WSOP 2020 players to match wits, cards for 87 bracelets in Las Vegas

The schedule for this year’s World Series of Poker has been finalized.

The 51st annual event will run from May 26 to July 15 at the Rio Convention Center. Bracelets will be awarded in 87 tournaments at the Rio and 14 online events on WSOP.com.

The Main Event — the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Texas Hold’em World Championship televised by ESPN — will begin July 1 and run until a champion is crowned July 14.

Last year, Germany’s Hossein Ensan topped a field of 8,569 to claim the $10 million first-place prize.

As always, the WSOP offers a diverse array of tournaments, ranging from the $400 buy-in Colossus No-limit Hold’em event starting June 24 to the $250,000 Super High Roller No-limit Hold’em event starting June 27.

While No-limit Hold’em dominates the schedule, tournaments will be held in Pot-limit Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-card Stud, 2-7 Lowball and many other variants, along with combinations of the games.

The $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship, probably the most prestigious tournament among professionals, starts June 22 and includes nine games.

The schedule includes 15 other $10,000 championship events, in addition to the main event and Poker Players Championship.

The Rio opens its doors for satellite tournaments and cash games May 26, and the first event is a $1,000 No-limit Hold’em freezeout on May 27, one of 25 live events with a buy-in of $1,000 or less.

One of those tournaments is the $500 Big 50 No-limit Hold’em, which debuted last year to celebrate the 50th annual WSOP and ended up attracting 28,371 entrants, a record for a live tournament.

This year’s Big 50 will have four starting flights from May 28-31.

“Delivering large prize pools, new players and exciting formats are core objectives of the WSOP, and these 25 events are key to meeting this mandate,” WSOP vice president Jack Effel said in a release.

Other popular large-field No-limit Hold’em events include the $1,500 Millionaire Maker (starting June 5), $1,500 Monster Stack (June 12), $1,000 Double Stack (June 19) and $888 Crazy Eights (June 26).

One new event this year is the $1,500 Mystery Bounty No-limit Hold’em starting June 28. As in a standard bounty tournament, players receive money for each player they eliminate. But in this event, those amounts are not set. They could be worth as little as $100, but 100 bounties will be worth $2,500 or more, including one worth $250,000.

Players will not know how much the bounty was worth until they cash out.

WSOP organizers are increasing the number of registration and payout windows this year to try to reduce congestion and limit players’ time waiting in line. Players entering multiple events are also urged to set up accounts to avoid lines through online registration and self-serve kiosks.

“There is no doubt we need to do a better job of getting people in their seats and playing poker faster,” WSOP executive director Ty Stewart said in a release. “We’ve looked closely at several areas in the offseason and are dedicating new resources — technology, equipment and people — to aid in these efforts in 2020.”

Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.