Looking Forward to the WSOP 2006

The WSOP 2006 will hit the Rio Hotel and Casino on June 25, 2006. This will start the live action and satellite play that will lead up to the first event. There will be a total of 44 WSOP events including the WSOP main event as the finale. Almost all of the big name pros will be playing in the 44 wsop events, and look for the them to winning many of the tournaments like they did in the WSOP 2005. The poker “amateur” is not the same as 5 or 10 years ago, so also count on many unknown players cashing in on the WSOP 2006.

The main event this year will be capped to the first 8,000 players. The Main event will start on July 28th and run all the way until August 10th. The first day will be broken up into 4 seperate days to account for the large number of entrants. Officially, Day 2 will start on August 3rd when all remaining players will be in the same room together. The official schedule for the WSOP 2006 can be seen at the WSOP Tournament Schedule page. All the poker superstars will be playing in the main event, but anyone has a shot to win such a large tournament. Even with a cap of 8,000 entrants, the main event champion should see a $10 million payday.

My guess is another unknown player will take down the WSOP main event title in 2006. I'm hoping that another big name player like Phil Ivey or Mike “the mouth” Matusow can make it deep in the tournament. Seeing a great poker player fight for the main event title is always something to hope for.

The WSOP 2006 will have many Holdem events with variations of no-limit, pot-limit, and fixed-limit tournaments. The WSOP will also have games like Omaha, Stud, and Razz and even high-low variations of Omaha and Stud will be available. I predict that all of these tournaments will see the biggest numbers in the history of the WSOP.

Only time will tell for what’s in store for the WSOP 2006. Online poker rooms like Paradise Poker are already running weekly satellites to the main event, and other poker rooms should follow. Poker Stars will be the biggest satellite holder for the WSOP, which should also include satellites to the smaller WSOP events this year. Look for daily WSOP satellites to be running soon at many online poker rooms.