It will be an interesting tournament series at Las Vegas this year after April 15th and the so called Black Friday, especially because Americans can't play for real money anymore on the 3 biggest US friendly (at least until mid April) poker sites and networks. With PokerStars, FullTilt and AP/UB jumping out of the US market after the indictments of the Department of Justice and reaching an agreement with the US to refund the American players, one thing might not get as much attention.
These 3 poker sites / networks also ran most of the WSOP qualifiers and quite a few of them won't take place anymore due to the reduced traffic. Many American online players can't make it to the WSOP 2011 anymore since they cannot play in the main qualifiers, will this actually see more Europeans finding their way over the pond to play in Sin City? And how will the overall number of participants per event develop? Surely we still gonna see all the familiar faces and big names in the tournaments, but quite a few grinders and online pro's have just lost their source of income and might not be able to afford anymore to buy into the WSOP tournaments.
Fortunately I will be able to draw my own conclusions and follow the action live at the Rio's, since I just got my full media credentials granted for the WSOP 2011 and will be doing the online coverage for the Pro Team of Poker770 towards the end of June 2011. It might not be the most relaxing job, but I am already looking forward to it and the interaction with all the other bloggers and news media. Guess it is about time to get the flight and hotel booked now and start working on the schedule for the coverage :)
Most are quite happy to fly to Vegas and participate in the tournaments ... I am happy to do the coverage for it - well, we bloggers might be a bit strange but someone has to do that job as well, right? And I will probably also have the opportunity to meet up with some affiliate and business contacts as well :)
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