Most poker players dream of jetting to Las Vegas, heading to the cashier's desk of the Horseshoe Las Vegas, slamming down $10,000, and buying into the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. "The Big Dance" is the live poker tournament everyone wants to win, not only for the ridiculously large top prize and the accompanying bracelet, but for the kudos from their fellow players, and the fact the WSOP Main Event winner gets to call themselves poker's world champion.
The upcoming Main Event Maynia could be your best chance of realizing your poker dream of playing in the WSOP Main Event in 2023.
Last year's WSOP Main Event was the second-largest in the tournament's long and illustrious history. Some 8,663 players bought in and created an $80,782,475 prize pool. Only the 2006 WSOP Main Event, won by Jamie Gold, attracted more players (8,773) and awarded more prize money ($82,512,162).
2023 World Series of Poker Hub
Bookmark this page! All you need to know about the 2023 WSOP is here.
It seems like the WSOP's management team wants to break the 17-year attendance records, judging by how they pull out all the stops to send as many satellite winners to Las Vegas this summer. In addition to committing to send more than 700 online poker players to the WSOP Main Event via its WSOP MI, WSOP NJ, WSOP NV, and WSOP PA sites, plus its partner GGPoker, the WSOP is running a weekend of satellites across four continents that it hopes will send at least another 100 live poker qualifiers to Las Vegas.
Main Event Maynia is the WSOP's first-ever global qualification weekend, which runs May 20-21. At the time of writing, 11 US-based casinos and venues in the Czech Republic, Canada, France, Morocco, and Uruguay are part of the festivities. The road to a 2023 WSOP Main Event seat starts with a $140 (or equivalent local currency) buy-in Mega Satellite that feeds into a $1,175 buy-in Main Event Maynia Tournament. Each of those $1,175 satellites guarantees at least one 2023 WSOP Main Event package, with more packages awarded for every ten entries. The package consists of the $10,000 WSOP Main Event buy-in for 2023, plus a $1,000 travel stipend.
Should the 2023 WSOP Main Event break the long-standing attendance record, all entrants will be placed into a random draw where one lucky winner wins a non-transferable Main Event buy-in for the next 30 years!
The 2023 WSOP Main Event shuffles up and deals at 12:00 p.m. local time on July 3, with the first of four scheduled flights. The four Day 1s conclude on July 6.
Play continues for five 120-minute levels every day until Day 8 on July 14, when play continues until only nine players remain. Those finalists get to enjoy a day off on July 15 before returning to the action on July 16, where play continues until five players have busted. That surviving quartet of players sits back down on July 17 and continues playing until only one player has all the chips in play.
Of course, PokerNews's live reporting team will be bringing you all of the 2023 WSOP Main Event action in addition to coverage of each and every gold bracelet awarding event throughout the summer. Here's to our team of reporters writing about how you turned a $140 Main Event Maynia ticket into poker's world title.
Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.
