WSPOE Moves to Cannes

Posted February 15th, 2011 by admin No Comments »

Caesars Interactive Entertainment (formerly Harrah’s), who are the owners of WSOP, had launched WSOPE in 2007. WSOPE is a series of live poker tournaments along the lines of WSOP in Las Vegas but on a much smaller scale. WSPOE was launched to cater to the growing popularity of poker tournaments in Europe as evidenced by the increasing number of European players on the American poker circuits. London was the epicenter of European poker and till 2010 the annual WSOPE tournament was held there.

Caesars Interactive Entertainment has now announced that WSOPE 2011 will be held in Cannes in France. The tournament will start on October 7, 2011 and will end on October 21. The announcement does not speak of a permanent shift in location but pertains to this year only. Cannes is a popular tourist destination on the French Riviera in southern France and is known for the annual international film festival held there. It is very close to the gambling paradise of Monte Carlo.

The reason for the change appears to be the increasing number of participants in WSOPE. In London the WSOPE events were spread over three casinos. In Cannes they will be held at two casinos, which are the Casino Barriere de Cannes and Hotel Majestic Barriere. These two casinos have two times the space of the three London casinos and hence WSPOE 2011 can play host to double the number of participants. That WSOPE will be a major focus of Caesars Interactive Entertainment can be seen from the fact that the number of bracelet events for WSOPE 2011 has been increased to seven. This though is far short of the number of events in the Las Vegas WSOP. With increasing prize money as well the WSOPE 2011 will be the biggest WSOPE till date.

The Main Event will be the place of pride as usual. Annette Obrestad won the inaugural Main Event in 2007, at an age when she would not be allowed to play in Las Vegas. The subsequent winners were John Juanda in 2008, Barry Shulman in 2009 and James Bord in 2010. The most prominent loser in the heads up was Daniel Negreanu in 2009.

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