Should the WSOPE and WSOP APAC rotate annually?

Barry Carter gives his thoughts on the decision to rotate the two international WSOP events every other year.

WSOP APAC champ Daniel Negreanu

This week the World Series of Poker announced that its European and Asia-Pacific stops would rotate on alternate years. It seems that each one will take place in October, just before that year's November Nine are set to return to Vegas to finish off the Main Event.

In the past year there were two non-US WSOP festivals that took place: the WSOP APAC in Melbourne with five bracelet events and the WSOPE in Paris with eight. Instead, next year just the WSOP APAC will take place -  but with ten bracelet events overall.

The plan is to have just one international WSOP event every year, and to make that festival much bigger overall than either of the previous incarnations. Seth Palansky commented that this would make for a more well-organised event, and provide much better value for travelling poker players.

Too many bracelet events?

WSOPE champ Phil Hellmuth

I am not at all surprised by the move.

I can’t help but think the WSOP will have been disappointed by some of the numbers for both of their international events in 2013. The Ladies' event at the WSOPE only got 65 players and Phil Ivey’s bracelet win in Melbourne only featured 81.

The WSOPE Main Event got 375 runners, which is a big drop from the 2011 high of 593; the WSOP APAC Main Event got 405, which is much lower than the Aussie Millions Main Event at the same venue which regularly gets over 600 runners.

I think there was an expectation that the WSOPE would see growth, and the WSOP APAC would be the biggest Australian tournament ever. It must have been disapointing that neither came close.

There is also a sense that there are simply too many bracelet events right now. You have more than 60 awarded in Vegas alone, so to have another two bracelet festivals either side of the big one does dilute the sense of prestige. Lots of players, even people who have won international bracelets like Phil Hellmuth, have discussed "whether they count" or not.

Perhaps the WSOPE and WSOP APAC cancelled each other out in terms of making bracelets special outside of Vegas, and perhaps just having the one festival with a full schedule of ten bracelet events is the way to reignite interest in them.

Time to create more buzz

Ivey won a very small field APAC event

Palansky also said this would give them the chance to better organise the event. If I have had one criticism of the WSOPE/WSOP APAC in the past it's that there seems to have been much less overall industry attention on them than they deserved.

It was rare to have seen many online qualifiers for either of them, and usually only one media site provided live updates.

I'd like to see more media coverage and more online qualification for international events, which means the WSOP would have to drop their exclusivity deals with selected partners.

If done correctly, this would also help create more hype for both the November Nine and the WSOP Player of the Year race. The POY would almost certainly still be wide open with ten bracelet events remaining, and assuming there are more media partners and online poker rooms involved, then this would help create a bigger buzz for the November Nine. This way also means the POY would not start outside the WSOP in Vegas; it did this year, which didn’t seem quite right.

The World Cup or Olympics of poker

The WSOP international bracelet

No word yet as to where the WSOPE will take place in 2015, but I am hoping that this will result in what I have been suggesting should happen for a number of years: a regular change to the host country.

The WSOPE has been in London, Cannes, and Paris now. I think the highest-leverage move they can make is to take it to a new country next year, and every subsequent year.

With the much bigger series of at least ten bracelets and the fact it is only every other year, there would be a huge sense of momentum each time if it were in a new country. It will make it interesting for the travelling players and the host country would put real effort into it, as well as perhaps accommodating an EPT and WPT either side of it.

This regular changing of countries would be akin to the World Cup or the Olympics. The one-off nature of it would create a real sense of buzz and festivity around the series. Off the top of my head, Dublin, Barcelona, Vienna, San Remo, and Prague would all make excellent 2015 destinations in Europe, and Macau seems perfect for a 2016 WSOP APAC.

I don't see any real negatives in this decision by the WSOP. There was a danger in bracelet events becoming saturated but this is a clever way to essentially have a similar overall amount of bracelets to be won, but still to creating a sense of exclusivity and prestige around the whole series.

I really hope the WSOP continues to change international destinations because I think that is best for the world wide poker market.

Hats off, as always, to the WSOP for never being afraid to try something new and always keeping their events interesting.

By Barry Carter l Barry Carter on Twitter