The 51st World Series of Poker will be held from 26th May to 15th July at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
It is not clear yet how many tournaments there will be in total at this year’s festival. However, a recent announcement from the WSOP is informing poker fans around the world about a ‘Value Menu’ of 25 tournaments with buy-ins of $1,000 or lower.
Focusing on the recreational player
A trend that we see not just online, but also in live poker is a heavier focus on the recreational player. High Rollers will still exist and still create a lot of excitement, but more and more offers are being catered towards players that have smaller bankrolls or want to play for fun.
The WSOP ‘Value Menu’ events will offer a chance for players with a smaller budget to participate in the world’s biggest poker spectacle. While many demanded an elimination of low-buy-in tournaments in the past as it belittles the prestigious WSOP brand, the introduction of these new events will delight many recreational players.
In a country where, due to regulations, online poker can’t offer the amount of satellite opportunities for players to make their way to the holy poker halls at the Rio, the smaller buy-ins might just sway them to make the trip to Nevada from across the US after all.
Another modification here will feed into the number one poker discussion in 2019: re-entries. Most of these ‘Value Menu’ events will be freezeout, feature a single re-entry or one re-entry per flight. This excludes the $1,111 (charity event) “Little One for One Drop” which will have unlimited re-entries.
This change favours the enjoyment for recreational players as pros and those with deeper pockets can’t play recklessly and keep standing up from the dead over and over again, making lives difficult for those with only one shot available.
Find a full list of the ‘Value Menu’ below.
Players take issue with the label ‘Value Menu’
Following the announcement the poker community took it to the Twitter streets to discuss the name for these lower buy-in tournaments.
Many tweeted about the fact that players should be offended by the name ‘Value Menu’ as it’s associates with terrible unhealthy fast food that poorer people rely on as they can’t afford better food.
Ithe issue is why call it a value menu at all? Why not just say these are bracelet events for less than 1k. What benefit is there to doing this and what’s the cost. The cost, if they’re branded a value event lowering the prestige, will affect the entries. & I don’t see a benefit
— Z (@zestyne3) January 16, 2020
Jokes about asking for fries and coke with the tourney buy-in have been plenty and also Joe Stapleton chimes in with humour:
If the WSOP wasn’t intentionally trying to offend poor people with their “Value Menu,” they shouldn’t have named the tournaments The Weekly Welfare, The You Can’t Afford This, You Poor (Freezeout), and NOW ACCEPTING EBT.
— Joe Stapleton (@Stapes) January 17, 2020
The other reason players are upset about the name is that these $1k events at the WSOP often have a fairly bad structure and are so really no good value at all.
WSOP Vice President Jack Eiffel makes it clear though that the name rather means the chance to win a piece of massive prize pools for small buy-ins.
“Everyone loves good value and the WSOP has continued to enhance its offering to meet the demand at these meaningful price points,” says Eiffel in the press release. “Delivering large prize pools, new players and exciting formats are core objectives of the WSOP and these 25 events are key to meeting this mandate.”
In the Pocket Fives podcast, Donnie Peters and Lance Bradley discuss at length why the choice of this name lessens the image of the prestigious WSOP brand.
“Labeling these as the “Value Menu” is such a slap in the face to the recreational, bucket list players who are the lifeblood of growth,” Bradley tweets.
Exactly. Having accessible WSOP events is key to its survival & growrth. 25 under $1K is too many IMO but that toothpaste is out of the tube.
Labeling these as the "Value Menu" is such a slap in the face to the recreational, bucket list players who are the lifeblood of growth.
— Lance Bradley (@Lance_Bradley) January 15, 2020
It looks like most players that these events are aimed at do not care as much about the name and are rather happy to see the amount of opportunities for them to fulfill a lifelong dream to capture a bracelet.
The WSOP schedule is not complete yet and a lot of the published data up to now are subject to change.
You can follow @WSOP on Twitter to keep up to date with any further developments.
The WSOP Value Menu:
| DATE | EVENT | BUY-IN | STARTING STACK | LEVEL LENGTH | RE-ENTRY FORMAT | START TIME |
| May 27 | Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em | $1,000 | 20,000 | 30 minutes | Freezeout | 11:00 AM |
| May 27 | Casino Employees Event No-Limit Hold’em | $500 | 25,000 | 40 minutes | 1 | 2:00 PM |
| May 28-31 | BIG 50 No-Limit Hold’em | $500 | 50,000 | 50 minutes | 1/Flight | 10:00 AM |
| June 1 | No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack | $600 | 30,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 2 | Super Turbo Bounty NLH – $300 bounty/player | $1,000 | 20,000 | 20 minutes | Freezeout | 11:00 AM |
| June 7 | Forty Stack No-Limit Hold’em | $1,000 | 40,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 8 | Pot-Limit Omaha Deepstack 8-Handed | $600 | 30,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 10 | Pot-Limit Omaha 8-Handed | $1,000 | 20,000 | 40/60 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 14 | No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack | $800 | 40,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 15 | Freezeout No-Limit Hold’em | $500 | 25,000 | 30 minutes | Freezeout | 11:00 AM |
| June 16 | 8-Handed Mixed NLH/PLO Deepstack | $600 | 30,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 17 | Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship | $1,000 | 20,000 | 60 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 18 | Seniors No-Limit Hold’em Championship (50+) | $1,000 | 20,000 | 60 minutes | 1 | 10:00 AM |
| June 19-20 | Double Stack No-Limit Hold’em | $1,000 | 40,000 | 60 minutes | 1/Flight | 10:00 AM |
| June 21 | 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack | $800 | 40,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 22 | Super Seniors No-Limit Hold’em (60+) | $1,000 | 20,000 | 60 minutes | 1 | 10:00 AM |
| June 22 | TAG TEAM No-Limit Hold’em (2-person teams) | $1,000/Team | 20,000 | 60 minutes | Freezeout | 2:00 PM |
| June 23 | Deepstack Championship No-Limit Hold’em | $600 | 30,000 | 40/60 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| June 24-25 | COLOSSUS No-Limit Hold’em | $400 | 40,000 | 40 minutes | 1/Flight | 10:00 AM |
| June 26-27 | CRAZY EIGHTS No-Limit Hold’em 8-Handed | $888 | 40,000 | 30/40 minutes | 1/Flight | 10am/5pm |
| June 29 | Mini Main Event No-Limit Hold’em | $1,000 | 60,000 | 30 minutes | Freezeout | 11:00 AM |
| June 30 | FINAL 500 Salute to Warriors No-Limit Hold’em | $500 | 25,000 | 40 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| July 4-6 | Little One for ONE DROP No-Limit Hold’em | $1,000+$111 | 20/40,000 | 60 minutes | Unlimited | 12 noon |
| July 12 | No-Limit Hold’em Deepstack | $800 | 40,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
| July 13 | Super Turbo No-Limit Hold’em | $1,000 | 20,000 | 20 minutes | 1 | 11:00 AM |
