 2009, finishing ninth.

But there are 98 other bracelets up for grabs, of course, and Phil Hellmuth will be hoping to add more to his collection. “The Poker Brat” owns far and away more bracelets than any other player in history, with an extraordinary 17. Can Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, or Johnny Chan, who each have ten, close the gap this year?   

WSOP Alternatives

If the thought of entering the fast-paced WSOP landscape is frightening, you can still make the most out of this poker season with other low-stakes online games.

Everygame offers players the chance at poker excitement with blinds as small as 2 cents. If you’re a bit more advanced, you can check out Bovada’s poker room, which boasts over $2 million in guaranteed weekly prize pools.

These online sites are great options for players just starting out with poker, or who can’t commit to the competitive nature of WSOP events.