Bellagio Cup V Starts July 13th, WPT Changes Blind Structure
On Monday, July 13th, the first of two starting days in the World Poker Tour (WPT) Bellagio Cup V will kick off from the storied Las Vegas casino. Although the eyes of the poker world are focused squarely on the Rio for the conclusion of the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, the WPT will be making waves of its own on the other side of Interstate 15. The Bellagio Cup boasts a $15,000 buy-in and marks the first U.S. tournament of Season VIII. The winner takes home a bundle of cash plus a seat into the WPT Championship, which will also occur at the Bellagio. The WPT has adopted an abridged blind schedule at its six-handed final table in order to prevent lengthy nights for players, staff, and audience members alike.
Each blind level during the final table of a WPT event during Season VIII will last for 60 minutes. When play reaches heads-up, the price of poker will tick up every 30 minutes. In an interview with Poker News Daily, WPT President, CEO, and Founder Steve Lipscomb explained, “We can’t just sit back and wait for huge hands because that’s pure luck.” PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington, who will travel to many of the Season VIII stops on behalf of the site, noted, “Overall, I don't see this being much of an issue or expect it to be anything like the previous WPT structure that drew so many complaints.”
From Atlantic City to Los Angeles, Harrington has seen it all on the WPT circuit over the past three years. WPT officials have grown leery of audiences being worn out from the multi-hour affair, which takes away from their excitement for Fox Sports Net television cameras. Harrington explained, “Some of the final tables during the last season of the WPT ran into the next morning. The excitement was the same; there were just fewer people still around to be a part of it. I don't expect the players to have a huge problem with these small changes.”
This year’s WSOP Main Event boasted a triple stack structure. The result was a larger percentage of players making Day 2 than in previous years. The larger number of restarts was part of the reason that WSOP officials discarded holding a Day 1E for 500 runners shut out of the feature tournament. Harrington commented, “With the tournaments trending towards triple starting stacks, the play should be a little deeper toward the end of a tournament anyway, somewhat counteracting the change in blind lengths.”
PocketFiver Mike SirWattsWatson (pictured at right) took down last season’s Bellagio Cup IV Main Event, earning $1.6 million. Heads-up, he defeated David Benyamine in a final table that also featured Luke IWEARGOGGLES Staudenmaier and Legends of Poker winner John “The Razor” Phan. A total of 446 players turned out last July, creating a prize pool of $6.5 million. Here is this week’s schedule of events at the Bellagio Cup. All times are Pacific:
Monday, July 13th
WPT Bellagio Cup V Main Event Day 1A – 12:00pm
$1,080 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Super Satellite – 10:00pm
Tuesday, July 14th
WPT Bellagio Cup V Main Event Day 1B – 12:00pm
Wednesday, July 15th
WPT Bellagio Cup V Main Event Day 2 – 12:00pm
Thursday, July 16th
WPT Bellagio Cup V Main Event Day 3 – 12:00pm
$540 buy-in No Limit Hold’em – 2:00pm
Friday, July 17th
WPT Bellagio Cup V Main Event Day 4 – 12:00pm
Saturday, July 18th
WPT Bellagio Cup V Main Event Day 5 – 12:00pm
Sunday, July 19th
WPT Bellagio Cup V Main Event Final Table
After the Bellagio Cup concludes, WPT staff will pick up shop and head west to Los Angeles for the Legends of Poker, which begins on August 22nd from the Bicycle Casino. A winner of the $10,000 buy-in event will be crowned four days later. Last year, Amit amak316Makhija (pictured at right) finished as the runner-up to Phan in the event, with Zachary CrazyZachary Clark also reaching the final table.
Running concurrently with the first half of the Bellagio Cup will be the finale of the WSOP Main Event. The $10,000 buy-in gala plays down to its final table on July 15th. Then, the action will be paused for four months, resuming on November 7th. Check out WSOP coverage of online poker players on PocketFivesLive.com.
