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There are less than 100 days until the 2024 World Series of Poker kicks off, and as the poker calendar ramps up toward the busiest time of the year, the full schedule of live events has landed. Every poker player with a dream will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of 2023 WSOP Main Event champion Daniel Weinman in poker’s most famous tournament, but there will at least 98 other opportunities to clai m a WSOP gold bracelet this summer at Horseshoe Las Vegas.

The action kicks off on May 28 and runs all the way through July 17 – the night on which the final four players in the 2024 WSOP Main Event will play down to a winner. The 99 live tournaments on tap offer almost every variation of poker available in a tournament format, with the exception of Short Deck which has fallen off the schedule for the first time since its debut on the 2019 WSOP schedule.

The buy-ins range from the $300 multi-flight Gladiators of Poker event up to the $250,000 Super High Roller.

What’s New

As has been discussed previously, there weren’t many drastic shifts in the construction of the 2024 WSOP schedule. But there are quite a few fun wrinkles and variations on a theme among this year’s 99 events. After debuting in 2023 with a $1,500 buy-in event, the Five-card Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo gets a $10,000 Championship event in 2024. PLO players also get their first WSOP edition of a Mystery Bounty, as well as another brand new format for this summer – a half No Limit Hold’em, half Pot Limit Omaha “Double Board Bomb Pot” tournament in which the first hand of each game forces an oversized ante. There will also be a $10,000, six-handed 8-Game Mix tournament on the WSOP calendar this summer.

There are also a handful of new and newly branded No Limit Hold’em events included, with the most notable standout being a $5,000 buy-in Seniors High Roller – a third event catering to poker’s more experienced crowd.

Milestones to Watch

Phil Hellmuth’s considerable lead on the WSOP All-Time Bracelet List grew in 2023, thanks to his victory in the middle of the night in a $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty event. Hellmuth sits at 17 WSOP gold bracelets as the summer draws closer, putting him seven clear of four players who have 10.

That group also grew in 2023. Erik Seidel won a $50,000 Super High Roller at WSOP Paradise to earn his first live WSOP gold bracelet since 2007, joining Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, and the late Doyle Brunson in a tie on that list. With 11 tournaments on the 2024 schedule featuring a buy-in of at least $25,000, as well as a strong proficiency in mixed games, Seidel has a multitude of opportunities to claim second all for himself this summer. Similarly, Ivey (who last won at the WSOP in 2014) or Chan (whose last bracelet came in 2005) could break out of their longtime tie.

Taking a deeper look at the WSOP All-Time Bracelet List, after you get past the legendary Johnny Moss you reach another tie at seven WSOP victories between Men Nguyen and Billy Baxter. Baxter was tantalizingly close to his eighth gold bracelet in 2023, finishing second in the Seniors Championship as he earned $473,212 – the biggest tournament cash of his career.

At six WSOP bracelets, there’s an eye-popping 14-way tie. Among them is Daniel Negreanu, who is in the midst of a 10-year bracelet drought despite a hearty schedule every year over the last decade. He’s already committed to a narrower focus for 2024, but Negreanu is still intent on breaking a deadlock with a talent-rich group also looking for bracelet No. 7 in 2024, including Josh Arieh, Shaun Deeb, Brian Rast, Jeremy Ausmus, John Hennigan, Jason Mercier and Brian Hastings.

Negreanu is also well-positioned to take over the top spot on the WSOP All-Time Money List in 2024, as he sits just under $250,000 behind Antonio Esfandiari, who hasn’t cashed during the series since a deep run in the 2019 WSOP Main Event.

After Isaac Haxton and Chris Brewer removed themselves from the “best player without a WSOP bracelet” conversation, the poker world will be watching to see who might remove themselves from such a loaded distinction.

There’s Matt Glantz, who’d like to join his “Team Lucky” compatriots Arieh, Deeb, and Weinman. 2023 breakout star Bin Weng or four-time WPT champion Darren Elias could find gold for the first time as well. And perhaps this could finally be the year for Felipe Ramos, Christoph Vogelsang, Niklas Astedt, Dan Lowery or Josh Reichard as well.

Jeremy Becker and Landon Tice have garnered significant attention in recent weeks as WSOP crossbooks between them, their support system/backers and the poker community writ large have gained momentum. If either captures their first WSOP bracelet in 2024, the poker world may see the kind of money transfer outside the boundaries of a poker tournament change hands that hasn’t taken place since the days of Tom Dwan’s infamous side bets.

The Main Event

The 2023 WSOP Main Event was one for the record books. By the time registration closed, a field of 10,043 – the most players who ever registered for a WSOP Main Event – generated a prize pool of $93,399,900. And after Daniel Weinman won $12 million, tied for the largest payout ever for a WSOP Main Event champion, the WSOP has a challenge on its hands to somehow make the 2024 Main Event even bigger.

The 2024 WSOP Main Event kicks off on Wednesday, July 3 with Day 1A, the first of four starting sessions. Players will start with 60,000 chips and play five two-hour levels starting at 12 p.m. Day 1B follows on Thursday, July 4, with Day 1C on July 5 and Day 1D on July 6.

Players who make it through Day 1A, 1B and 1C combine on Day 2ABC Sunday, July 7, with late registration remaining open through the first two levels and two 20-minute breaks. Day 1D survivors come back that Monday, and registration once again remains open through two levels and two breaks. At approximately 4:40 pm. on July 8, registration will close. There will be no re-entry for eliminated players once they are out of the 2024 WSOP Main Event.

The field will continue to be whittled down, day by day, until Sunday, July 14, when the final table of nine is reached. On July 15, those nine will have an off day, and return on July 16 to play from nine down to four. On the last day of the 2024 WSOP, July 17, those final four players will play down to a champion.

Balling on a Budget

Even with a hearty selection of high rollers on the 2024 WSOP schedule, those looking to take a shot at a bracelet and serious money at a much smaller buy-in level are in luck as well. Thirteen open events (in addition to the $500 Casino Employees tournament) carry a buy-in of less than $1,000. Of particular note is the $300 Gladiators of Poker event, which has four starting flights starting on June 6, carries both the smallest price tag and the only true prize pool guarantee of any of the 99 WSOP bracelet events this summer at an impressive $3,000,000.

There’s also the $400 Colossus (three starting flights, starting June 28), a $500 WSOP Kickoff (May 28), the $500 Salute to Warriors (June 27), five different $600 buy-in tournaments in a variety of games, a $777 Lucky Sevens tournament (July 12) and three $800 buy-ins over the course of the summer.

Those hoping to chase bigger buy-in events and prizes on a similar budget can also elect to chase such entries via satellites. The format has been overhauled for the 2024 WSOP, as all satellites will use a “landmark” satellite format – one that was popularized under the “milestone” moniker at Wynn Las Vegas in recent years. Rather than playing down to a certain percentage of the field to award seats, players will have to hit a certain number of chips (in proportion to the buy-in and percentage of the field that will be awarded seats) at which point their stack will be taken out of play and a seat to the target tournament immediately awarded.

There will be three daily landmark satellites at a variety of buy-in levels, for as low as a $135 buy-in starting on May 28 – the very first day of the 2024 WSOP. In the days leading up to certain tournaments, the satellite buy-in will be tailored to award seats to corresponding larger buy-in tournaments, at levels including $580, $1,100, $2,700, $5,300, $7,500 and as high as $25,350 for the $250,000 Super High Roller. A complete schedule of landmark satellites can be found here.

Finally, for those who have a more limited schedule or for whom bracelets may not be the be all and end all, there will be three or four Daily Deepstack tournaments on site at Horseshoe Las Vegas each day. The baseline schedule features a $250 buy-in at 1 p.m., $400 at 4 p.m. and $200 at 8 p.m. From May 28-June 24, players who finish in the top 10 of a weekly leaderboard between those three daily tournaments will win a $600 ticket into the PokerNews Championship WSOP bracelet event on June 25.

Additionally, on Thursdays from May 30 through July 11, a $250 Seniors (over 50 years old) Deepstack will be held at 9 a.m. On Mondays from June 3-July 15, a 3 p.m. $250 HORSE Daily Deepstack will take place. And just ahead of the WSOP Ladies Championship, a $150 buy-in Ladies Warm-Up Deepstack will take place on June 25 at 6 p.m. A complete schedule of Daily Deepstack tournaments during the 2024 WSOP can be found here.

POY Changes to Come?

The WSOP hasn’t announced any official updates or details about what the 2024 WSOP Player of the Year race will look like, but a couple of messages sent out on X (formerly Twitter) by Phil Hellmuth seem to allude to some significant changes to come.

I am praying that @WSOP limits Player of the Year points to Best 10 cashes. I believe it is horrendous for poker that someone can have 19 Min-cashes (worthless) and be in the race just because of that boost. This is NOT WSOS (stamina), this is WSOP (World Series of Poker!)

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) February 19, 2024

Such changes would parallel the GPI (Global Poker Index) system in which only a limited number of best results go towards total points earned for POY.

While there wasn’t an official response, a reply from Shaun Deeb seemingly shed a little more light on the current state of play.

Poy change has not happenedits being discussed it def needs tweaking wsop working towards the right path even when it hurts my own win % Ill support whats best for the game https://t.co/CJxuOTl7AS

— shaun deeb (@shaundeeb) February 19, 2024

Complete 2024 World Series of Poker Schedule

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