WSOP 2024 Players Guide: Championship Events

This is part three of PokerWired’s WSOP 2024 Players’ Guide, in which we take a deep look at different aspects of the schedule. 

In part one of the series we looked at the new events making their first appearance on a WSOP schedule. 

In part two we examined the Marquee (multi-starting-day) events that have become the hallmark of WSOP schedules in recent years. In this third part of the guide, we take a look at the Championship events on the 2024 WSOP schedule.

The WSOP Main Event has always been described as the Championship event and for years it was the only one named in such a way on the schedule, but that gradually changed over the years.

From the very beginning of the WSOP back in 1971, the only event to be described as a Championship was the Main Event. The WSOP  actually started in 1970 but there was no main event that year, it was just seven guys playing poker for a week and at the end of it they took a vote and declared Johnny Moss the Champion. 

Every year from 1971 until 1999 it remained the only tournament at the WSOP named as a Championship. 

Things changed in 2000, when the $1,060 Women’s event became a Championship. The first Women’s Champion was Nani Dollison, who defeatd a field of 133 players to take the title and the $53,200 first prize. 

Dollison proved her success was no fluke when she defended her title in 2001 for further $41,130. In fact 2001 was a great year for Dollison, as she also won another bracelet event that year, in $2,000 Limit Hold’em. 

In 2001 the $1,075 Seniors event also became a championship and 340 took part in its first iteration, with Jay Heimowitz winning it for $115,430.

In 2002 the same three events (Main, Ladies and Seniors) were the only championship events at the series.

but in 2003 it was back to just the main event being named as a Championship.

This year there was still no sign of the Ladies or Seniors events regaining their championship status, but two non-Hold’em tournaments did get that moniker. These were the $5,000 Omaha Hi Lo Split Championship and $5,000 7 Card Stud Championship. 

These two new Championship events did not stick and in 2005 and 2006 it was once again only the $10,000 WSOP Main Event that carried championship status

The WSOP had experienced huge growth in the years 2003-2006 and also moved venues during this time. It is understandable that Championship events were sidelined during time, as there were much greater logistical situations for the organisers to deal with. 

By 2007, with the WSOP now fully settled into its new home at the Rio, Championship events returned to the schedule, in a big way. The $1,000 Ladies and Seniors Championships both found themselves back on the menu, a $10,000 PLO Championship was born, as was the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. 

There were also eight $5,000 Championship events, covering many non-Hold’em formats. In total there were twelve Championship events in 2007 in addition to the main event.

The 2008 schedule was quite similar to that of the previous year, except that many of the $5k Championship events had their buy-in doubled to $10,000. By 2009 all of the Championship events had $10,000 buy-ins, with the exception of the Ladies ($1,000) the Seniors ($1,000) and the H.O.R.S.E, which remained at $50,000.

In 2011 the H.O.R.S.E buy-in was demoted to $10,000 and was replaced by the $50,000 8-Game Players Championship. 

In 2012 the $25,000 Heads Up Championship was added to the schedule.

Since then the formula for Championship events has remained more or less the same. Most are $10,000 buy-in events, with the exception of the Seniors, the Heads-Up and the Players Championship. The Ladies event is also now a $10,000 buy-in Championship.

At $600, the PokerNews Deepstack Championship is the cheapest Championship event, but it is not actually a new event, having run in 2023, but not sponsored by PokerNews.

If GG Poker launches details of the Road to Vegas promotion in the next few days, the 4th part of this guide will focus on qualification for the main event instead of non-hold'em events.