2011-12 World Series of Poker Circuit Schedule Released

The eighth season of the World Series of Poker Circuit has been announced and it will feature 16 tournament stops between September 2011 and May 2012. The first tournament will be in a new location for the tour at the Horseshoe Casino in Bossier City, Louisiana September 8-19. The tour will take players from California on the West Coast to Florida on the East Coast before returning to Louisiana once again for the final tournament of the season at the Harrah’s in New Orleans May 10-21.

This year’s tour includes 15 returning venues from the 2010-11 season, plus the addition of Bossier City (Louisiana) as the kickoff stop. The 2010-11 WSOP Circuit schedule featured 15 stops, consisting of 150 gold ring events which attracted a record-total of 49,453 entries — the most ever in the history of the WSOP Circuit. Sam Barnhart, a 50-year-old software analyst and researcher from Little Rock, Arkansas won the inaugural National Championship, winning $300,000 plus a WSOP gold bracelet.

Each tournament stop this season will last for 12 days and there will be 12 gold rings up for grabs. Each tournament stop will conclude with a $1,600 no-limit hold’em main event. Another change for the new season is that there will be no $10,000 regional championships this year.

“We made great strides with the WSOP Circuit tour last year,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. “But we also learned a lot. We’ve rid ourselves of the things that didn’t work and added several new exciting wrinkles that will pit the best American tournament grinders against top performing worldwide players in a culminating championship befitting the grandest stage the World Series of Poker can offer.”

There will once again be a WSOP Circuit National Championship at the end of the season and players can earn their entry into the event in multiple ways. Each circuit stop main event champion will win an automatic seat, as will each Casino Champion who performs the best during the tournament series at each venue. The absence of Regional Championship automatic bids this season means that the top 68 players in the national rankings point-system will earn a seat in the National Championship.

This year’s season-ending WSOP National Championship will include several new and exciting enhancements, which will increase the prize pool and the profile of the event.

1. The WSOP National Championship will again be nationally televised, with a significant increase in programming expected.

2. Each of the qualifiers from the WSOP Circuit will receive $10,000 buy-in seats, plus a $500 travel stipend and three night’s hotel accommodations.

3. The top 100 players in the new “_WSOP_ World Rankings” will have the ability to buy into the National Championship tournament to compete against the best-of-the-best from the Circuit, for $10,000 a seat. The World Rankings will recognize cumulative performance in the open events at World Series of Poker and World Series of Poker Europe over a two-year period and will be released in November, 2011.

4. All monies coming from additional buy-in entries will be added directly to the prize pool and the payout for the event is expected to be a standard average around 10 percent of the field.

Thus, the National Championship could feature as many as 200 players — who have proven their excellence at WSOP sanctioned events. One-hundred players will come from the WSOP Circuit, and the other 100 may be made up of those who enjoyed success in the open bracelet events at the 2010 or 2011 WSOP and WSOP Europe.

Here is a look at the 2011-12 WSOP Circuit Schedule:

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