The 42nd annual World Series of Poker at the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino reached the halfway point yesterday. Even though many thought Black Friday would affect this year's WSOP negative, the participation is up 11.7% so far with 33,173 entrants and 8.6% bigger prize pool than 2010 WSOP. Not less than 11 WSOP tournament records have been broken so far. They are:
Biggest Heads-Up tournament prize pool in history ($3,040,000) - Event #2
Largest live Omaha High-Low Split Tournament in history (925 entries) - Event #3
Largest live Six-Handed tournament in poker history (1,920 entries) - Event #10
Biggest Deuce-to-Seven tournament prize pool in history ($1,184,400) - Event #16
Largest live $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournament in history with single day start (3,157 entries) - Event #18
Largest live $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em tournament in history with single day start (3,175 entries) - Event #20
Largest consecutive-days starting field sizes in poker history (combined 6,332 entries) - Event #18 and Event #20
Largest live Pot-Limit Omaha tournament in poker history (1,071 entries) - Event #22
Largest Mixed-Game (Eight-Game Mix) in poker history (489 entries) - Event #23
Largest Seniors poker tournament in history (3,752 entries) - Event #30
Largest live $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em tournament in history with single day start - Event #30 (breaks record established in Event #20)
Apart from all the big tournaments, there are also a lot of cash games running non-stop at the RIO. Not less than 96 live poker tables have been filled to capacity. The cash games offered range from $1/$2 blinds to high stakes games with $1,000 / $2,000 blinds. But that's not all. According to Swedish poker pro William Thorson, there was a Pot Limit Omaha cash games with $4000 / $8000 blinds the other day that attracted many big names (Tom Dwan etc). One can just imagine how much money these guys gambled with.
