First the ring, then the bracelet.  The World Series promoted its secondary tour with that mantra.  First the ring, then the bling (wouldn’t have been bad either).  This year they are change things up, the most important points:  Television coverage will back, the structures will be standardized, they will institute a cumulative points system, and have Super Regionals with bigger buy-in Main Events and a season ending National Championship.  What’s that got for an armchair Texas Holdem poker game specialist?

Well, plenty. As usual there will be a ton of Online Sit and go poker tournaments and satellites for players to qualify into bigger events and the circuit has stepped up the prestige (and price) of some of their main events. Four locations now packaged as Super Regionals will host 10k buy-in events.

The four super regionals appear to start in the Midwest with Horseshoe Hammond event in October. That’s Chicago Area. Then the Northeast gets a 10k event in early December at Harrahs Atlantic City. In early March the West Coast gets their turn in the San Diego area at Harrahs Rincon. Finally, the last stop on the circuit is the Harrah’s New Orleans event. These four stops also will get two hour national television coverage.

The price of poker isn’t going up everywhere. The circuit is wisely LOWERING the Main Events of the other stops that aren’t Regional Championships. Every one of those stops will have Main Events for $1500. The goal is to encourage more players to play more events to accummulate more points. Point system?

Every tournament, throughout a “season” will award points for each official World Series of Poker Circuit “Ring” open event (sorry ladies and seniors no points for those tournaments). The points will enable a player to qualify for a season ending National Championship will 100 players will be invited to Caesers Palace in Las Vegas just before the start of the World Series. The event will be televised as well, feature a 1 million dollar prize pool and award a World Series of Poker Gold Bracelet.

Every event will have the same standardized structures and pay-outs. The rake will be the same, the staffs will be mostly the same, and the hotel rates will be widely variable. Interestingly enough the Circuit this year will also include an event in South Africa (overlapping a stop at the IP Casino Resort & Spa in Biloxi) but even though it is part of the schedule and the suggest every event is equal, that one is not. No idea if it will be held to the same standardized structure or not either.

So… besides the Emerald Casino in South Africa, there are the four regional championships and eight other stops. The other stops consist of Horsehoe Council Bluffs in Iowa (to start the Circuit), the Horseshoe Souther Indiana, followed by Horseshoe Hammond regional event. Then it’s Biloxi at the IP, followed by Harveys Lake Tahoe, and Harrahs Atlantic City for the next regional. Harrahs Tunica buts up against Caesers back in Atlantic City followed by the Western Regional at Harrahs Rincon. Harrahs St. Louis and Caesers Palace lead into the final regional and final event at Harrahs New Orleans.

That’s not quite all, despite the smooth symmetry of 8 regular stops and four big boys with two leading up to one and following the same two-one-two-one-two-one progression, Harrahs promises a handful other stops to possibly be announced in the months ahead. They better get annoucing because the first event shuffles up and deals August 19th, with no less than four events in October (counting the one in South Africa… that isn’t really one). There really isn’t too much space in between.