Welcome to Event #8: €2,500 Short Deck

We've passed the half-way stage of the 2021 World Series of Poker Europe, as Event #8: €2,500 Short Deck gets underway at 1 p.m. local time.

The tournament comes with a €200,000 guarantee, and players are allowed unlimited re-entries for the first nine levels. Starting with 50,000 chips, levels are 40 minutes long.

As with any Short Deck tournament, players will have a double chance with their starting stack split into two 25,000 "bullets" that players can take at any point.

The defending champion of this tournament is Australia's Kahle Burns who won €101,834 after defeating a 179-player field.

Short-deck poker uses a smaller 36-card deck rather than the full 52-card deck.

The smaller deck makes it easier to make two-pair hands, which means a hand like top pair-top kicker is no longer as strong in six-plus hold'em as it is in regular hold'em.

Straights and full houses are also easier to make in six-plus hold'em than in the regular version of the game (a reason for the alternate hand rankings).