2025 WSOP Schedule Released - Daniel Negreanu & Phil Hellmuth React

Considered the premier platform for professional poker, the prestigious event always showcases high-profile tournaments in varying formats - with substantial prize pools. 

The media coverage is always extensive and it's not surprising to see poker celebrities using social media to communicate their anticipation of the event - or lack thereof.

But that's what Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth have been doing with one committing and one potentially skipping WSOP.

Daniel Negreanu, the Canadian poker player and GGPoker ambassador, has won seven WSOP bracelets.He had a significant win last year during his participation at the 2024 WSOP. 

The Canadian, who is considered to be among the best poker players ever, earned nearly $1.2 million in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship last year. 

In that event, he outlasted Bryce Yockey and Chris Brewer at the final table en route to the bracelet.

But despite his impressive track record, Negreanu has yet to make the final table of the Main Event, coming close in both 2001 and 2015. Presumptively, RealKidPoker, as he goes by on X, will attempt to debut at the final table this year.

In contrast, Phil Hellmuth, an American poker legend, recently announced his intention to not participate in the 2025 Main Event. 

Hellmuth, who won the tournament in 1989 and became the youngest champion at that time, recently expressed his concerns over what the Main Event has become. 

Specifically, Hellmuth criticized the current structure of the tournament concerning the lengthy 12-hour poker days. Hellmuth's point is that such endurance tests diminish the skill aspect of the competition.

The complexion of poker tournaments has changed dramatically since Hellmuth's early-career victories. When he won the world championship, the field of Main Event entrants was fewer than 200. 

But since then the poker landscape has been shaped and influenced by the rise of online poker players and changing player demographics. 

It only makes sense that the increased length of tournaments raises challenges for older competitors as younger players will have an advantage in most competitions, whether games of skills or sports, due  to improved stamina

Where do others sit on the length of the sessions in the main event? If you go by Hellmuth's claims, then his stance has proponents. 

Hellmuth claimed that four other talented players "blew" the main event because "they got too tired." Still, others will surely retort that endurance will be a part of any competition. 

Perhaps the balance is that the sessions should be capped at about eight hours - which is the standard for a normal workday in society.

"It's gonna really hurt me to not play in the world's best poker tournament at the World Series of Poker's main event," Hellmuth claimed, "but in 2025 I'm out."

Of course, this is Hellmuth we're talking about so there is a chance that he's doing one thing: bluffing. That said, it could be that while The Poker Brat knows a thing or two about dodging bullets, dodging Father Time is a different matter. 

Now 60 years old, hopefully, Hellmuth still has the stamina for the smaller events at the WSOP. We'll find out if he is bluffing or not on July 2, 2025 when the Main Event starts.