Whether you like to play in live tournaments yourself or just like to follow them to see who the big winners are, you’ll want to check out the schedule for the WSOP 2011, which was just announced last week. The series will consist of 58 events, which is one more than last year, and there have been some rule changes as well.

The two major rule changes will be as follows:

1. All tournament games will have pre-scheduled stop times. In previous years, play ended based on the number of players remaining in the game, but games could end late into the night. Now, tournament play will end after the tenth level of blinds at 12:45 in the morning. Games beginning at 5pm will end after the eighth level of blinds, closing at the day at 2 in the morning.
2. The WSOP games will be open for late registration through all four levels of tournament play (not including the Main Event, of course), or when the tournament has completely filled up.

The 2011 WSOP will open on May 31 with a Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em, 2-day $500 event. The final Championship games will take place in July, though the date of the Final Table has yet to be determined. $1,500 events will be played every Saturday and $1,000 events every Sunday throughout the course of the WSOP.