World Series of Poker Off to a Record Start

Saying that the World Series of Poker is having a record start is to seriously downplay the numbers. A record number of entries, 28,371 of them, was received for the “Big 50” no-limit hold’em tournament held earlier this month on the opening weekend. The entries, which represented 17,970 unique participants, was the most ever for a live poker tournament.

The $500 buy-in event was spread over four days of starting flights and was “rake-free”. It gave participants a 50,000 starting chip stack and 50-minute playing levels. The overwhelming response generated a $13,509,435 total prize pool, far surpassing the $5-million guarantee.

Read more about what’s going on at the World Series of Poker at NWI Times