Just Poker Talk

Today ESPN announced the events that they plan for their coverage of the 2007 World Series of Poker. For this year’s coverage, there are two noteworthy changes.

ESPN plans to expand their coverage of the Main Event to 16 hours, about four or five hours than last year. This makes sense due to the expected increase in participation at the Main Event.

The $50,000 buy-in HORSE tournament will also be covered, with six hours of coverage to be televised. The inclusion of the HORSE tournament appears to be a compromise for the lack of variety in the past two years’ lineup, which featured No-Limit Hold’em exclusively.

This differed from three years ago when ESPN covered Razz, Omaha, Omaha 8, Seven-Card-Stud, and Limit Hold’em. ESPN’s coverage that year was my first introduction to the other variations of poker, and, admittedly, it was difficult to follow some of the games at first, but it did not take long to pick up and understand how the games worked, however I can see why ESPN decided to focus on No-Limit Hold’em in subsequent years. It’s hard to enjoy a watching a game that the viewer does not understand how to play. Unless, I guess, the competitors are all scantily clad women, or whatever your preference. Another reason, I suspect, is that viewers began watching No-Limit Hold-em, and that’s what they want to watch. The problem is that, sooner or later, the game will get stale.

The following is a schedule of when the events will be played, not when they will be televised. It should also be noted that coverage of selected events are subject to change. The “OR” means that either the event above or below will be televised, not both, at least that is my interpretation of the schedule.

From Business Wire

The schedule of events ESPN plans to cover includes:

• June 1, Event No. 1: Mixed Hold ’Em World Championship, $5,000 buy-in.
• June 2, Event No. 3: No-Limit Hold ’Em, $1,500 buy-in.
• June 3, Event No. 4: Pot-Limit Hold ’Em, $1,500 buy-in.

OR

• June 4, Event No. 7: Pot-Limit Omaha, $5,000 buy-in.
• June 5, Event No. 8: No-Limit Hold ’Em, $1,000 buy-in with re-buys.
• June 8, Event No. 13: Pot-Limit Hold ’Em, $5,000 buy-in.
• June 17, Event No. 28: No-Limit Hold ’Em, $3,000 buy-in.
• June 18, Event No. 30: No-Limit Hold ’Em Six-Handed, $2,500 buy-in./
• June 19, Event No. 31: No-Limit Hold ’Em Heads Up, $5,000 buy-in

OR

• June 20, Event No. 33: Pot-Limit Omaha with Re-buys, $1,500 buy-in.
• June 24, Event No. 39: HORSE World Championship, $50,000 buy-in.
• July 1, Event No. 50: Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship, $10,000 buy-in.
• July 6, Event No. 55: No-Limit Hold ’Em Main Event, $10,000 buy-in.

World Series of Poker, ESPN, television, No-Limit Hold-em, HORSE, Main Event