WPT Releases a Slimmer Season 7 Schedule

The schedule of tournaments for the World Poker Tour’s seventh season was made available today on its website, and it is notably slimmer than that of its sixth season.

Rumors have been swirling amongst tournament players that the Season 7 schedule for the World Poker Tour would omit several of the events that typically begin the season, specifically the Mirage Poker Showdown and the Mandalay Bay Poker Championship. The new schedule confirmed that those were only two of the stops no longer available on the tour. Other Season 6 tournaments that are not on the schedule for Season 7 are the WPT Spanish Championship in Barcelona, the Turks and Caicos Poker Classic, WPT Ladies Night, the World Poker Open in Tunica, and the World Poker Challenge in Reno.

Founder, President, and CEO of WPT Enterprises Steve Lipscomb stated, “Industry and player feedback has provided a very clear message about the volume of tour stops, so we looked at the schedule structure and applied that input for Season VII. This schedule will give players more opportunity to participate in satellites and other events, plus it allows the WPT and casino partners to focus on bigger promotional opportunities around each event to drive increased field sizes, richer prize pools, and more media coverage.”

Clearly, Lipscomb is indicating that this new schedule, which downsizes the number of tournaments from 21 to 14 for its seventh season, is a positive move to focus on the quality of the stops remaining on the schedule.

What is also clear is that several of the stops that were removed, such as Barcelona and Turks and Caicos, were some of the more expensive endeavors. Possibly a trimmed budget for the season, as a result of the decreased revenue in GSN broadcasts versus past Travel Channel broadcasts, speculatively caused the company to take another look at production costs.

However, it must be noted that when the Season 6 schedule was released last year, it did not include stops like Barcelona – a deal that was in progress at the time and added at a later date. It is possible that more WPT tournaments could be added to the schedule as the season nears and/or progresses.

The Season 7 schedule for the World Poker Tour reads as follows:

• Jul. 11-17 Bellagio Cup IV - Bellagio in Las Vegas, NV
• Aug. 23-28 Legends of Poker - Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, CA
• Sept. 14-18 Borgata Poker Open - Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ
• Oct. 10-16 North American Poker Championship - Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
• Oct. 20-25 Festa Al Lago - Bellagio in Las Vegas, NV
• Nov. 5-11 Foxwoods World Poker Finals - Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, CT
• Dec. 13-19 Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic - Bellagio in Las Vegas, NV
• Jan. 16-19 Gulf Coast Poker Championship - Beau Rivage in Biloxi, MS
• Jan. 25-29 Borgata Poker Classic - Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ
• Feb. 28-Mar. 5 L.A. Poker Classic - Commerce Casino in Commerce, CA
• Mar. 7-9 WPT Celebrity Invitational - Commerce Casino in Commerce, CA
• Mar. 16-20 Bay 101 Shooting Star - Bay 101 in San Jose, CA
• Apr. 4-9 Foxwoods Poker Classic - Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, CT
• Apr. 18-25 WPT World Championship - Bellagio in Las Vegas, NV

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