Today's Format - Having a Safety Net | 2010 World Series of Poker

One of the more interesting twists to this event is that each player is allocated a start bank of 7,500 chips, in addition to three red add-on chips worth an additional 7,500 each.

These add-on chips can be optionally used at anytime during the first four levels. So a player may choose to cash them in immediately to start with a deep 30,000-chip start bank, or they can save them up and use them if they get stacked. This effectively gives players some breathing room in the early levels to allow them to gamble it up a little bit if they like, safe in the knowledge that they have their add-on chips to fall back on if disaster strikes.

This means that our chip counts page will be a little distorted during the early stages, as some players may have used any or all of their add-on chips. Once we hit the dinner break after four levels, all players will be forced to cash in their add-on chips and we'll be on an equal playing field with no more safety net!