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05.05.08
Better Late Than Never, But Just Barely
posted by Absinthe | 2:10 AM
So it’s official: the WSOP main event final table will be delayed by 117 days … so it can be delayed a few days more. In order to give ESPN a slightly less surprised audience (but not really, as the most interested viewers will know the results in advance of the broadcast anyway), Caesar’s is playing the ME down to the final nine and then closing up shop for nearly four months, reconvening the proceedings so they can dovetail nicely with the broadcast schedule.
This is not the dumbest idea in the history of poker - I still think that’s the flush - but speaking as a sometime-player instead of a spokesman for Caesar’s or ESPN, I can say with a great deal of certainty that it’s still pretty dumb.
The argument that this will make it easier for players to get sponsorship doesn’t move me much, since it’s only the nine people at the final table who’ll have that flexibility, and all of them are going to be making out pretty well on that basis. The rest of the close-but-not-quite field is going to be out of luck. I’d guess that most of the last three tables in recent years have been able to eke out five-figure deals with somebody, a nice bonus if you’re not going to go all the way - which obviously 2/3 of them aren’t.
Is this going to build excitement, or halt the decay/slide in entrants? No. The only thing that will do that is the express legalization of online poker in the US, something that the casinos don’t particularly want to see anyway. This plan is in place in order for ESPN to realize what will be at best a marginal ratings increase, which - again speaking as a player - who gives a fuck? ESPN does not pay the monies.
Is it going to be good for poker’s image? I dunno. Give nine people, most of whom have never had that kind of cash before, four months to fuck up in public? There’s a chance that might happen. Richard Lee, who ran 6th in the 2006 main event, didn’t even last a month before his house was raided; he was eventually brought up on bookmaking charges. And then there’s Eskimo Clark, who’d have to have been surgically detached from the rail, four months be damned; good television, maybe, but not good branding.
The most irksome thing about it to me from a player’s perspective is that it messes with my edge. Make the final table and some people are going to be worn out, strung out, nervous, wired, frazzled from interviews and makeup and calling the family; they are also going to have four months’ less education about what to do at a final table. I count on being able to pace myself for the marathon when others can’t; the delay gives everyone at the table a chance to recharge and prepare, and plenty of time and incentive to eradicate the bad habits that pay my rent.
Not that I was going to play this year anyway; it’s a long damn time away from house and kin, and I doubt I’d forgive myself if I was playing cards while the boy took his first steps. And, probably, not that the prospect of a delay will stop me throwing my money down in future years. I’m just carping knowing that nobody in the position to do anything about it will read this, because to be reading this, they’d have to care. And they clearly don’t.
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Topics: Poker |
May 5, 2008 at 7:16 PM
And don’t forget that if a name player makes the final table, everyone else gets to go watch as many hours of tape as there are available of that player. While all the unknowns remain unknown, the best players in the world have to worry about being studied to death by their opponents.
This is, quite possibly, the dumbest fucking thing to ever happen to poker. If ESPN and Harrahs were putting a significant amount of money into the prize pool, maybe it would suck about 3% less than it does, but this? This is fucking retarded and I think will ultimately hurt the WSOP a lot.
I see the Bellagio 25K event rising up and becoming hte premiere event in poker, if the WPT wises up and stops fucking with the final table structure.