The biggest event in poker is back for 2011, with the official schedule for the World Series of Poker now available to players worldwide. We’ve picked out and broken down some of the most significant changes below to save your time and your eyesight.

A quicker overview of the 2011 WSOP: The 42nd edition of the WSOP will begin on May 31st, the Tuesday after Memorial Day, and will continue through July 19th, the last day of the main event before the November Nine. The main event begins on July 7th. The event will again take place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Review the full schedule here (PDF).

What’s Different for the WSOP in 2011?

There’s a lot to love, a little to hate, and some to miss about the newly released schedule for the 2011 WSOP; we’re going to take an in depth look at some of the more noticeable changes that have been made to the schedule.

Removed- $25,000 Six Max Championship. The removal of this event comes as a bit of a surprise, given the popularity of the event and the recent push of other tournament events to have a bigger variety of high buy-in events in their docket, like the NAPT $25,000 Bounty Shootout or the Aussie Millions $250,000 Super High Roller events. With 191 runners and a prize pool of $4,536,250, the final table of this event in 2010 featured the eventual player of the year Frank Kassela, three more established pros, and Brunson 10 member and online phenom Dan “djk123” Kelly as the winner of the $1,315,518 first place prize.

This seemed like a sure bet to still be in the fold for this year, but after the event last year, many players were grumbling about the fast paced structure for such a large buy-in event, Daniel Negreanu chief among them. This may be the reason the six max championship was (apparently) replaced by the…

Added- $25,000 Heads Up Championship. There have been heads up championships in the last few series, but not at this buy-in level, indicating that the WSOP is looking to compete directly with the NBC National Heads Up Championship by offering the same buy-in as the NBC with 256 starting slots and first come, first serve entry into the tournament, as opposed to the invite only structure that the NBC offers. This offering may shake up the NBC structure, forcing them to either increase the number of players, increase the buy-in, or throw some other wild card into the mix in order to keep the event relevant and generate interest; for the players not on a first name basis, like Andrew Lichtenberger, Jimmy Fricke, or others, would you rather enter the $25,000 on NBC and win $500,000 or the WSOP on ESPN and win +$1,500,000, a bracelet, and recognition/promotional deals from some of the top online sites? It worked for Dan Kelly in the six max, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it steal a good bit of the thunder away from NBC, in the process.

Moved- $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Last year, the biggest buy-in on the the WSOP docket was the very first event of the tournament (unless you count the casino employee’s championship) and presented a bit of a conundrum to players that wanted to play in it; do so and finish out of the money, and be looking at quite an uphill battle for the remainder of the tournament series. This may have discouraged some players from entering the tournament, along with others who didn’t have the bankroll at the time to play in the tournament, but did well later in the series and had the funds to play it, had it came around later in the series.

Although the late start as the 55th of 58 tournaments may in fact keep players interested in playing it that didn’t want to start the series with a large goose egg, my problem with making the tournament the last major tournament before the Main Event comes when you think of the mental preparation players must go through to prepare for the crown jewel of tournament poker. Playing a $50k event just before the main may be a task that some pros will not want to undergo prior to the Main, and will just skip it and rest up. Also, some players that may have played the $50k at the beginning of the series may have tapped out their bankroll by the time they get to this point and be unwilling to play the event thanks to their diminished bankroll. Overall, I think the net effect is going to be a basic wash; expect about the same enrollment this year as we saw last year, and expect the WSOP to scratch their heads and shift the timing of the tournament again next year.

Added- $2,500 Shorthanded 10-Game Mix. As more and more poker sites offer up a wide range of poker variants for players to play, expect the WSOP to keep up with the times and offer the same variations to players at the WSOP. The 10-Game Mix tournament is essentially the 10-Game Mix offered on Full Tilt Poker: no-limit hold’em, seven-card razz, limit hold’em, limit Badugi, seven-card stud, no-limit deuce-to-seven draw lowball, Omaha eight-or-better, pot-limit Omaha, limit deuce-to-seven triple draw lowball, and seven-card stud eight-or-better. Expect this event to be a hit with two major contingents of poker; the young Internet pros and the brick and mortar pros of yesteryear. The real question that this brings up; will this mean that the Poker Players Championship will expand to a 10-Game format in 2012, given that they quickly adjusted to an 8-Game format after 8-Game was introduced into the WSOP? I think the answer is yes, especially when they know they don’t have to televise the more technical games, instead only showing the No Limit Hold’em only final table on ESPN, which keeps the purists that are playing happy (pure mix of games) and the casual viewers happy (uh, what the hell is a badugi?)

Extended- Late Registration. Here’s another case of the glass being half full and half empty at the same time. Late registration has been extended in all tournaments except the main event to the first four levels of play in that tournament. This means that, for players that like playing multiple tournaments or starting later on in the tournament, the addition of two levels to buy-in means multi-tournament players will be much more likely to be accommodated than in years past.

However, this presents a seating and arrangement problem that may irk some players that chose to buy-in late last year; they’d generally be seated in the order they late registered in, instead of a random table draw, causing some monster tables to be formed not by luck of the draw, but by good old fashioned tardiness. It also means, for players in their first tournament, that the “real” tournament may not feel like it starts until level 5; seeing other players happily buy-in for stacks when they’ve been grinding it out for 3.5 hours may be a bit of an annoyance to the neophytes in the poker world. Expect this to become the norm at other major tournaments, as well; nothing helps the bottom line in these tournaments more than allowing as many buy-ins as humanly possible.

Changed- Hard Stop Times. This is an encouraging sign that the WSOP is listening to the players rumblings and grumblings as the years progress. Hard times mean that, no matter the amount of players left in a specific tournament, there is a maximum of ten levels that can be played during a day, and breaks and dinner break will all occur at a hard, predetermined time, instead of shifting to accommodate the remaining players in a slow or fast moving tournament. This allows for better scheduling, and keeps players from being forced to play an excessive amount of levels in order to get to a predetermined number of players remaining in the tournament, which reduces player fatigue and helps players make a more linear schedule for their play throughout the series.

There’s not much to complain about this change; this has been a sorely needed addition with the 14 hour days and the sudden “OK, let’s dinner break on the WSOP Main Event bubble a bit early” decisions of the past few years. A lot of more casual fans may be much more vocal about the other shifts on the list, but this single initiative may be the biggest step towards upping overall player happiness and increasing revenue in the long run.

So, How Will It All Work Out?

With this changes and more in place for the 2011 WSOP, what’s my final take on all of this? The people behind the WSOP always have a difficult task in lining up a tournament series that accommodates all walks of players, and the continued shift towards a larger variety of games with this years 10-Game is a sign that the WSOP is getting it right. Losing the $25k Six-Max tournament, however, seems like a definite mistake, and the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship, while neat and very likely to fill, doesn’t exactly replicate the excitement generated by the skill of the Six-Max players.

The general improvements in late registration (a debatable improvement) and hard stop times (a godsend) will certainly let the poker playing community know that the WSOP does have player interest in mind when crafting their series. It’s shaping up to be another record breaking year at the WSOP, and with the changes made by the WSOP, the end of the series is shaping up to be the biggest and most exciting finish yet with a $50k/Main Event 1-2 punch.