Welcome to the 2015 World Series of Poker!

This year’s edition of the world’s longest-running poker festival begins Wednesday, May 27, and runs through July 15. It will be held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, its home since 2005. Click here for a full schedule of events.

This is an exciting year for the WSOP—this year’s schedule includes several events that will literally make poker history, and other changes that promise to be fan favorites. 

New Events:

The Colossus - Friday, May 29

This year’s schedule starts with a bang, as the opening weekend will showcase the first event WSOP Colossus. This tournament has a $565 buyin, with a $5 million guaranteed prize pool. There are four starting flights (Friday at 10am, Friday at 6pm, Saturday at 10am, and Saturday at 6pm), players may enter up to four times (once per flight). 

The Colossus will likely become the largest live poker tournament in the history of the game in terms of both entries and unique players. The current record is 8,773 entries from the 2006 WSOP Main Event, and within a week we’ll see if that record is broken.

Anyone interested in playing should check this handy info guide.

Online Bracelet - Thursday, July 2

Anyone physically located within Nevada’s state borders is allowed to play,

On July 2, play will continue until there are six players remaining. The final six will then play down to a winner live at the Rio on the main stage in the Amazon room, with a live stream on WSOP.com.

$25,000 High Roller 8-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha - Monday, June 29

This year, the World Series of Poker will host the biggest buy-on PLO tournament in its 46-year history. Last year, the WSOP offered a $1,000 PLO event that attracted the largest PLO field ever at the WSOP. It was eventually won by player-of-the-year runner up Brandon Shack-Harris. Now, a new event focuses on the other end of the buyin spectrum. This $25,000 tournament will be played 8-handed, players will receive 75,000 in starting chips, and it’s expected to take four days to complete.

Other New Events 

• $1,000 Hyper Hold’em (Event #6—May 31)
• $1,500 Extended Play No-Limit Hold’em with 90-minute levels (Event #42—June 20)
• $1,000 Super Seniors No-Limit Hold’em, open to players 65+ (Event #43—June 21)
• $5,000 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em (Event #53—June 26)
• $1,500 DraftKings 50/50 No-Limit Hold’em – Half the field cashes (Event #55—June 27)
• $1,500 Bounty No-Limit Hold’em – Every player is a $500 bounty (Event #62—July 1)
• $777 Lucky 7s No-Limit Hold’em (Event #65—July 3)
• $10,000 Dealers Choice – 2014’s successful Dealers Choice event now offers 19 variants of poker and is available at the $10K buyin level (Event #67—July 3)

 One Drop Charity

The World Series of Poker is proud to continue its partnership with One Drop, a charity dedicated to ensuring sustainable access to clean water for people worldwide. Our partnership began in 2012 with the first installment of the famous Big One for One Drop tournament, won by Antonio Esfandiari.

In 2015, the WSOP is hosting two events to support One Drop:

The $111,111 One Drop High Roller - Saturday, June 28

This event was first held in 2013, when it attracted 166 entries, a record for a tournament with a six-figure buyin, and was won by Tony Gregg.

$1,111 Little One for One Drop - Tuesday, June 30

For the third consecutive year, the WSOP is holding a smaller buyin event to support the One Drop Foundation. The event features several significant improvements this year.

The buyin is $1,000, which gets players 5,000 in tournament chips, an increase of 25% over last year. Players have the option of purchasing a $111 add-on, which will double their starting stack to 10,000. The $111 from the add-on will go directly to One Drop. 

This is an unlimited re-entry event.

The Main Event

The most famous tournament in all of poker—The World Series of Poker $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event—begins on Sunday, July 5. There are a few significant changes for this year’s edition.

More places paid

For the first time ever, the top 1,000 finishers will make the money in the Main Event. Based on 2014’s turnout, that would be roughly 15% of the field.  

November Nine

As has been a tradition since 2008, the final nine players will return in November to determine a winner live on ESPN. This year, the live broadcast has been expanded to three nights of coverage. On Sunday, November 8, the nine players will play down to four. Then on Monday, November 9, they’ll continue until there are only two players left. The final two players will return on Tuesday, November 10 and play until one of them has all the chips and the 2015 Main Event bracelet.

ESPN Coverage 

This year’s ESPN coverage of the WSOP will begin on August 18, with two episodes showing the 2015 National Championship. After a brief hiatus, Main Event coverage will begin on Monday, September 14, and will run weekly on Monday nights until September 28. Coverage then moves to Sunday nights starting on October 4, with expanded 2.5 hour episodes each night until November 1. The Main Event will then be aired live starting the following week.

Once again this year, most final tables will be streamed live on WSOP.com. David Tuchman returns as lead commentator, and he’ll be joined by a rotating group of players and co-hosts. Streams will either be on a 30-minute delay, with hole-card graphics, or on a five-minute delay with no hole cards shown.

More Starting Chips

This year, the WSOP has increased the starting stack for all events with a buy-in under $10,000.

• $565 buy-in: 5,000 starting chips (Colossus, new event; 10 times the buy-in, same as last year’s Monster Stack)
• $777 buy-in: 5,000 starting chips (new buy-in level this year, treated like a $1k event) – 100 big blinds
• $1,000 buy-in: 5,000 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 100 big blinds
• $1,500 buy-in: 7,500 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 150 big blinds
• $2,500 buy-in: 12,500 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 167 big blinds
• $3,000 buy-in: 15,000 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 200 big blinds
• $5,000 buy-in: 25,000 starting chips (increase of 66% over 2014) – 250 big blinds

For more information on the 2015 World Series of Poker, please see www.WSOP.com/2015, and join us at the Rio starting May 27!