A few days after the official schedule for this year’s edition of the WSOP was revealed, the popular Series made yet another important announcement. Online poker brand 888poker has been signed as the official sponsor for the most highly anticipated poker festival of the year. Thus, the WSOP and 888poker have extended their partnership beyond last year’s edition of the Series.
Under the terms of the agreement, 888poker will be secured with broad exposure on the WSOP website, particularly around the official live reporting section for the festival. Its logo will be visible to visitors based outside the US. In addition, the online poker brand will be featured quite prominently during the ESPN coverage of the WSOP Main Event and on the Series live streams. The sponsorship also provides 888poker with the exclusive right to run official online satellites for WSOP tournaments.
One such tournament will be Event #54, which has been nicknamed Crazy Eights. It will be an eight-handed $888 No-Limit Hold’em one with a guaranteed first-place prize of $888,888. It will be an official bracelet event, so the winner will also collect a gold piece.
Commenting on the sponsorship deal, 888 Holdings Senior Vice President and Head of B2C Itai Pazner said that by renewing their partnership with the WSOP, they will be able to send more of their players to Las Vegas this summer. Mr. Pazner further noted that the sponsorship deal is good not only for the 888poker brand and 888 players, but also for the poker community in general.
WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart praised 888poker’s commitment to promote the game of poker through unique incentives and offers throughout the world’s largest and most celebrated poker festival.
In 2015, the online poker room sent as many as 128 players to the Main Event, with eventual winner Joe McKeehen being among them. But apart from the big champion, another 888 player attracted quite a lot of attention. Tommy Yates won a WSOP Main Event package for a cent. The player eventually finished 486th for $19,500, after he was eliminated by McKeehen himself.
As mentioned above, the WSOP announced the official schedule for its 2016 edition earlier this week. Apart from several structural changes, the Series revealed 8 new events. There will be a total of 69 gold bracelet events this year, with the $565 Colossus II being among the highlight ones. Last year, the inaugural Colossus started off with a bang, attracting a record field of 22,374. In 2016, the event will feature a guaranteed prize pool of $7 million with a first-place prize of $1 million and is expected to draw an even larger field.
