When Black Friday occured back on Friday April 15th, 2011, it put left the future entrants to the World Series of Poker up in the air. It was possible that players wouldn’t be able to maintain the bankrolls to play in the 2011 World Series, and also that we would lose players from the online tournaments that give tickets to World Series of Poker events. Some poker pro’s have their money still frozen online, while others have gone overseas to play online to make money. While it was obvious it would take some time into the World Series to see how this affected the field sizes, the first 23 events have given a strong indication that Black Friday hasn’t hit the 2011 WSOP quite as hard as expected.
Only six of the first 23 events have seen a decrease in participation, and some events have even grown by as much as 25 percent from last year. Events 18 and 20 at the 2011 WSOP broke records as a matter of fact. The records for largest single-day $1,500 event and largest single-day $1,000 event were broken, both in the same weekend. The $10,000 2-7 Lowball event was the event that grew by the most at a 25% increase from last year. While these events have done well overall, it’s the Main Event that most fans and players are interested in seeing the outcome of.
It’s tough to tell what’s caused the jump in numbers at the 2011 World Series of Poker, it could be that a lot of online players are needing to play these tournaments in order to continue to build their bankroll, or even just more people are interested in playing poker. If the first two weeks of play were any indication though, the World Series of Poker will be just fine, and the future could still be bright for poker in the United States.