World Series of Poker Europe Schedule Announced

Barry Shulman will try to defend his WSOP Europe win in September.

It’s long been a foregone conclusion that Harrah’s, the parent company of the World Series of Poker, would take the tournament series back to London this year for a fourth installment of WSOP Europe. Yesterday the formal announcement was made and the schedule published, making its official.

The WSOP Europe schedule is expanding this year to five events, up one from the last two years and from the three events that inaugurated the European version of the longest-running poker tournament series in the world. The new tourney on the schedule is Event #4, the £10,350 No Limit Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up tournament. It should draw the world’s top players and be a bigger test of skill than made-for-television events like the NBC National Heads-Up Championship.

One other change involves the invitation-only Caesars Cup, an Americas-versus-Europe team event held last year. The European team easily handled the Americans, perhaps providing incentive to change things up this year.

Other than the new event and the omission of the Caesars Cup, though, things are staying pretty much the same in London later this year. The schedule opens with a £2,650 No Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, followed by a £5,250 Pot Limit Omaha event, a three-starting-day £1,075 No Limit Hold’em event, and of course the WSOP Europe Main Event.

The first event of the 2010 installment of World Series of Poker Europe gets started on Tuesday, September 14th, and the Main Event is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday, September 28th. The defending champion in that tournament is Card Player Magazine’s publisher, Barry Shulman, who defeated Daniel Negreanu in a long, memorable heads-up battle to win the £801,000 first prize.