Lance Bradley – President and Editor in Chief, PocketFives
@Lance_Bradley

It’s hard not to scroll through the schedule and pick out the events with the biggest buy-ins when looking for the most anticipated events. You’re automatically drawn to the One Drop High Roller and the Poker Players Championship but the event I’m most looking forward is probably overlooked a little bit. The $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha High Roller promises to be one of the tougher fields of the year. Last year the event brought out 184 players with Jens Kyllonen walking away with the bracelet.

Kevin Mathers – Community Manager, PocketFives
@Kevmath

There are two events on this year’s WSOP schedule in Las Vegas that I’m interested in. The $111,111 OneDrop High Roller was moved from just before the Main Event to one of the first tournaments on the schedule, right after the Super High Roller Bowl at the Aria. Plenty of players will already be in a $300,000 deficit at the start and may give some players reason to back off on possibly dropping another six figures so soon. Expect a drop in entries from 183 to around 150, also reducing the amount raised for charity.

The other event I’m looking forward to following is the $1,500 Millionaire Maker. You can usually find a good story or two among those going deep, especially with Oregon schoolteacher Lisa Meredith’s third place finish. This year’s edition removed guaranteeing the top two spots earn at least $1,000,000. The field size dropped slightly, created an awkward situation where the difference between second and third ($500,000) was less than the difference between first and second ($65,403). This year’s edition should see a jump in entries as players can re-enter once in each of the two opening day flights for a maximum of four entries.

Matt Clark – Writer, PocketFives
@MattClarkPoker

The $10,000 Tag Team event makes for an interesting start to the summer. In years past, the WSOP has inserted a marquee big buy-in event to kick off the series ($25,000 Mix-Max, $50,000 Poker Players Championship) and is returning to that form this year. The best Hold’em players in the world should be in attendance for this event with plenty of fun dynamics in play. It will be neat to see what teams form and how players decide to divide duties between each other. The final table should be a hoot to watch and when the dust settles, two to four new bracelet winners will be crowned.

Steve Schult – Writer, PocketFives
@lefty2432

High Stakes Poker on Game Show Network was always one of the most exciting poker shows on TV. Why? Because players were playing for obscene amounts of money. Poker is more exciting to watch when there is more money on the line and outside of the Main Event, nobody will stand to win more money this summer than the winner of the $111,111 buy-in One Drop High Roller.

The gigantic buy-in for the event tends to bring out poker’s best. Every year, this is the event when people start to speculate if Phil Ivey will show up. Even though the eventual Main Event winner will take home more, this is one of the few times that poker fans can watch the game’s best players square off for millions of dollars and a bracelet.

Jack Stanton – Writer, PocketFives
@J_W_Stanton

I always look forward to following the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. The importance of learning mixed games has been heightened in the past few years, particularly in mid-stakes online cash and high stakes live cash, so we’ll see a mixture of the young European online guys and the old school Vegas guard. And Michael Mizrachi of course, who seems to either win it or final table it every single year.