The World Series of Poker will no longer crown their main event champion in November.
For nearly a decade the World Series of Poker main event has been taking a near four-month break once the final table was decided. The first November Nine took place in 2008 when Peter Eastgate claimed the biggest championship in poker. Last year’s WSOP main event champion, Qui Nguyen, will be the last to win via the November Nine route.
WSOP officials announced the November Nine concept has been scrapped for 2017, and the main event champion will once again be decided in July.
Along with the cancelling of the November Nine, the WSOP also announced a new broadcast partnership with Poker Central and ESPN.
The new agreement will expand coverage of the WSOP starting this year. It will also bring same-day coverage to ESPN for the first time, beginning with Day 1 of the main event all the way to the final card at the final table.
Under the new agreement, ESPN will broadcast 10 consecutive days of WSOP main event live coverage on ESPN and ESPN2. Day 1A of the main event is scheduled to begin on July 8, while the main event will be played over three days from July 20 to July 22.
Main Event Spread Over Three Days in July
The main event will work as follows. On July 20, the action will start with nine players and conclude for the day when only six are left. July 21 action will begin with six players and conclude with three. The final day on July 22 will begin with the remaining three and run until there is one player, the champion, left standing.
In total ESPN will air an estimated 40 hours of live WSOP main event action in July. They will also air their usual packaged shows highlighting other WSOP events, totaling 130 hours running throughout the year.
Anything not covered by ESPN will be streamed exclusively by Poker Central’s digital channels. Poker Central has announced they will post a full streaming schedule of its WSOP programming later in May.