On Tuesday, Caesars Entertainment and World Series of Poker officials officially announced the schedule of events for the 45th renewal of poker’s greatest tournament festival, with this year’s Main Event featuring, for the first time, a guaranteed prize for the eventual World Champion.

Commemorating the tenth anniversary of the WSOP being held at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, this year’s WSOP Main Event winner will be guaranteed a $10 million payout along with a unique Main Event bracelet and title of World Champion. Not since 2006, when Jamie Gold walked off with a record $12 million first place prize, has the Main Event ever paid its victor an eight-figure payday. The closest it has come to the $10 million mark since 2006 was in 2008, when Peter Eastgate earned $9,152,416.

“For ten years, we have tried to raise the bar on tournament poker,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart in announcing this year’s tournament schedule. “There is real optimism that 2014 can be our biggest year yet with an anticipated $200 million in prize money to be paid out this summer. With new satellites and daily tournaments exclusively on WSOP.com and a plethora of side events, there is more reason than ever to make the trip to poker mecca.”

WSOP officials have stated that the prize pool for the Main Event, just like last year’s Millionaire Maker that guaranteed a first place prize of $1 million, will be adjusted to guarantee a $10 million first place prize.

In the Millionaire Maker last year, the guarantee was beaten fairly easily, so there was no pressure to adjust the payout scale. For the 2014 Main Event to do that without having to graduate the payout scale, it would probably take over 7,000 players to participate, numbers that haven’t been seen since Jonathan Duhamel‘s victory in 2010 (7,319 players).

The WSOP Main Event will begin on Saturday, July 5 with Day 1A and the two subsequent days will complete the Day 1 festivities. The fields will combine on Day 3 on Wednesday, July 10 and play down to the November Nine on Monday, July 14. The November Nine will return to the Rio for the live ESPN broadcast of the Main Event final table on November 10 and 11.

The $10 million guarantee for the winner of the Main Event isn’t the only highlight of what should be a dizzying slate of poker this year in Las Vegas. After taking a break last year, the Big One for One Drop will make its return in 2014, complete with a $1 million buy-in. In 2012, the Big One was capped at 48 players; for the 2014 version, that cap has been upped to 56. This should ensure that its champion will break 2012 winner Antonio Esfandiari‘s record for largest ever tournament poker prize ($18,346,673) and, depending on who wins it, may even knock Esfandiari (pictured) off the top of the all-time money list.

Event #2 on the opening day of festivities at the WSOP (May 27) will be a $25,000 Mixed-Max No Limit tournament. The Millionaire Maker will be back on May 31 with a $1,500 buy-in, as will a new event, a $1,000 Pot Limit Omaha event (the lowest price ever for a PLO event) on May 28.

Finally, a time change has been made for the daily operations at the 2014 WSOP. Over the past few years, there has normally been a bracelet event that starts at Noon and another that begins at 5:00pm. The latter tournament’s start time has been moved up to 4:00pm for this year’s schedule. For the first day of all bracelet events, late registration will be allowed until the start of Level 7, roughly 8:00pm for tournaments with a Noon start time and 10:45pm for the 4:00pm runners. All tournaments will have a 3:00am cap unless special circumstances intervene.

Stay tuned to PocketFives for the latest 2014 WSOP news.

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