Caesars Entertainment has released the schedule for the World Series of Poker Circuit event to be held Dec. 1-12 at Harrah’s Resort.

Missing from the schedule is the high stakes, $9,700 buy-in regional championship held at last year’s event (won by Chris Bell). That high buy-in led to low turnouts at the four regionals held last year (only 136 at the Harrah’s event), so the WSOP discontinued them.

There are 12 “main” events on the schedule, which award WSOP circuit rings, and plenty of satellites and secondary “non-ring” events.

The three-day championship event will be held starting Dec. 10. It carries a $1,500 + $100 buy-in.

Satellites for the championship event start immediately on Dec. 1.

Here’s the schedule:

The WSOP has announced the schedule for it’s 2011-12 circuit events and once again Atlantic City has two stops in the 16-stop circuit: At Harrah’s Resort in December and at Caesars in March.

The events begin next month with an event at the Horsehoe Bossier City in Louisiana from Sept. 8-19. Bossier City is a new stop for the circuit.

The Harrah’s Resort event is scheduled for Dec. 1 through 12. The Caesars event is scheduled for March 1-12. There is also a circuit event scheduled for Harrah’s Chester April 26-May 7.

Tournament schedules for the events have not been released.

Some changes have been announced. For example, the $1,600 main events will now be re-entry events. All “ring” events will have buy-ins from $300 to the $1,600.

Last year’s circuit included four $10,000 regional championships, but the high stakes tournaments didn’t draw well and are now gone.

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The World Series of Poker Circuit events offered up a Limit Omaha High event Tuesday, and as you might expect in this No Limit Hold’em world, it wasn’t exactly a barnburner. Still, the WSOP deserves props for offering an event for purists.

The tournament, a $300 buy-in, attracted 90 players and a prize pool of  $26,190. But despite what the WSOP describes as a graying field, the winner was a 27-year-old player from Pittsburgh, Mun Nguyen who wins $8,380. It’s Nguyen’s second cash at the circuit events as he had a second place finish in Event 4, a $500 + $70 No Limit tournament, good for a $25,451 cash.

More importantly, it gives him valuable points in the WSOP’s point system and leaves him in a good spot to nab a seat at the circuit championship in Las Vegas in May.

Some previous results include a win for Travel “T” Thomas, a Buffalo NY business owner who took Event 6, a $750 No Limit buy-in that paid him $30,455. The event drew 155 players and a prize pool of $112,762.

While it was a Monday event with a high buy-in, you have to think Caesars is getting a little disappointed with the turnouts for the circuit events. Hopefully Friday’s main event will break up the funk.

One of the central selling points for the World Series of Poker circuit events is that it gives young, up-and-coming players a chance to taste a little of the big time in live play.

Rocha

And the perfect example is the winner of Event 3 at the Harrah’s Resorts circuit events — 21-year-old Alex Rocha of Long Island.

Not only did Rocha take the $33,183 first place money for the event, a $300 buy-in No Limit tournament, he’s been on quite a roll lately.

This is Rocha’s second cash in the circuit event (two out of three, not bad) after gaining a 15^th place finish in Event 1; good for $4,187.

He also picked up a seventh place finish in a $1,500 event at The Borgata Open in September ($17,415) and had a couple of cashes at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods last month, according to his record posted at thehendonmob.com.

So the kid’s hot.

Event 3, which started Tuesday,  attracted a healthy 543 players and a $158,013 prize pool, (which doesn’t actually add up, but are the numbers released).

Still, that’s an encouraging crowd to say the least and the events continue to attract strong fields. The event paid 63 players.

Rocha came down to heads-up action with regular A.C. player James Boyd of Martinsburg W.Va. He takes $20,524 for second

As always, we give you the final hand rundown from the WSOP:

“Heads up play began shortly before 1:30am (Thursday) with [Rocha] a dominating chip lead over his final opponent, heads up action was short with Rocha all-in with Q-J vs. suited 6-5 for Boyd. The ace high board missed both players, giving Rocha his first live major tournament win.”

And here’s a little more on Boyd from the WSOP, showing its not all kids at the circuit events.

“Jim Boyd is a tried and true member of poker’s old guard and has played with the best of them included the late Stu Ungar. The 57-year-old from Martinsburg, VA has over a million in lifetime tournament earnings with his first major tournament cash taking place back in 1989 World Series of Poker.”

Event 4 of the tournament starts at 11 am today and is a $1,000 + $100, tournaments, the highest buy-in so far. It’s a two-day event.

When the World Series of Poker announced its new format earlier this year for its circuit events, some poker pundits (if there is such a thing) questioned the move, especially the creation of $10,000 buy-in regional championship tournaments. After all, if you’re not attracting players, upping the money is a risky move.

Well, the circuit events have been underway for several weeks and so far, the revamp seems to be working. And that bodes well for two Harrah’s properties in A.C. — Harrah’s Resort and Caesars — which will host WSOP Circuit events in December and March respectively.

Harrah’s Resort in particular, which will host one of those 10K events, has to be happy that a similar 10K event in Hammond Indiana (which is real close to Chicago) has attracted a decent, if unspectacular field of 226 players. You have to figure A.C. can top that.

This year’s circuit events are already seeing some records broken. The current  stop at the Horseshoe Casino set a record for a circuit event by attracting 1,611 entrants for its opening event, a $350 buy-in that also served as a satellite for the $1,600 main event.

(The “main” events at circuit stops are separate from regional championships).

The WSOP Circuit ring

Chicago’s main event drew a record 872 players and was won by Kurt Jewell, a Kentucky-based pro. He takes home $242,909.

The final table for the 10K regional championship, which has a prize pool of $2,101,800 – the largest WSOP Circuit purse in more than three years — gets underway today. The winner will take home $525,449, plus the WSOP Circuit gold ring.

Some notables who have played at the regional championship, which will be televised nationally, include: Barry Greenstein, Gavin Smith, David Baker, Chris Bell, Chad Brown, Nick Binger, Matt Brady, Doug “Rico” Carli, Eric Froehlich, Matt Glantz, Blair Hinkle, Frank Kassela, Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler, Kathy Liebert, Jeff Madsen, Jason Mercier, Brock Parker, Sorel Mizzi, Tony Rivera, Vanessa Selbst, Dan Shak, Shannon Shorr, Justin Smith, Matt Stout, Bernard Lee, and Steve Zolotow.

December’s circuit event in A.C. should continue to keep the circuit on a roll.