The WSOP Circuit has had its share of ups and downs (mostly downs) in recent years as its relevance has waned a bit in the past few years with small fields in their $5,000 main events at various Harrah’s properties across the US.

The announcement of the 2010-11 WSOP Circuit schedule today brings about several major changes done to push the tournament series back into relevance. Changes include a drop in the buy-ins of the Circuit Main Events to $1,500, four $10,000 buy-in “regional championships” that will air on national television (ESPN?), and a $1,000,000 freeroll tournament at Caesars’ Palace in May 2011.

More information found in their press release on below:

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The big announcement that the WSOP announced on Twitter over the weekend has now turned up online. The 2010 WSOP Tournament of Champions will have 27 players will meet in June to play for a $1 million prize pool with the winner earning $500,000. The twist for this year is that the public will vote for the remaining field of 20 WSOP bracelet winners. A list of the 521 living bracelet winners is available here , along with the current top 50 in online voting. Voting starts at noon ET March 15 and runs through June 15th at midnight. The other spots have been filled by these players:

Joe Cada – 2009 WSOP ME winner
Barry Shulman – 2009 WSOPE ME winner
Mike Sexton – 2006 WSOP TOC winner
Mike Matusow – 2005 WSOP TOC Winner
Annie Duke – 2004 WSOP TOC Winner
Two sponsor exemptions (the WSOP will announce details on how these seats will be awarded shortly)

The TOC will begin on June 27th at noon, and play down to the final table. Play will then resume July 4th (the day before the WSOP Main Event begins) and play down to a winner. ESPN will film the action to air as a two-hour show on August 3rd. The entire press release is on page 2:

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In a press release dated for Monday, Full Tilt Poker announces the signing of their youngest member to Team Full Tilt, Tom “Durrr” Dwan. Chances of an awkward press conference like the one held for Patrik Antonius?

From the press release:

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2,044 players remain when the World Series of Poker resumes Friday afternoon for Day 3, so today will mostly consist of the Commish’s media briefing and media tournament down at the Rio. The chip leader when play resumes appears to be Amir Lehavot with 610,500 in chips. An unofficial list of players for Day 3 is now up here. Five levels of play are now scheduled for the duration of the WSOP, with the money expected to be reached for Day 4 Saturday afternoon.

Page 2 consists of Nolan Dalla’s Tournament Report from the conclusion of play with further details:

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The remaining 1700 players are currently playing the fourth and final level of play today for day 2b, which will join the survivors from yesterday to return Friday at noon as the field will be together for the first time. Troy Weber remains the chip leader with 475,000 in chips. Other notables with chips: Brian Lemke (275,500), Phil Ivey (265,500), Kenny Tran (220,000), Hevad Khan (177,000), Antonio Esfandiari (173,000), Tony Hachem (155,000), Phil Hellmuth (139,000), Ville Wahlbeck (109,000), Kirill Gerasimov (105,000) and Tuan Le (102,000).

Notable eliminations: Bernard Lee, Robert Williamson III, Phil Tom, David Sklansky, Gavin Griffin, Howard Lederer, Scotty Nguyen, Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles (who was at the ESPN feature table with Hellmuth), Shannon Shorr and Erick Lindgren.

Check out the updates and chip counts at wsop.com here and more stuff from Pokerati during the late hours. WSOP Media tournament and media briefing tomorrow, I’ll be with Team Pokerati in spirit in the tournament. The Commish has quite a few announcements tomorrow, including the Poker Hall of Fame nominees so come back tomorrow.

The United States World Poker Tour announced their Season 8 schedule of US tour stops this morning, all airing on Fox Sports Net. This does not include the Barcelona (starting today), Slovakia, Cyprus and Marrakech stops already announced.

Press Release on the next page:

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For those that wanted to promote their latest and greatest promotions for their online sites, PRWeb was one of the better places to go for your press release needs. However, PRWeb is located in Washington state, which has a law saying that playing online gambling is a Class C felony. This apparently wasn’t a problem until last week, when the Washington State Gambling Commission apparently sent a cease and desist letter to PRWeb, telling them to knock it off. The Casino City Times and many other sites surely will have more news as this develops.