Shot clock and Big Blind Antes at this year's WSOP

Two of the fastest growing methods to speed up the live game will be trialling at the World Series of Poker this year.

Over the weekend the WSOP's official Twitter account confirmed that Shot Clocks and Big Blind Antes will feature in their High Roller events for the first time:

The @WSOP $1,000,000 OneDrop is playing with a big blind ante AND a shot clock

— Kevin Mathers (@Kevmath) January 26, 2018

The $100k, $50k and $1 milly NLH events all are. https://t.co/AYJhI0Syul

— WSOP (@WSOP) January 26, 2018

Shot Clocks are fast becoming a staple part of High Roller events all over the world, as well as in Main Events on the World Poker Tour and at 888Live events.

The Big Blind Ante is a system where, instead of everybody posting a single Ante every hand, the Big Blind posts it for the whole table. This greatly speeds up the game because the dealer does not have to give change to the players every hand, and the players do not need to be reminded to post their Antes. 

The broadcast of the WSOP Main Event itself has come under criticism in recent years for being too slow (largely due to the antics of William Kassouf) and perhaps if these innovations are popular this year it may lead to rolling them out to lower buy-in events.

You'll have to forgive this writer for self promotion, but these two changes were actually predicted by yours truly at the start of the year in my annual poker predictions feature. 

Should all events have Shot Clocks and Button Antes? Let us know in the comments: