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3rd Jul
2006
Roy Brindley keeps us up-to-date on the Poker
Tour
Email :
Roy on any
subject. |
The $50K Joke
I
may have been harping on here a bit about the World Series of Poker (WSOP)
lately but, let’s face it, it is the biggest and most valuable sporting
event/competition on the planet – and by some considerable
way.
When the first, of what will ultimately be about 50, official WSOP
press releases arrived mid-week I was in no way surprised to learn that the
opening event – a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament – had 2,776
entries making it the second biggest poker tournament in
history.
However, upon close inspection, it transpired that a capacity
2,288 players were actually seated when the first hand was dealt and that 488
had joined as ‘alternates’ – meaning they filled the seats of
eliminated players – during the first two hours of play.
“They
must have been really bad,” thinks you. But that is not the case I
declare..
With all WSOP events run on a ‘chip-for-chip’ basis,
contestants started this tournament with just a 1,500 chip starting stack
meaning they had little possibly no room to manoeuvre.
In fact, with
blind levels rising quickly from 25/50 to 50/100 on to 100/200 and 200/400 I
doubt any player is capable of losing a single confrontation during the first
four levels whilst remaining with a competitive chance.
It gets worse
with re-buy tournaments giving the affluent egotistical big-names an obscene
edge on the casual player who often find themselves sat alongside players
prepared to take 25 or more re-buys in a $1,000 entry event.
It is these
little known facts that make glory in a WSOP so difficult to achieve these
days. Of course, mammoth fields have put some noses out of joint; not least
those that have become accustomed to boasting of their [WSOP winner’s]
bracelet collection.
Once-upon-a-time winning a WSOP event and its
accompanying bracelet was not the hardest thing in the world. OK, the main
event did have a field size in the hundreds but specialist games/tournaments
such as Limit Omaha Hi-Lo and Deuce-to-Seven Lowball had numbers in the low
double digits.
Considering there are those that have played pretty much
every event at the WSOP – somewhere between 25 and 40 tournaments –
for more than a decade, I think you can see where I am coming from. |
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 To the rescue of the old school, poker sites that have sponsored a
high-profile player which is facing the very real prospect of coughing up
$150,000+ in entry fees and having no final table finishes to show for it and
ESPN who crave superstars, a rather odd looking $50,000 H.O.R.S.E tournament
has been added to the 2006 WSOP schedule.
What does H.O.R.S.E stand for?
I can tell you it involves a round of Hold’em, a round of Omaha, a round
of Seven-Card-Stud and, as for the R. and E. …well we are talking Razz and
Stud-Eight-or-Better. Not the kind of games you played around the kitchen table
on a winter’s night as a youngster.
Naturally, this kind of entry
fee is strange to say the least when ‘the big one’, the World
Championship itself, costs $10,000 to enter. So just how has it come
about?
You would have to suspect something sinister is afoot and I see
this entirely as a ploy to showcase and highlight so-called ‘top
players’. I mean let’s face it, who, apart from those enjoying all
the spin offs WSOP and WPT notoriety has afforded them, will be realistically
able to play this event?
So, to the
delight of ESPN the old multiple bracelet winning favourites – Helmuth,
Cloutier, Ferguson, Chan et-al – can be rolled out for the cameras for
this ‘superstar tournament’ which is unlikely to attract more than 40
players.
I’ll wager I can name 30 of them.
The Passing
of Elkan Allen
Elkan Allen, who had become a familiar figure amongst
English poker circles as a journalist and reporter in recent years, passed away
at the end of June after a short illness.
The prolific Allen, who was a
remarkable 84, had just completed a Las Vegas guide for the Sportsman
newspaper, was a contributor to numerous on and offline gaming publications and
had acted as consultant to a prominent poker channel and bookmaking
organisations.
A father of five, Elkan Allen had spent a lifetime in
journalism and broadcasting, presenting for the BBC in the 50’s, writing
and producing documentaries in the 60’s. He also created shows such as the
iconic Ready, Steady Go.
Credited with giving David Frost his first job
in television, Allen became the guru of television previewing during the
70’s and 80’s before moving back to print journalism, latterly with a
focus on poker.
· Elkan Allan (Elkan Philip Cohen), television
producer and journalist, born December 8 1922; died June 25 2006.
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