In this installment of the WSOP Notebook I will take a look at the early attendance numbers at the 2012 WSOP as well as update you on one of the more interesting stories developing at the 2012 WSOP.

Attendance over the first 7 events

One of the big questions coming into the 2012 WSOP was, for the second straight year, attendance. Whether or not the WSOP is a success is in large part determined by the overall attendance as well as the attendance in the Main Event. So far seven tournaments have gotten underway at the 2012 WSOP and the attendance numbers have been quite interesting thus far.

While it’s impossible to gauge what these attendance numbers mean for the WSOP tournament series as a whole, even in the exact same event year-over-year because the timing of the events is constantly changing at the WSOP, the numbers do give us a good indication as to how the 2012 WSOP will stack up to the 2011 WSOP.

* Event 1: $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em – 2012 = 732 entries: 2011 = 850 entries

* Event 2: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em– 2012 = 2,101 entries: 2011 = 3,157 entries

* Event 3: $3,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha – NEW EVENT

* Event 4: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8-or-Better – 2012 = 622 entries: 2011 = 606 entries

* Event 5: $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em – 2012 = 639 entries: 2011 = 765 entries

* Event 6: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Mixed-Max — NEW EVENT

* Event 7: $1,500 Seven Card Stud – 2012 = 367 entries: 2011 = 357 entries

Attendance is down from last year at this point, with most tournaments pretty much holding steady to last year’s numbers. The only true outliers being a massive (30%) drop in attendance in the first $1,500 NLHE event and more than 100-player drop in attendance in the $1,500 Pot Limit Holdem tournament.

The Year of the Women looks to be upon us

So far we have seen five events reach the final table, and we have had at least one woman at four of those five final tables, including two in Event #4, the $1,500 7-Card-Stud 8 or better tournament.

Patricia Baker got the ladies off to a fast start by finishing 2nd in the $500 Casino Employee tournament, followed by Vanessa Selbst’s 4th place finish in Event #2 (the last female to win a WSOP open-event bracelet which occurred in 2008). In Event #3 Annette Obrestad made it to the Elite 8 round of the $3k Heads-up PLO/NLHE event, and in Event #4, the $1,500 Stud 8 event, Xuan Liu finished in 6th place and Bonnie Rossi in 8th (as well as a 9th place finish by Marsha Waggoner and a 13th place finish by Linda Johnson).

It really seems like this will be the year where women come into their own at the WSOP, and I’m still optimistic that there will be multiple female bracelet winners as well as a woman at the Main Event final table – something I feel will lead to a second poker boom (albeit not on the same scale as in the early 2000’s).

Bracelet winners

Two more bracelet winners were crowned on Thursday, as Cory Zeidman captured the Stud-8 bracelet in Event #4, and Leif Force who won the $3k Heads-Up PLO/NLHE title. Another gold bracelet will be awarded on Friday, as the final table of the $1,500 Pot limit Holdem event will take place at 2PM local time.

Here is a look at the final table chip-counts for the 9 remaining players in the tournament:

1. Bryan Pellegrino – 790,000

2. Jonathan Aguiar – 552,000

3. Keanu Tabali – 309,000

4. Nick Jivkov – 281,000

5. Tommy Vedes – 247,000

6. Daniel Negreanu – 212,000

7. Brant Hale – 211,000

8. John Eames – 181,000

9. Mike Allis – 86,000

Tags: Attendance Numbers, Card Stud, Casino Employees, Gauge, main event, Notebook, Pot Limit Omaha, Success, WSOP, Year Of The Women

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2012 at 8:25 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.