A few hours from now, when the clock hits 10 AM in Las Vegas, the biggest ever live poker tournament on the planet earth will kick off at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. Yes! The 2015 WSOP $565 Colossus No-Limit Hold’em event which brings $5,000,000 million guaranteed in prize pool is all set to break the poker attendance records. The most affordable event in the 2015 World Series of Poker has already received 14,000 pre-registrations making it the biggest live field.
“We wanted to do something big, better than last year, get people excited, jazzed about playing the World Series, and that’s really how it came about,” the WSOP tournament director Jack Effel said. “We got a lot of support from the internal executives, collaborated with several of the players. We went through a lot of discussions to eventually end up with it, and just the results of the last few months and the feedback that we’ve received from the poker community, it’s been nothing but positive.”
The Colossus event has four starting flights and a player can re-enter upto 4 times in the tournament. One will get 5,000 in the starting stack for this huge field tournament which will run for 5 days to crown the champion.
The current record for the biggest field live tournament is of 8,773 players in the 2006 WSOP Main Event and in a re-entry tournament it’s 7,977 in the $1,500 buy-in “Millionaire Maker” last year. Eyeing the 14,000 pre-registration, the attendance will easily shoot over 20,000 players which will still leave a plenty of room as the organizers have arranged for a capacity of 24,200 players.
“At the end of all this, at the end of Saturday night, I think we’re going to put up a pretty big number,” Effel said. “I think it’s going to be in the 25,000 range.” The Colossus will have a diverse range of players from amateurs to local pros, from regulars to recreational players making it the most amusing tournament ever.
“This is really something completely different. This is for anybody that knows hand rankings, likes the game, never thought the WSOP maybe was for them. It is. And this event is for you. We expect to see a lot of first-timers.” said WSOP executive director Ty Stewart.