Players unhappy with the WSOP Paradise schedule

The World Series of Poker has released the schedule for the Paradise festival, which will take place from December 2 to 17 in the Bahamas. It will be hosted for the first time by the Baha Mar Hotel & Resort, which replaced the smaller and less luxurious Atlantis. The calendar includes 20 events with a combined guarantee of $120,000,000. However, players were unhappy with the emphasis on high-roller events.

WSOP champion Patrick Leonard believes that the Omaha events and Omaha/Hold'em mix events with buy-ins of $25,000 and $50,000 are aimed at a very narrow circle of players, since the majority of poker players won't be able to afford to enter them.
"Most players are now left out — the buy-ins are so high that without backing or sponsorship you simply can't play. The same 25 people will enter these events with re-entries and basically split the bracelets among themselves. I'm not sure how good that is for poker and for the brand. But I'm sure they've taken all of this into account," Leonard wrote on his X.

In addition, Leonard believes that GGPoker, which now owns the WSOP, wants to make its main ambassador Daniel Negreanu the record holder for the number of bracelets. A large number of high-roller tournaments should help the Canadian win more trophies. In the Brit's opinion, the eight-time WSOP champion will be able to win two bracelets a year.

Leonard also noted that thanks to a schedule like this, players such as Artur Martirosyan and Eelis Parssinen will soon overtake former tournament grinders in the number of bracelets.

The discontent is also connected to the fact that WSOP Paradise is positioned as a destination for WSOP Circuit players. Ring holders received seats in the festival's first event — the $2,750 Circuit Championship Mystery Bounty. This event replaced the Tournament of Champions, whose attendance dropped sharply after it was moved to Los Angeles.

However, after that there's only one event with a buy-in below $5,300 on the schedule, whereas Circuit participants usually play tournaments with buy-ins up to $1,000. Most of them don't have the bankroll for festivals with an average buy-in of $38,000, which is what WSOP Paradise will have this year.
"I've never fully understood WSOP Paradise. The second-biggest WSOP series of the year, but it's held outside the US, creating travel difficulties for the bulk of the audience. The exorbitant buy-ins cut off most players.

They replaced the Tournament of Champions reward for Circuit winners — who are essentially all low- and mid-stakes players — with a seat in a tournament of this series, where everything else is out of reach for them. They crammed the 'Player of the Year' race into all of this, making that title even more unattainable for regular players. So what's the real goal?" American regular Derek Kwan wrote on X.

Tournament regular Chris Conrad believes that a compromise option could be to run the WSOP Circuit series during WSOP Paradise.

The Super Main Event with a buy-in of $26,000 has a guarantee of $50,000,000 this year. It was the same in 2024, but it wasn't reached. Last year the guarantee was raised to $60,000,000 and that mark was surpassed with room to spare. However, the prize pool of $72,000,000 was largely formed due to a format that encouraged significantly more re-entries. This hit many players' bankrolls hard and led to discontent among some participants.

In recent years, WSOP Paradise has competed with the World Poker Tour festival at the Wynn casino in Las Vegas. The WPT series included many events with small buy-ins, and the $1,100 WPT Prime event attracted thousands of players. However, so far WPT has not announced plans to hold a festival at the Wynn.

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