2016 World Series of Poker Predictions, Part 2: Colossus and Main Event Numbers

By admin
- Tweet
- Pin It
Updated: June 2, 2016

The 2016 World Series of Poker is here, with the 47th annual WSOP kicking off official gold bracelet play on June 1. The Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas will once again be home to poker’s most prestigious tournament series all summer long, and this year there will be 69 official gold bracelet events.

It’s without a doubt the most exciting time of the year, especially here in the PokerNews offices. As we enjoy doing every year, our team got together for a long list of 2016 WSOP predictions. For this year’s edition of our predictions piece, our team of staff analysts consist of PokerNews Editor-in-Chief Donnie Peters, Strategy Editor Martin Harris, PokerNews.NL Editor Frank Op de Woerd, staff editor Mo Nuwwarah, Remko Report host Remko Rinkema, and contributor Marty Derbyshire.

These predictions were done in two parts. In the first part, we hit on big storylines, WSOP Player of the Year, big guns Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Hellmuth, and Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson.

Now in the second part, we’ll look at the Colossus and other events on the schedule, past champions, and more.

Here is the second batch of our 2016 WSOP PokerNews Staff Predictions.

11. How many players will enter the Colossus?

Peters: 35,400 entries this year. Just taking the average entries per flight from last year and multiplying it by the six starting flights this year would give you over 33,500, and knowing the WSOP is always about being “bigger and better” you would anticipate they’d push the heck out of this thing to increase the per-starting flight entries. With two additional starting fights, an increased prize pool guarantee from $5 million to $7 million, $1 million guaranteed to the winner, the ability to forfeit a stack after Day 1, and players reaching the money at the end of Day 1, I would be extremely let down as an organizer if anything less than 30,000 was the final tally.

Harris: It’ll be huge again, although I think there had to be a percentage of folks who took their one shot a year ago and won’t necessarily return a second time. Let’s say 19,574.

Op de Woerd: 24,000 entries. A little up from last year, which was already a huge succes. With the bigger guarantee it might draw some more gold seekers, though there are lots of other tournaments for them to play during the Series this year as well.

Nuwwarah: There’s a bigger guarantee, so I’ll go with a bigger field. Let’s go 25,525, like we used to bet online to make it look more intimidating.

Rinkema: They need 14,000 entries to hit the guarantee, and last year there were already 22,374. I think we’ll go north of 30,000 this year with a guaranteed $1 million first prize, and I’ll be avoiding the Rio on the first starting flights! It will be mayhem, in the best possible way, and I hope the Colussus sees some big names go deep for a fun sweat.

Derbyshire: They’ll draw the unbelievable, yet predicted number of 25,000, and hail the entire 2016 WSOP a tremendous success by early June.

12. How many teams and players will enter the Tag Team event?

Peters: Lots of people are excited for this one, and I think you’ll see an average of 2.5 players per team. It has decent timing on the schedule that I think will help it attract a fairly big number for this event, and I’ll go with 400 teams and 1,000 players.

Harris: The WSOP brass surely has a good idea how to answer this question, but I really don’t. It’s going to be somewhat big, I think, with that low $1,000 buy-in (split 2-4 ways). I’ll guess 890 teams and 2,195 total players. This could be a curious one to follow, especially once it gets to the final table.

Op de Woerd: Since payouts will be calculated based on number of teams and be distributed evenly amongst teammates, I assume the best strategy is to have a small team of just two players. For really skilled players, really looking for EV instead of just a good time, it might even be best to find one player to join their team and have him or her just play a single orbit for a small percentage of the prize or set amount, instead of a blind 50-50 deal. I’m going with 250 teams and 750 unique players.

Nuwwarah: Just speculating wildly, I’ll say 270 teams with 900 players total.

Rinkema: It’s hard to predict how this event will do, but I’ll go with 1,000 teams in this event, and 2,500 total players.

Derbyshire: Is this really a thing I have to care about? Can I have those days off? All apologies to the Global Poker League’s Alex Dreyfus, I just don’t think poker is a team sport. Let’s say 100 teams and 200 players and hope it all finishes up quickly and goes away.

13. How many players will enter the $565 Pot-Limit Omaha event?

Peters: Can we say record field for the largest live pot-limit Omaha tournament ever? A PLO event with a $565 buy-in and reentries? The number is going to be big. I’ll say 3,753.

Harris: The low buy-in PLO events ($1K, $1,500) have been topping out at around 1,000-1,200 players, but this one will be much bigger. I’ll guess 3,550 players (which would be ginormous).

Op de Woerd: This is a tough one. I really have no idea, to be honest. It’s going to be big, but how big? Omaha is getting more popular by the day, and with the affordable buy in of just $565, I imagine a lot of players want to get it. Even I would like to play it, and I’ve hardly ever had four cards in my hand at the same time. I’ll go with 3,500 entries.

Nuwwarah: The $1,000 PLO last year got almost 1,300 and this should be a decent bit bigger with the reentries, so 3,150.

Rinkema: Pot-limit Omaha …

continue reading in source www.pokernews.com

Breaking news