Why Are The Pros Doing So Well...And Dismay With ESPN360

We are about halfway through the 2008 World Series of Poker and, to this point, what has been remarkable (other than the lack of much controversy) is the number of pros that have taken the bracelets this year. Mike Matusow gets #3, Daniel Negreanu gets #4, Barry Greenstein gets his third and Max Pescatori grabs his second bracelet. This is just a short list, though, and when you add in David Singer and Vanessa Selbst picking up some jewelry you have to wonder why the pros are doing so well this year.

The reason for this is twofold:

1) There are more high dollar buy in events. In 2007, there were only two events other than the Championship Event (the $50K H.O.R.S.E. and the $10K PLO Championship) that charged entrants a huge entry fee. When you look at the schedule this year, there are eight events other than the Main Event that have a $10K+ entry fee (and this isn't looking at those gamblers who generate the pools for the rebuy events!).

When you have these high dollar buy ins, Average Joe Poker isn't going to be able to jump into the fray. Thus, we are seeing more of the notable names in the game taking titles away from this year's festivities at the Rio.

2) There has been more non-Hold 'Em events being played. While there has been the usual NLHE events (especially on the weekends, which have been drawing respectable crowds), Harrah's has made a point this year to expand the selection of tournaments into Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Razz and various mixed events. This leads to the professionals that have solid disciplines across all forms of poker to the promised land of the bling at the WSOP.

Because most poker players have been drawn, whether through online poker, bar poker or television poker, to play ONLY NLHE, they haven't conquered the skills to branch out into other forms of the game. This will start changing as time goes by however, especially with more Europeans (where Omaha is the game) and Asia come more into the fold of poker.

By saying this has been the year of the pro, this doesn't discount that there have been some great online players making their mark on the WSOP this summer. Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond is currently holding his own against two time World Champion Johnny Chan and is in the mix in the $5K PLO w/rebuys. If the onliners can continue to make their voices heard and the pros continue to be, well, professionals, it could be a very interesting few weeks remaining here at the WSOP.

**UPDATE** Galfond is doing better than holding his own. He's the chipleader with three to go and Chan is gone!

Speaking of Chan, Galfond and the $5K PLO w/rebuys, this was a final table that would have been worth seeing. David Benyamine, Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth were also a part of the final table and, as the WSOP website crowed about proudly, you could view the final table on ESPN360.com.

When I went to do this, however, I found out that not everyone gets ESPN360 (I had seen the ads on television regarding the site, but never saw anything worth going to check it out over). It seems that your internet provider has to be signed up for it to be operational. You would figure that Time Warner Cable would be a part of that package but, alas, it isn't.

I'm not sure how many people this affects but, if the numbers are fairly large, then we are missing out on some great poker broadcasting that probably will never be seen, either during the WSOP broadcasts (which start July 22) or otherwise. Although I am a little bugged by this, if it means we don't have sequestered final tables that completely remove the life from it, then I'll just have to let it go.