LAS VEGAS – November 27, 2013 – The World Series of Poker Circuit Tour is returning to St. Louis in 2014, after a one-year hiatus with a brand-new stop at Lumière Place March 20 to March 31.
The St. Louis WSOP Circuit stop will be part of the 2013-14 WSOP Circuit Tour schedule and award two automatic seats into the season-ending WSOP National Championship in Atlantic City in May. Lumiére Place will also host the 12 Rings in 12 Days event schedule, with a dozen official WSOP Circuit gold ring events alongside a host of side events and cash games.
“We are excited and honored to host our first-ever WSOP event at Lumiére Place,” said Jeff Babinski, Vice President and General Manager of Lumiére Place. “Our casino is well-suited to host this prestigious event as we’re right in the heart of downtown St. Louis. Lumiére Place already features an action-packed poker room and we’re ready for the added excitement that the WSOP event will bring.” The WSOP Circuit previously stopped at the former Harrah’s St. Louis. Caesars Entertainment sold the property in 2012.
“We are pleased to be able to return a signature event to the great poker community in St. Louis,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart. “We’re thrilled that Lumière Place management was so passionate about bringing the WSOP back to St. Louis. With their experience running large poker tournaments and a luxurious destination, we are confident they will put on one of the Midwest’s premier poker festivals.”
With an already aggressive 2013-2014 schedule, the Lumiére Place stop replaces an originally scheduled WSOP Circuit stop at Horseshoe Casino Cleveland.
Despite the WSOP Circuit’s belief in the Cleveland market as an exciting market to host a second WSOP Circuit event in Ohio, it has been determined after further due diligence that the space originally conceptualized to host it will not be sufficient for the guest experience the property and the WSOP both desire and require.
The WSOP Circuit still desires to make Horseshoe Cleveland a future WSOP Circuit stop and will continue to have dialogue with the property to weigh options for future events there. The remaining WSOP Circuit schedule for the 2013-14 season can be found at www.lnmandiya.com/schedule/wsopcircuit.asp
Circuit schedules are subject to change. For more information on individual circuit events, including event schedules and structure sheets, can be found at each property website or by visiting www.WSOP.com
ABOUT LUMIERE PLACE HOTEL & CASINOS Lumière Place includes a 75,000-square-foot casino with the hottest slot machines, table games, and a dedicated poker room. The resort boasts several restaurants including Stadium Sports Bar and Grill, Cielo, Asia, The Kitchen Buffet & Bistro and Peet’s Coffee & Tea. Nightlife attractions include the piano bar, Aqua, and the high-energy lounge,globar. Lumière Place also features a large VIP lounge available to select
casino customers.
Lumière Place also includes Lumière Link, a 400-foot tunnel featuring two sections of moving walkway. It provides an easy and secure pedestrian link between St. Louis’ central business district, the Lumière Place resort and the Mississippi Riverfront. Also located on the
Lumière Place complex are the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, the first and only AAA Five Diamond property in Missouri and the all-suite, upscale HoteLumière which features a four-story waterfall inside the atrium. To learn more about Lumiere Place, please visit www.lumiereplace.com, or follow us on Twitter @LumierePlace.
ABOUT THE WSOP CIRCUIT
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Events are a series of poker tournaments hosted throughout the United States and Canada beginning in August each year, and culminating the following May with a $1,000,000 National Championship televised on ESPN where the victor earns a WSOP gold bracelet as well. WSOP Circuit Events are designed to give the recreational and amateur player an opportunity to participate in the WSOP experience at a more affordable price point and with less of a time commitment than the traditional WSOP in Las
Vegas. Each stop features 12 official events in 12 days, including a $1675 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Main Event – the most expensive buy-in event on the 12-event schedule at each stop. Official WSOP Circuit events range in buy-in from $365-$1675 and award a prestigious
WSOP gold ring to each victor. These poker tournaments are designed to reach a winner within two playing days, with some events even structured to complete in one day. In 2013-14, the WSOP Circuit season consists of 22 unique stops all tied together by a cumulative points system that awards points based on finish in individual events. A season-ending National Championship is held each May with the Top 100
qualifiers. The winner of each stop’s Main Event (the only three-day structured event) gains automatic entry into the season-ending WSOP National Championship, as does each stop’s Casino Champion – the person who accumulates the most points throughout the 12 official events at a stop. Two players at each stop earn automatic entries into the season-ending championship, with the remaining players being made up of at large qualifiers whom have accumulated the most points throughout the Circuit season. Players who finish within the top ten percent of the field are typically awarded prize money on an escalating scale until there is one player who has captured all the chips. That victor wins the largest share of the prize pool, a WSOP Circuit gold ring and points towards national championship qualification. The WSOP Circuit Events are a regional offshoot of the longest-running, largest, richest and most prestigious gaming event in the world, dating back 43 years to 1970 – the famous World Series of Poker.
This marks the tenth year the WSOP Circuit Events have been held. They were initially established by CaesarsEntertainment (then Harrah’s Entertainment) after its purchase of the WSOP brand in 2004 as a way to bring the WSOP experience to Harrahs-owned properties throughout the U.S. In the inaugural season (2004-05), the WSOP Circuit featured five stops – Atlantic City, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, San Diego and New Orleans. Now, with 22 stops (the most ever), the WSOP Circuit visits 15 U.S. states, two Canadian provinces and cumulatively features more players participating in it than the Las Vegas version of the WSOP. In 2012-13, more than 80,000 entered WSOP Circuit events, with the Main Event winner at each stop averaging $197,535 in prize money.
CaesarsInteractive Entertainment, Inc., (CIE) owns the WSOP and the WSOP Circuit Events. For more information, please
visit www.WSOP.com/2013/Circuit/ or www.twitter.com/wsop or www.blog.lnmandiya.com