Records tumble at the WSOP

Naysayers who predicted that this year’s WSOP would be nothing but a damp squib have been forced to eat their words after the biggest series in 42 years.

With a combined prizepool of $191,999,010 spread across the 58 events, not even a slightly reduced Main Event field could tarnish what has been another showcase of poker overseas. Among the records to tumble were:

– The biggest live Omaha 8 event in history (925 entries)
– The biggest Senior’s event in history (3,752 entries)
– The largest PLO prizepool in history (3.39m)

In addition, total entrants across all events was up by 3,000 on 2010 to 75,672. But with Tom Dwan playing in 53 events and plenty of other degens putting in the hours, that figure’s not too hard to believe.

Last year’s Main Event clocked in at a healthy 7,032 runners, but 2011’s will still go down as the third largest Main Event in history, with 6,865 players stumping up the $10k buy-in.

And with only a few days to go before we close the book on another WSOP (well, until November anyways) it’s good to see poker is still going through a period of rude health. Here’s hoping for more of the same next year!