Before I begin, I have to give Peter Eastgate his props. Not only is he now the youngest player to win the WSOP main event (22 years), but now Phil Hellmuth can’t brag about being the youngest to win. Not only that, but the final four days of the 2008 WSOP Main Event had more players left in it than there were total entrants when Hellmuth won. Eastgate won with quiet confidence, great reads and then a flurry of river luck at the tail end. Check out the humble post-victory interview.
Back to Business:
Sometime between the WSOP (World Series of Poker) 2007 Main Event and WSOP 2008 main event, a decision was made to have the final table play in November instead of playing either until the scheduled end of the evening or the beginning of the following morning. The decision was made by Jeffery Pollack, the commissioner of the WSOP. In regards to the basis for his decision, Pollack said:
“This is about attempting to innovate as best we can to keep growing the interest in the World Series of Poker.” (USA Today 2008/11/09).
I’ll even grant that WSOP Commissioner Pollack’s intention was a shade of pure, but to roundabout advertise that the Final Table will be televised live – “live” in this case meaning one day tape-delay – and then show another cut-n-spliced episode so Norman Chad and Lon McEachern could pretty-up their story telling and the viewers could see the hole cards completely misses the spirit of the intention. (I say ’round-about’ because I swear upon any thing nearby that’s holy that I remember ESPN advertising the final table was going to be “live.” I should have been tipped off when they said the final table was going to be for 2 hours. Final tables of that magnitude go for 2 hours in that 12 hours kind-of-way.)
Maybe Pollack just wanted some time to play around at Harvard for awhile. Check out Jeffery Pollack’s blog on WorldSeriesofPoker.com. He admits that in the 117 days between the solidifying of the final table and the restart of play, Pollack even, “took a pause from my posts [on his blog] as well!”
This has a CorporateWhoredom.com Mesothelioma rating of only 1. Postponing the playing of WSOP Main Event final table 117 days only has a slight bit of poisoning to it. The kidney of this situation can probably be tapped and the poison can probably be squeezed out like a whitehead. Not too bad. I don’t see Corporate Mesothelioma cancer in this one.
I think WSOP Commissioner Pollack’s actions were actually well-intended. Though “well-intended” actions usually pave the way to Hell, in this case I think this a situation of trial and error. Who knows, maybe Pollack cooked the whole thing up so he could take a break and toil around for co-eds in Cambridge. I’ll admit, that sounds all things appealing and if I had his ways and means, I’d definitely consider it. But in this case, the Whoredom believes Commissioner Pollack wanted to build the main event like a “Super Bowl” or a “World Series” or the like….a better comparison: NCAA College Football Bowl Championship Series.
But, herein lies the problem with wanting to build up the final table like a championship game: even though most people watch the ESPN version of the shows – cut & spliced with the Chadisms and visible hole cards – most people get their WSOP updates online. No, seriously, they really, really do. Here’s a few spots:
sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/wsop
Not to mention the the multitude of legal .net poker sites (and their not-as-legal .com counterparts).
Oh yeah, and news sites. ESPN Sportscenter announced the winner before they televised the final table event.
In Short: Poker Enthusiasts are going to find out who wins in advance unless the final outcome is shown LIVE. They alleged buildup is going to be tempered unless the out come is, h’mmmm, how do I put this: LIVE!!!!!
ESPN and WSOP has been doing this for years. I think they can take their studio show on the road and make it live. So Norman Chad’s one-liners are a little more canned than normal. It’s a small price to play for a chance to see the drama unfold live.
Get the drift?
If you’re going to build up a championship event, make some part of it LIVE. Wait for heads up, wait for the final four. Most poker enthusiasts know the pains and groans that go into a poker tournament. Most poker players would welcome the chance to watch all the tells, hear the conversations and gauge the body language as the November 9 endure the stresses and decisions every poker enthusiast dream of encountering.
And then, the money. $9.1+ million to the winner alone. Every one in the top 8 got over a million dollars and the ninth got ~ $960K. ESPN was quick to point out how much money was at stake: more than the average MLB Baseball salary, more than what a NASCAR driver would win for sweeping Daytona and Indy, more than me, Max, Gag and Jez combined (this calendar year and probably next calendar year).
Poker, especially at that level, is all parts science and tactical arts – putting yourself in position to handle the ebb and flow of the game – AKA the “lucky streaks” to amatuers. If WSOP Comissioner Pollack and ESPN is going to make the November 9 wait 117 days and take them out of their rhythm so they have to reintroduce themselves to the harrowing pressure in classic diving-into-the-deep-end-of-a-freezing-cold-swimming-pool fashion, at least give those 9, as well as the poker world, the decency of their time in the Penn and Teller Theater spotlights.
C-HO Mesothelioma Rating: 1 out of 10
