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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

May 10, 2008

It Ain't Need; It's Just Greed

Question: What if you put up a wad of cash, say ten grand, to buy a car only to have the car dealer tell you when you can drive it?

As we might expect, Harrah's and their cohort sponsor and its insanely successful TV sports network -- all three of which reap huge financial benefits from the World Series of Poker -- have conspired to change the face of poker tournament competition forever.

The World Series of Poker final event will no longer occur when all but the final nine players have been eliminated. Instead, these remaining gladiators will be told to go home and do whatever they do between the adrenaline surge of getting within inches of the top of the mountain, and told to return four months later to finish the climb.

What a joke.

Can you imagine if all the sponsors of the World Series of Baseball told both leagues to go home and have a ball and come back inn four months to finish up playing for the title?

Same with the NFL, the NBA, and all the college football bowl games.

Imagine telling the world's top golfers, "Congratulations Tiger, John, Ernie, Nick, Greg and Vijay. You all made it to the final day within one stroke of the course record in pursuit of the green jacket (substitute whatever the poker prize is). Now go on home and come back in three or four months to finish the game."

Hey, guys. This tournament stuff is about endurance, about being able to withstand the pressure of fighting through an army of competition, about surviving to a small field, and about decimating the remaining opponents. It's not about ego and stardom or remembering who came in second in last year's event.

I'm sorry but there are some things in life that don't need fixing because they were never broken and this is one of those things.

Consider that in all other sports, the players receive pay for their participation and even then they aren't asked to take a hiatus so television can reap more rewards from their efforts.

Poker players put their money on the line -- ten grand, to be exact -- to plow through more competition than any other professional battler has to eliminate, and then they are asked to put aside that steam engine that can drive them to the finish line so fans "can ask who wins" rather than "who won." (That's the reasoning the press release gave.)

Do they really believe their own spin? "This change in how the Main Event final table is staged will bring the excitement and drama of high-stakes WSOP tournament play closer to millions of fans around the globe."

What surprised me at first was that several top players endorsed the change and they are being quoted. The first name to pop up in favor, actually bought into the spin about how it will create more attention for poker. However, in this guy's blog, he wrote, "The reason for the three month delay is so that the WSOP broadcast schedule can air both the preliminary events as well as the lead into the final table. That many episodes takes about three months to air. There isn't time to air all of the main event episodes leading up to the final table so that an "almost live" final table could air immediately after that. The only way to do that is to delay the final table until after the ESPN shows air.(?)

So the real reason is just that, TV coverage.

My thinking is this: If Harrah's, Miller Lite and ESPN are so concerned about the time frame for this whole airing thing, why not just delay all the preliminary events and broadcast only the championship. Show the other events in three, four, five, six months -- and repeat them ad nauseam for years.

I'm not suggesting that Harrah's drop this premium coverage provided by TV; however, I am suggesting they look at alternate routes to accomplish the end.

I'm envisioning a number of scenarios that can really mess up the play.

What about the coaching edge that's very likely to happen, thus making it in a way more than one player per hand? What about any kind of extortion, blackmail or death threats that might occur?

What if a player enters some other World Series related event and becomes expelled, perhaps for chip dumping or some other problem that is considered unacceptable?

What if one or more don't make it through to November for whatever reason, incapacitating illness, incarceration or death?

Lest readers think I'm opposed to change, think again. I've embraced changes that make sense, given latitude to changes that seem questionable and ache over changes that seem to benefit the inappropriate side of the fence.

Were I putting up my ten grand, I'd be taking it back and looking for other tournament investments.

As for those who make it to the final table, I'll wait to see what their take is and if among that group there are both newcomers and seasoned pros, I'll accept their opinions, after the final table finishes.

Oh, and I know you can't get a new car for ten grand today but you also won't get a dealer telling you when you can drive it either.