WSOP 2024 Players Guide: Non-Hold'em Events

This is part four of PokerWired’s WSOP 2024 Players’ Guide, in which we take a deep look at different aspects of the schedule. 

In part one of the series we looked at the new events making their first appearance on a WSOP schedule.

In part two we examined the Marquee (multi-starting-day) events that have become the hallmark of WSOP schedules in recent years and in part three we perused the Championship events. 

In this edition we look at the non-Hold'em bracelet events on the 2024 WSOP tournament schedule.

Most sites do offer Pot Limit Omaha and some have other variants like Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven Card Stud, Razz and even Badugi, but there is less liquidity in the more specialised games. If you do find them, they are most likely to be played as cash games rather than tournaments. 

In most poker games (except Badugi), what defines it as poker is that the object of the game is to make a 5-card poker hand. But beyond that, the process that you take to get to the end of the hand amd make that 5-card poker hand varies. In some variants the object is not even to make the best 5-card poker hand, but can be to make the worst 5-card poker hand.

The other key difference is that in Omaha, players MUST use precisely two of their hole cards and three of the board cards to contruct their best 5-card poker hand. 

Omaha is usually but not exclusively played as a pot limit game, meaning that the maximum that can be bet on any single betting street is equivalent to the amount already in the pot at that point.

The WSOP does rather better than most at providing non-Hold’em tournaments. The WSOP has always been about more than just two hole card games. 

In the early 1970s, during the first few years of the series, the only game that was No Limit Hold’em was the $10,000 Championship Main Event. When WSOP schedules were much shorter and only consisted of a few events, every event would be a different format with No Limit Hold’em (dubbed the ‘Cadillac’ of Poker by the late Doyle Brunson) reserved for the end of the series, as the Main Event. 

But after a few years one or two more NLH tournaments were included in the dozen or so events that comprised the WSOP. The schedule remained fairly consistent from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, with between 13-18 events each year, with no more than four No Limit Hold’em competitions included. Apart from the Main Event, the WSOP didn’t become focused on No Limit Hold’em until 2005. 

The number of NLH tournaments had increased by one every year since 2002 but in 2005, the number more than doubled year-on-year, with 13 such tournaments included. The reason for this is obvious, as Chris Moneymaker’s win in 2003 had been sparked by rapid growth of internet poker which continued to grow over the next few years. 

Most of the new players taking up the game online were exclusively playing No Limit Hold’em and this is reflected in the WSOP schedules in the 2000s. While in 2005 13/43 events were No Limit Hold’em, by 2006 it had risen to 25/46 events. Ever since then, the majority of bracelets every year have been for No Limit Hold’em tournaments.

In 2006, the WSOP sought to elevate the status of non-Hold’em games by introducing the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E tournament, which would become known as the Players’ Championship. A few years later this event changed from being H.O.R.S.E to an Eight Game Mix. 

Often lauded as one of the most skilled player to ever play poker, Chip Reese won the inaugural Players’ Championship and in the years that would follow Scotty Nguyen and Freddy Deeb took the top spot.

But non-Hold’em games were (and still are) an important part of the WSOP with 42 of the 99 bracelet events being either non-Hold’em or mixed games (mixed games often include No Limit Hold’em as one game in the rotation). The 2024 WSOP schedule includes 28 tournaments that feature no Hold’em whatsoever.

Here’s the full list of all 42 non-Hold'em bracelet events, followed by a breakdown of every tournament in each non-Hold’em discipline (but including mixed games in which Hold’em features along with other variants).