World Series of Poker in 2022 – The New Beginning

Author: Tadas Peckaitis

The World Series of Poker is the biggest festival in the poker world and the one time in the year when we can see all the biggest names in the game and famous gamblers come to one place to battle it out for the most valuable silverware in poker.

The 2020 WSOP was fully hosted online, while last year's "wrong" time slot simply made it feel off and didn't allow for the full vibe we have grown accustomed to. Now that the World Series is back in its usual time in summer, the poker community is absolutely thriving, and despite some expectations, the numbers at the brand new WSOP location are better than ever.

Images courtesy of Mypokercoaching.com

The new beginning for the Series has been spectacular thus far, and it seems only to be getting better with every new bracelet that's awarded. If you haven't been in the loop thus far, here is how the WSOP 2022 has been going, what's the world series schedule, and what you can expect to see before the final bracelet is awarded.

A New World Series Location for a New Beginning

Probably the biggest new thing in 2022 WSOP is the new location, with the World Series finally moving to the actual Las Vegas Strip, with Bally's and Paris playing host this time.

It was difficult to know what to expect from a brand-new location for the event, and some skeptics certainly expected the first time at the Bally's and Paris to be a disaster. And yet, the good folks at the WSOP 2022 managed to bring us a Series for the history books, with players left and right praising the event as one of the best in recent history.

WSOP 2022 - A New World Series Location

The more central location means more players are walking in and jumping into the 2022 WSOP events, and the reports of players getting robbed in their hotel rooms and the parking lot are finally gone, fully proving that moving away from Rio was the right decision.

The tournament space is bigger, the chips are new and clean, and the players are excited to be grinding it out for the WSOP gold.

The expectations that the Bally's and Paris may have problems with registration queues and other logistical problems were also not right. Of course, there is no way to avoid the queues for big events entirely, but it truly seems that the hosts thought of pretty much everything.

The move to the new location has been a huge success for the 2022 WSOP so far, and it's been well-reflected in the numbers of entries across all events, with the big $500 Housewarming event bringing in more than 20,000 players and awarding a ridiculous $701,215 to Henrieto Acain, the eventual winner.

WSOP 2022 with High-Roller Action in Full Swing

Not only is the 2022 WSOP more popular than ever among the casual players and regular grinders, but it's also provided even more action for the high-rollers.

The Series opened with a massive $100k bounty event that brought the most elite players together to kick off the summer and show the fans what it's all about. In the end, David Peters took home the bracelet in this star-packed event, but another big name took all the headlines as none other than Phil Ivey returned to the WSOP and final-tabled the tournament.

The return of Phil Ivey to the Series may have something to do with his reignited passion for the game but also with the WSOP finally recognizing that the high-rollers have no interest in playing $1,500 tournaments and providing more opportunities for them to compete.

Phil Ivey at 2022 WSOP

Along with the full schedule of $10k Championship World Series events we are used to, the 2022 WSOP is scheduled to host more high-rollers than ever, with quite a few of those already in the books. The field in the $100k may have been "small" as expected, but Event #8, the $25k NLH 8-Handed, broke all the expectations, with a total of 251 entries showing up for that one.

Further, $25k and $50k high-rollers have all been incredibly successful in terms of turnout, demonstrating that some innovation was needed to give the WSOP back the prestige it once had. With two more $50k, one more $100k, and the massive $250k event still on the World Series schedule, WSOP 2022 will almost certainly be the biggest ever in terms of high-roller turnout and player satisfaction at the highest level.

Big Names Turn Out in Force

WSOP has always been a poker festival well-attended by the game's elite players, but for some years now, we have seen notable players skip it for one reason or another.

The 2022 WSOP has brought together all the big names in a way we had all hoped for. Phil Ivey is back and battling it out in the high-rollers and the championships, Daniel Negreanu is VLOGging on a daily basis, and the likes of Shaun Deeb and Jason Mercier are in the mix and battling it out for poker glory and the juicy prize pools.

Daniel Negreanu at the World Series 2022

The great number of high-roller events brought in the likes of Mikita Badziakouski, Adrian Mateos, and Alex Foxen, while players like Alan Kessler, Mike Matusow, and Barry Greenstein can be found playing the mixed game events and looking to add more to their poker silverware collections.

The one very notable absentee from many of the events so far has been Phil Hellmuth, whose recent sting with Covid has made it impossible for him to attend many of the early events. Yet, the all-time WSOP bracelet record holder is now back and ready to play some poker, so expect to see him among the chip counts and hopefully at some final tables over the coming weeks.

New Big Names and Future WSOP Champions

The World Series of Poker has always been the place to go to turn your poker dreams into reality, and never has that been more possible than in the 2022 edition of the WSOP. The new WSOP location offers more tournament space than ever before, meaning low-buyin events get to take in even more entries than before and offer bigger prize pools.

Events like the Homecoming, the Million Maker, and the Colossus are all fantastic opportunities for up-and-coming poker champions to prove their skills and turn an affordable buyin into hundreds of thousands of dollars. New WSOP bracelet winners and future poker champions are being named by the year at the Bally's and Paris, and there are more opportunities for low-rollers than ever before.

The dream of going to Vegas and coming home with a shiny bracelet and a million dollars in cash has never been more alive, and it is now open to pretty much anyone who dares to give it a shot. This dream has been fueling the train of entries into the lower buyin events at this year's WSOP, which continue to attract more players than we have seen in previous years.

The WSOP Main Event on the Horizon: Prognosis and Schedule

The WSOP $10,000 NLH World Championship, popularly known as the Main Event, is right around the corner, with Day 1A kicking off on July 3.

The Main Event is truly the biggest poker tournament of the year in many ways, but the big question is just how big can it be this year? With lower buyin tournaments and the high-rollers alike breaking previous records, it will be very interesting to see if the WSOP Main Event, too, can break some records.

The 2006 Main Event won by Jamie Gold still holds the record for the biggest number of entries at 8,773, with the 2019 edition coming close behind. It would have been interesting to see how 2020 would have gone if Covid had not interfered, but the WSOP is now back on track, and this year's Main Event may still hold the surprise we are all hoping for.

Some speculate that recent downturns in the value of crypto and stock markets may negatively impact the number of Main Event entries, but the opposite has been true with all the events we have seen thus far. In either case, we can almost guarantee that last year's number of 6,650 will be easily broken and that more than 7,000 players will play the Main Event this time around, with 7,500 being a reasonable and fair number to shoot for.

See the full details on WSOP main event schedule below.

The Future of the World Series of Poker Looks Bright

With the Series finally moving to its rightful spot on the Strip and the turnouts looking better than ever, it is safe to say that the future is looking very bright. Despite many saying that poker has been dead for years, the WSOP continues to prove that the interest in the game is still as alive as ever.

Opportunities for poker players have never been more widely accessible, with online poker spreading across the US, live events in Europe attracting thousands of players, and Asian poker growing with each passing year. All of this spells a great future for one of the biggest poker tournaments, with future WSOPs at the Bally's and Paris almost certain to be even more successful than this year's already massively accomplished Series.