Live Poker

The 2011 World Series of Poker is right around the corner, and professional and amateur poker players alike are brushing up on their game, trying to find the perfect combination of poker strategies to help make them contenders in WSOP 2011.  Per usual, there’s a heavy lineup of games lined up for this year’s tournament, giving everyone a chance to win.

WSOP 2011 kicks off with the casino employee’s tournament, a chance for all those with the greatest exposure to card and slot games alike to dust off the poker strategies they’ve picked up throughout the last year in the casinos and try to make a name for themselves.  You can certainly expect some great talent to be playing in the WSOP 2011 opener on May 31st, as many of these players have been on hand as the professionals and previous WSOP winners have been practicing throughout the last 12 months (and in many cases, for the past several years).  Even the rookies in this category are contenders, because, as we all know, winning a poker game is only partially about the cards that you’re dealt; a huge part of your success in the game depends on your ability to read the players around you, and who has a better advantage than those who can watch how others play on a daily basis?  While this is one of the shorter events on the WSOP 2011 schedule and the one with the smallest pot (based on the fact that it has the smallest buy-in), it’s a chance to see some good action as the festivities begin.

Several other events are very promising among this year’s tournaments, and each promises viewers a great view of some very different poker strategies, which are to some degree dependent on the game being played.  Viewers will want to tune in to the Seven Card Stud Championship on June 12th and watch competitors play a fierce game devoid of a lot of the tension found in Hold’em tournaments.  Because all the cards are out at once and there are no common cards, the poker strategies employed by the players are different than that of Hold’em, and should be interesting to watch.

Poker players should also keep an eye out for the H.O.R.S.E. championship, the Limit Hold’em Championship, and, for those truly interested in seeing as many different poker strategies as possible in a single tournament, the 8 game mix and the 10 game mix/six handed.  Because of the variety of games present in these two mixes, you can count on players to pull out all of the tricks they know, whether it’s bluffing and slow-playing or a whole lot of mental math.

Of course, WSOP 2011 would be nothing without its main event, the No-limit Hold’em Championship, the final event of the series.  The buy-in for this event is a heavy $10,000, but the winner walks away with millions in cash.  If you can see only one event at this year’s World Series of Poker, this is the one to see.