The Broadcast Schedule for 2012 WSOP is Out
With less than two weeks to go, the excitement surrounding 2012 WSOP (World Series of Poker) has reached peak levels. Although everyone cannot participate in the event, they can certainly catch all the action on television. Leading sports channel ESPN has released the broadcast schedule for the annual poker festival. The ‘Big One for One Drop’ tournament will kick-start the series on television with a special airing on the 3rd of July.
The Big One for One Drop
The poker world is abuzz with the Big One for One Drop tournament. It is attracting almost as much limelight as the main event. With a whopping $1,000,000 buy-in, the event is all set to go down in poker history as the richest tournament ever. Players who do not have a million dollars to spare can win a place in the tournament through satellites.
From every million dollar buy-in, $111,111 will be donated to One Drop, a nonprofit organization making efforts to provide drinking water access to people across the globe. Currently the tournament has a field of 30 players and a prize pool of $26,666,670. At its existing size, the winner of the event will take home $12,266,668.20, breaking Jamie Gold’s record win of $12,000,000 in the WSOP main event in 2006.
The 3 day long event is all set to take off on the 1st of July. The final day of the tournament will be aired almost live (just fifteen minute delay) by ESPN and ESPN3. For the next installment of the series, viewers will have to wait till the 31st of July, when the channel will start airing usual 2 hour long edited shows, once again starting with the Big One for One Drop.
Broadcast Schedule
On television, the WSOP will start off with the virtually live broadcast of the Big One for One Drop event on the 3rd of July at 3p.m. This will be followed by a 2 hour edited broadcast of the event on the 31st of July at 8:10 p.m. One the 7th of August, the National Championship featuring the hundred top qualifiers from the world series 2011-12 circuit tour will be aired at 8:10 p.m. From here on, every Tuesday night at 8:10 p.m. the channel will air the Main Event till the end of October. The Main Event final table will be aired at 9 p.m. on October 30th.
Apart from the Big One for One Drop tournament, the Main Event final table will be the only other event to be broadcasted virtually live. ESPN continues the trend of limiting preliminary event broadcasts to minimum. This year, the National Championship and the Big One for One Drop will be the only preliminary events to be aired. For more information on real money online poker, please click here.