The eleventh season of the WSOP Circuit will wrap up under the bright lights of the ESPN cameras with the 2015 WSOP National Championship – an official WSOP gold bracelet event and a share of $1,000,000+ in prize money on the line – from July 29-31, 2015 in North Carolina at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort.

Harrah’s Cherokee will host a WSOP National Championship Series from July 23-August 2, with thirteen different buy-in events, plus the National Championship freeroll. Two of these events, a $365 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event on July 24 & 25 and a $135 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event on July 26, will each award the victor one of the remaining seats into the National Championship, in addition to that tournament’s allotted prize money.

2015 WSOP NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFIERS

The 96 players who automatically qualified by winning a WSOP Circuit Main Event or Casino Championship, or were at-large points qualifiers can be seen here. All of these players earned a free seat, three nights hotel accommodation and a $500 travel stipend (will be paid out while at Harrah’s Cherokee). If you are one of the 100 qualifiers and have not heard from WSOP staff, please contact Simone Ricci at sricci@caesars.com

The entire 11-day event schedule can be found here. It includes $1,125, $3,250 & $5,300 buy-in events.

On Friday, July 24 at 5:00 pm, Flight A of Event #3 on the schedule features a $365 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em re-entry tournament, with three starting flights. Flights B and C will take place on Saturday, July 25 at 12 noon and 5 pm respectively. These three flights will combine on Sunday, July 26 and play to a winner, with that winner being awarded an automatic seat into the National Championship, in addition to the first place prize money.

On Sunday, July 26, at 3:00pm, Harrah’s Cherokee will then host a $135 “last-chance” two-day structured live No-Limit Hold’em tournament, with the winner taking home the lion’s share of the prize pool, but also the final seat awarded into the 2015 WSOP National Championship (1 seat).

This will bring the list of 2015 WSOP National Championship players to 100, who will all have earned their seat and shot at the title.

WSOP.com real-money-poker websites in both Nevada and New Jersey will host an online freeroll tournament in their respective states on Wednesday, July 8, 2015, where the winner of each tournament will automatically qualify (2 seats total) to the 2015 WSOP National Championship. To participate in the freeroll, players must simply finish in the Top 5 of any of the WSOP.com Online Championship event in the preceding 30 days this tournament series is offered online (further details on the WSOP.com Online Championships to be released at a later date). The WSOP Online Championships in both Nevada and New Jersey will each feature 90 events total – 3 events a day for 30 days – with up to 450 people qualifying for the freeroll in each regulated online poker state. This promotion is known as the 2015 WSOP National Championship Seat Freeroll. Winners of these seats will receive automatic entry into the National Championship, three nights hotel stay, plus a travel stipend.

2015 WSOP WORLD RANKING

In addition, the 100 players atop the WSOP World Rankings (see here) are eligible to buy-into this event for $10,000 as a result of their performance at all WSOP gold bracelet events over the previous two calendar years. Any of these players that do buy-in will have their $10,000 directly added to the prize pool rake-free along with the $1,000,000 being put up by the WSOP for this event. The 2015 WSOP has no bearing on this final list of qualifiers.

The three-day 2015 WSOP National Championship No-Limit Hold’em tournament will get underway at 12 noon on Wednesday, July 29 in the Harrah’s Cherokee Events Center with all eligible players. ESPN cameras will be on hand to cover the action with the final table taking place on Friday, July 31 in the Harrah’s Cherokee Event Center.

ESPN will televise this event on Tuesday, August 18 at 9:00 PM ET, with two-hours of coverage planned. The defending champion is Germany’s Dominik Nitsche, who entered last year via the World Rankings qualification $10,000 entry fee and walked away with $352,800 and his second WSOP gold bracelet (He now has three). Nitsche currently sits 21st in the World Rankings and therefore is eligible to buy-in again this year.