Players who play the 2009 edition of World Series of Poker (WSOP) would note one aspect definitely, the starting chip stacks. The chip stacks that were doubled last year have been now tripled. On top of that, tournament organizers have come up with several levels to event structures. Here, Tournament Director Jack Effel tells in detail what players can expect in the new edition of WSOP that’ll begin in less than two months.

Explaining the introduction of 3x chips, Effel said that with 2x chips, the players felt that they never had enough with them to play at smaller events. Deep stack tournaments were popularized by the Venetian, and now the tournament is seen in most casinos worldwide. Effel said "It's a very competitive industry with a lot of tournaments moving to a deep stack format. However, putting on a successful event is difficult unless you really understand the math behind it." His wisdom on the math behind the game is borne out of the current WSOP game model based on playing time/day. Given the current economic crisis the world is embroiled in, Effel stresses the logic of giving the players more time to make the moves on the table. “It gives them plenty of game for their money”.

Since, according to the current game plan, each player receives 30,000 in starting chips, Effel expects each tourney to take an additional two levels to complete, or about four hours more for the Main Event. Further explaining on the point, he said, "You'll feel that in the beginning. It gives players more of an opportunity to make moves and use strategy. It's going to benefit both the little guy who won his way in and it's also going to benefit the pros, who have additional time to perfect their game." If to take a cue out of last years television ratings, which showed a whooping 50% jump in television ratings for the final table telecast, long drawn out games tend to attract more viewers than typical games.

Registration of the events would begin this week, even though the exact dates on the same is yet to be released. After inputs from the Players Advisory Council, all rebuy events were done away with from the 2009 edition of World Series of Poker.

For precise and latest information on the games, readers are requested to review the structure sheets of each event, given in the 2009 WSOP Schedule.