Now this is BIG ...

It's happened. Harrah's tinkered around with the formula for the WSOP so much that someone finally stepped up to challenge poker's signature event. For the 2004 WSOP, Harrah's pretty much left things alone, but in 2005, they've moved the early rounds out to the Rio (on the strip) and have pushed the dates back a month. Now, along comes the Plaza, announcing that it will fill the empty dates on the calendar now that the WSOP has moved.

The Plaza plans to hold the "Plaza World Poker Classic" from April 18 to May 17. This brings a large tournament back to downtown Vegas at the time of year the WSOP would normally be held. However, there is one big difference. The buy-in to the WPC will be $50,000, a hefty leap from the WSOP's $10,000.

This could be interesting, especially if they are able to attract a significant number of players. They only need 600 to eclipse the prize pool offered during the 2004 WSOP. Just imagine if they were able to attract 1,000 or more. Of course, that might be a problem. Last year's WSOP field was greatly swollen by the flood of players who qualified online, but the WPC is new, so no one is offering a way to qualify online at this point, and there isn't much time left for the sites to put something together. Plus the buy-in alone should thin the herd quite a bit.

Gaming Today has the full story here.