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Recently, there has been a plethora of articles and editorials from poker magazines, blogs, web sites and newsletters stating arguments for refining or changing the WSOP. Mainly, these are arguments for making sure its more likely for a pro to win the WSOP main event again, changing the event or buy in for the main event, or raising the limits all over to limit the field. Most claim that everyone sees the need for this change and it is obvious that things like this need to be done to make the tournament “fair” or keep its level of prestige. I, for one, disagree. I. “Balancing” the final table or making it more likely to see a pro win the event. The first point reads almost like an oxymoron when you take it out on its own. Making it “fair” for the pros or giving them a better shot? Really, do you see the NFL or MLB taking steps to make sure that their star players have a better chance to score to guard their endorsement deals and bonus levels of their already ridiculously high contracts? No. No you don’t. To be considered a professional in your field, you have to do two things: 1) Do that activity as the main source of your income or the majority of you available time. If you cut grass 12 hours a day, you are a professional lawn mower, no degree necessary. 2) Do what you do BETTER than the general populous and play with the best in the world or against any and all challengers. The best professional is proven through competition. With that in mind, why in the WORLD should anyone have to make things fair for a poker professional? The only argument there is that they want to keep marquee players to promote their events away from other major, open tournaments. The poker boom was created when a relative novice “everyman” with a catchy name won the whole thing. Yes, it was growing before then, but it was the proverbial lifting of the veil by this amateur that showed the world that poker was not some super secret hustle mastered only by the devious and degenerate but and enjoyable game of skill. It exposed to millions the game we all know and love. (If you hate poker, stop reading now, this isn’t an article for you.) Eventually, pros will get the hang of the super-fields and develop super-strategies. This is what they do – or should do – if they truly are the crème of the crop. Every pro sport goes through levels of adjustment as it grows and poker (whether you agree that it is a sport or not) is no different. They should welcome the droves of players and the money they bring. Even if they aren’t winning bracelets, how much bigger are their second and third table cashes (third table cashes? How about paying 50-200 people? How often have they seen THAT before the boom?) in big events and how much more opportunity and glory is there in side games and advertising and TV or promotional events? This really sounds like a method to sooth bruised egos and sour grapes from players pouting that the Moneymakers and Hachems of the world get a year of the highest glory in poker and they don’t. And it’s fair to point out; these guys have turned into solid players so they must have had the “stuff” to make it that far. Basically, its no monkey (or chimp) making the final table. II. Raising the stake/buy ins to limit the field. There have been plenty of arguments about changing the main event of the WSOP. Primarily, simply change the buy in amount, either to adjust for inflation or to limit the field. Since the beginning, the main event has been a $10,000 buy in event. Now, when it was a dozen to fifty people, this was a huge amount of money. Both to put up, and to win. It was also winner take all in the early stages. Over the years, as more and more people started to play, $10,000 was STILL a lot of money, and more people got paid for placing. Years after that, a vote was taken and by a vast majority, the field said “pay more with smaller prizes.” Now, in today’s modern “imbalanced” field, how would these folks (some of which who have made hundreds of thousands up to millions from just placing in the myriad of events) feel about being “traditional” and going back to a winner take all event? How about only paying the top 6 or final table? Doesn’t sound like as much fun does it? What I think needs to be recognized is while inflation has taken effect, ten grand is still a nice chunk of change. The vast majority of people wouldn’t think of gambling $10,000 at a time on ANY game of skill, much less a competition like a poker tournament. $50,000 (the most commonly bantered about amount) is larger, yes, it would be stupid to argue that it is five times as limiting to the field. Reality check: many of the apparently unwanted influx of players are internet players or those that won their way in from various competitions and smaller tournament series or satellites. Up to 60% for the Main Event by some estimates. If all of these places can still profit from the lure of a huge buy in for a world championship event…they will. They may have to up the buy in or add a level, but they will continue to use the biggest lure they have to catch their own fish. WPT events and WSOP circuit events have the same buy in, but a fraction of the people are interested in playing or arrive via satellites of other competitions. They just don’t have the allure of the big show. It is doubtful that the $20,000 or even $50,000 entry fee will deter the amount of internet shark-fish or contest winners – nor will it deter the celebrity bankrolls. It is the world championship of America’s (and possibly the WORLD’S) new favourite game. And you don’t have to be young, athletic or sanctioned by a governing body, you just have to pony up the cash and play the simple yet infinitely complex game that we all enjoy. That won’t change just by upping the price tag, though it might make the semi-pro or enthusiast that goes on to win (or the pro that breaks the “barrier”) two to five times richer. So hey, maybe it’s not without merit. I think the same logic can be used for all of the rest of the events at the series as well so there is no point in arguing them all individually. Is it all about the championship for you? In that case, go the whole distance. Create a board, certify people as professional or qualified and hold a huge invitation for ABSOLUTELY ZERO DOLLARS and a big “I AM THE GREATEST” medallion for a grand prize. If you aren’t throwing up already because this is sacrilegious to the very nature of poker, then you should go out and poll how many pros want to work that hard for free and how many people are actually interested in watching people push worthless hunks of plastic around. Hopefully, years from now, the PPT will develop to such a massive state that TV money and sponsorships could put CASH into an invitational, pro championship. That would be a great day, but how can they say they are the best if they turned away the avid enthusiast that thought he had the best game in town? That is blood in the water for a real gambler, or might I go so far as to say, a real PROFESSIONAL gambler. III. Changing the event or the buy in for the Main Event. So the world loves Hold Em…DEAL WITH IT. The world loves home runs, slam dunks, touchdowns and holes-in-one too. It is fast, exciting, simple to understand and marketable. The event was originally played as no limit Texas Hold ‘Em for this reason AND because it was a game only the most well rounded gamblers understood well. Not so long ago, as little as 10 years even, you found mainly 7-card stud spread in poker rooms that were slowly going the way of the Dodo. You might see an Omaha game going on (actually a variant of Texas Hold ‘Em if you didn’t know that) or one table of “crazy” people playing no-limit Hold ‘Em on weekends while everyone wondered what the hell they were thinking. In some card rooms in, say, California, they were still playing draw games and most of the action was limit varieties of everything. I’ve taken you on this little historical trip for one reason and that is to point out that the Main Event is No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em because that was a game only the BEST used to understand. Now, that is different. Because of TV coverage, media exposure, ect. many people are introduced to no-limit Hold ‘Em first and are now discovering the “wide world” of games that might suit them better. But no one can deny the draw of poker’s Royal Game and that is precisely why it is now so popular. All of this created a strange dichotomy at the 2006 WSOP. While Hold ‘Em events had a few superstars at final days, the “other” games seemed to be populated by known names. Old hands like “Miami” John Cernuto, Mike Caro and Men Nguyen were pulling multiple cashes and doing it with games like 7-stud hi/lo, Razz, Duece-to-Seven Lowball and HORSE events. Even young wunderkind Jeff Madsen cashed in Omaha, Seven Stud and Hold ‘Em Events. What does all this mean? It means that GREAT poker players know how to play many games and transfer their skill and talent accordingly while the amateur, semi-pro or part-time enthusiast does not. While this may sound like an argument for a HORSE main event or switching the event every year I think it does just the opposite. No-Limit was chosen as the main event because of its many dynamics covering an exceeding simple game that create the swings and drama that we all know and love/hate. The other events exist because people play them, they have a tradition and they have a history. Hold ‘Em is king (now) because more people have seen it, loved it and are playing it all for the dream of coming to the WSOP and walking home a world champion. And unlike a lot of other championship events, it doesn’t matter if you are fat, old, in a wheel chair or suffering possible terminal cancer…pony up the ten grand and you have a seat in the show. The dream can be yours. That is what has made the WSOP the monster it is today, that is what launched the WPT (same dream different title) and that is what keeps locals like me killing perfectly good weekends to gather around a patch of felt in hopes of taking down a hundred or so local rivals. So change that? Might as well kill the golden goose. As a counter point, I’d like to offer this though. In major sporting events, and MVP is often selected. Sometimes, that MVP is even selected from the losing team. But everyone who is a serious professional would still love to be named the MVP, regardless of winning the championship or not. Here is where I think mix-game tournaments such as HORSE should enter the picture. While no one would argue that Chip Reese beating a star-studded field in the $50,000 HORSE event (a player driven creation by the way) was amazing, I don’t think it is any less amazing that Gold coming out on top of over 8700 competitors. However, I KNOW that it shows him to be the Best All Around Player that year. And yes, the cards fall funny for everyone. Ivey has no main event, Negreanu went from stud to dud (comparatively) from last year to this, Phil Helmuth found number 10 but donked out of the Main Event in under two hours of actual play. But, on that day, with those competitors, Chip showed the most skill in the widest variety of games and put a feather in his cap (or bracelet on his wrist) that EVERYONE will respect. Let me make it very, very clear that this is not some hate-rant against mixed games. I love them. I think it merely clarifies that difference in what the WSOP has stood for and what professional players may have come to want out of it. The big show should stay Texas Hold ‘Em (can you imagine how long it would take to work 5,000 people through a mixed limit event?!?) but we also need to look to the other events to hand out other accolades for that year. We already try with the WSOP Player of the Year and the Tournament, but I think the mix-game champ can definitely claim a prestige that the others can’t touch. Just not the main event title. While we are on the subject. I think as we see poker “maturing” as the Moneymaker-crowd sheds its newbie skin and hardens in the card rooms, you will see a lot more action and bigger fields in other games. This years WSOP is proof enough, but watch the years coming up and I think you will see the HORSE event grow on its own and the Omaha fields continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Poker is blowing up all over and it is only a matter of time until the new field of rookies want to have everything that the old field of pros do. Online sites are already running more mixed-games and variants (even inventing a new game I think should make the roster, BADUGI!) and while some events lean heavily on Hold ‘Em, the entries into Omaha and Stud are growing as well. And with changes in big tournaments like the California State Poker Championship at the Commerce that is switching to strictly Hold ‘Em games, they have shaken up the formats so that there are Shootout, Turbo and Limit events to show off all kinds of skills. With the speed of popularity of Omaha in Europe as well as the US, I’m sure you will see bigger and bigger fields playing there as well. Some rooms are even dominated by Omaha in Norway and surrounding countries. I think we should encourage this diversity and strive for more variety in the events that we do see put on in tournaments. I think this will keep people interested in the game and really help people find their niche in the poker world. But No-Limit Hold ‘Em, the Cadillac of Poker, gets to stay on top. We found our gateway there, lets not slam it shut. Matt Waldron
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