The World Series of Poker’s newest entry, WSOP Paradise, kicks off in the Bahamas this weekend. [Image: Shutterstock.com]
Another WSOP festival
It’s a historic weekend for the World Series of Poker, as the first-ever WSOP Paradise kicks off. The WSOP Paradise will take place December 3-14 on Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas and will feature 15 Golden Wristband events and more than $50 million in guaranteed prize pool.
Caesars Entertainment is looking to build on the success of the traditional 2023 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, which broke all kinds of records. Notably, the main event field surpassed the 10,000-entrant mark for the first time (10,043), breaking the previous record of 8,773 set in 2006.
Will players care enough about the bracelet to travel to the Bahamas?
But while tournament organizers are counting on players’ enthusiasm for more WSOP, they also risk World Series fatigue and a perceived dilution of the bracelet’s value. There were 95 live bracelets and 34 online bracelets awarded at the World Series of Poker this summer, plus 74 more on all WSOP online sites, plus 15 for the recently completed WSOP Europe, and now 15 more for the World Series of Poker WSOP Paradise. Will players care enough about the bracelet to travel to the Bahamas? we will see.
Poker players must make travel decisions
The WSOP Paradise is also a risky move for Caesars because it overlaps with the two biggest year-end poker festivals: EPT Prague and the WPT World Series. EPT Prague is scheduled to take place from December 6 to 17, with the main event from December 11 to 17. The WPT World Championship Festival kicked off on November 29, and the much-anticipated $40 million Guaranteed Championship event takes place from December 12-21.
The WPT World Championship was the overwhelming choice
Which means that poker players will have to make a difficult decision about which festival to attend or do some careful scheduling to try to get to more than one festival. David Lappin spoke to 21 poker pros this fall to find out their plans and the WPT World Series was the overwhelming choice. Although they all love EPT Prague in general, even the European players were looking forward to the big WPT event and everyone loves Wynn.
For its part, the WSOP has been promoting the professionals and celebrities who have committed to attending WSOP Paradise. They include Phil Hellmuth, who of course wants to go after his 18th bracelet, Daniel Negreanu, who is a GGPoker ambassador and therefore has to attend often, 2006 WSOP Main Event Champion Jamie Gould, and this year’s Main Event winner Daniel Weinman .
Change terms
The WSOP Paradise has also been a center of controversy. One of the most interesting events on the schedule is the first event, which uses GGPoker’s OnLive format, in which the first day is online, allowing players to know they have cashed in by the time they continue with the tournament live in the Bahamas.
As David Lappin reported, the Main Event was also changed to an OnLive tournament two months after the schedule was announced, with no official announcement from the WSOP or GGPoker. The direct consequence of this is that it makes the tournament more difficult, David said.
Which makes the guarantee not a real guarantee
But more importantly, as David and others note, those who qualify for the second day of the $15 million guaranteed main event, and thus jump straight into the money, will receive a $6,500 lodging package for their trip to the Bahamas. This sounds great, until one goes through the fine print to ensure that prize packages come directly from the prize pool, making the guarantee not a real guarantee.
