Betfair Official Blog

WSOPE preview: the £1.5k hold'em event.

This is a new addition from last year, and one which appears to be much more like the regular $1.5k buy in events that they hold during the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

With 6,000 in starting chips, hour levels, and 25/50 starting blinds, this event is sure to be action packed - you will not just be able to sit back and wait for cards when the blinds are rising unrelentingly like this.

Luckily, this event should draw a lot of players to it - there were numerous complaints last year about not hosting a smaller buy in hold'em event for people not prepared to put up £10,000, and I'm guessing that a lot of European based hold'em players who didn't feel comfortable about entering any of the events last year will all turn out for this. This point means that there should be lots of good spots to pick up chips early - all important in this relatively fast structured event.

To those of you who play nearly exclusively online, this tournament should also provide a great warm up event. With a relatively weak field, it will give you a great chance to start to get used to all the important parts of live play - staring people down, being stared down, watching peoples hands and even trying to get them verbally to admit things about their hand.

All in all this looks to be a great addition to the WSOPE schedule, and should give a lot of players a shot at that all important bracelet who didn't get a chance last year. Qualify at Betfair and you too could be winning a bit of the mountain of cash available at this years WSOPE, not to mention that all important bracelet of course...

• Poker
• Marcus Bateman