WSOP to Delay Main Event Final Table by 4 Months

The purpose of the delay is to bring a sense of immediacy to ESPN's broadcast of the final table on November 11. In previous years, viewer interest in and suspense over ESPN's broadcast of the WSOP Main Event final table has been tempered by the knowledge that the outcome of the tournament had been determined months before. This will make the broadcast coverage of the final table more like a sporting news event and less like documentary history.

In my opinion, this will be very likely good for generating interest and viewer ratings for ESPN's broadcast. That, in turn, will be good for the poker world in general as the continuing boom in televised poker translates into enthusiastic new players coming to the game and injecting more money into the booming poker economy as they find their feet in public cardrooms, both brick-and-mortar and online.

At the same time, the announced change has an arbitrary and capricious air to it, leaving many players feeling hurt, offended, and doubtful. Several discussion threads on the 2+2 forums have erupted and caught fire with player debate about the schedule change, with commenters opposing to the change vastly outnumbering its supporters.

2+2 commenter objections to the four month delay include:

• Some weaker players who might stumble into the Big Dance's final table through good fortune and a rush of lucky cards. The four-month delay may enable these players to prepare for the final table through coaching and training, presumably from top-level professionals who had been busted out earlier.
• Because earlier segments of this year's WSOP coverage will be broadcast before the final table is played, this will give final table players the opportunity to review footage of their opponents, at least those who caught the eye of ESPN's crew or happened to play at a TV table in the earlier levels.
• The length of time between the prior levels and the play of the final table provides an unparalleled opportunity for dealmaking and outright collusion among final-table players.
• Some commenters believe that final table players may face violence or threat of violence from supporters of other players.
• Non-US-resident final table players face an additional burden of getting through customs and immigration for a second trip to the US in November.
• The extended time between the earlier levels of the tournament and the final table will likely increase the media spotlight shining upon final table players, and some of these players may not crave this attention.

These objections seem to me (with one exception) to be overwrought reactions to a change imposed by an unaccountable authority. No poker player in her right mind, for example, would want anything to do with the Big Dance if she wished to avoid the limelight. The Big Dance is not just another tournament that happens to provide an overlay because of the abundance of donkeys' dead money. It is widely considered to be the most important tournament in poker, with it's winner identified as the World Champion. This has been true since its inception. Amarillo Slim Preston becoming a media darling, appearing multiple times on the Tonight Show, for example after he took the crown (defeating a field of players three orders of magnitude smaller) in 1973. Some World Champions have claimed that the action they have gotten in subsequent years because of enthusiastic punters who want to take on the champ has been more financially rewarding to them than the actual prize money they won. Winning the Big Dance is about celebrity and notoriety.

The other objections seem small issues to me, except one: the prospect of collusion.

It is tough enough to keep poker clean under normal circumstances; and the final table of the World Series of Poker is about as far from normal as poker gets. Some of us still remember the scandal from the 1997 WSOP, eleven years ago, when Adam Roberts threw the $2500 7-Card Stud event to Maria Stern, allowing Stern to claim the bracelet in exchange for the greater part of the prize money. That scandal rocked tournament poker, and that was before the days of media scrutiny. The new final table play schedule may do great things for televised poker ... but an ugly collusion scandal on a par with the Adams/Stern debacle would cause orders or magnitude more damage to the image of poker than we sustained in 1997, because of the attention of the all-seeing eye of television.

Earlier in As I Please:
World Series of Poker Registration FUBAR
Cards at WSOP Provoke Players' Revolt
WSOP Tournament Director Quits
Fiction TV

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