Those who are tired of seeing reruns of the 2008 World Series of Poker on ESPN will be relieved to hear that the World Wide Leader has plans to start airing footage from the 2009 WSOP on July 28th. And ESPN will be showing much more of the Main Event through this footage since so many people have requested it. In fact, there will even be a 24 hour period of time where ESPN will only be airing the 2009 Main Event.
The only catch to this increased coverage of the WSOP Main Event is that ESPN will show just one other bracelet event. Last year, the network showed 3 other bracelet events in addition to the Main Event. The lone other bracelet event they will show is the $40,000 40th Anniversary No-Limit Hold’em tournament that was held to commemorate 40 years of the WSOP.
In fact, the 40th Anniversary event will kick-off ESPN’s coverage of the 2009 WSOP as it begins at 8pm ET on July 28th. This will last two hours while ESPN will have two more events following this one in the WSOP Champions Invitational and the Ante Up for Africa charity tourney; both of these tournaments will be shown for two hours as well. The Ante Up for Africa tournament is especially interesting since many celebrities took part in it including Ben Affleck, Brad Garrett, Charles Barkley, Matt Damon, Ray Romano, Adam Sandler, and Don Cheadle.
On August 18th, ESPN will begin showing two hour episodes of the WSOP Main Event with each day being shown for two hours. So Day 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D will all have their own separate episodes, and ESPN will continue like this until Day 8 is shown on November 3rd. The final table of the 2009 Main Event begins on November 7th and will conclude on November 10th.
