A Visit From St. Doyle

With apologies to Clement Moore, here's my take on the traditional Christmas classic!

A Visit From St. Doyle

'Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house

The only thing heard

Was the clicking of a mouse

The stockings were hung

By the chimney with care

But nothing was in them

As I looked at two pair

The tournament was late

The blinds they were high

I considered a raise

And behind heard a sigh

The children were silent

And snuggled in bed

As thoughts of a boat

Danced in my head

With mom (who sighed) merrily wrapping

And I in my visor

I had settled in

And considered my raiser

When out on the lawn

There arose such a clatter

I sprang from my chair

And ignored the chat banter

Towards the door

I flew like a flash

Threw back the bolt

And opened the latch

To what did my wondering eyes did appear

The saint of the game and eight of his peers

He had a big cowboy hat and a grand old smile

And with a sweep of his hand ushered in those in the rear

"In Chris, in Barry,

In Howard and Annie

In Jennifer, in T. J.,

And Phils, Hellmuth and Ivey"

To the table we flew

The chips they were clicking

The discussion was merry

Over the eggnog we were drinking

He spoke reverently

As we played through the night

He looked in my eyes

And showed me the light

"The game, it is great,

The time spent is a blast.

But it isn't everything,

Enjoy each day like it's your last."

"Play the game and enjoy

Who knows, you may be great.

But remember friends and family

Those things never abate."

The eight and I nodded in agreement

A toast was raised to The Man

As he grandly announced,

"Everyone all-in, last hand."

The cards whisked to us

As did the flop, turn and river

And we all peeked at our hole cards

To see what was delivered

It came around to me

And I turned up my hand

I stared down wide-eyed

At the royal flush that I had

The hand went to me

As well as the cheers of the gang

And we all left the table

As the Christmas bells rang

The mood was joyful

And as they faded from sight

St. Doyle looked back to me

And had one final insight

"The best to you in the game

And the best in your life.

May your hands be huge,

Merry Christmas and good night."

Where Are The Advertising Opportunities?

When the delay of play at the Final Table of the Championship Event of the World Series of Poker was announced before the start of the 2008 tournament schedule, WSOP Commisioner Jeffrey Pollack stated that one of the reasons for the four month delay was for the players to be able to obtain sponsorship and advertising revenues that would add on to their already life changing largess. He also stated that it would create a buzz along the lines of the Super Bowl and that it would be something that would draw the world's attention to the World Championship of poker.

Fast forward the clock to almost one month after the "November Nine" was determined (or, as PokerPages' Mike Paulle called them, the "Fall Fiasco") and what have we seen? Not one of the players have announced a huge sponsorship or "logo" deal from a corporation outside of the world of poker. Other than chip leader Dennis Phillips getting some press from his local St. Louis newspaper and an appearance on Fox News, there hasn't been the rush to put these players on morning talk shows, other traditional media or even flagship TV outlet ESPN's shows, such as "First Take" or their dedicated ESPNNews. And, although we are in the "dog days" of the poker season, the sensational buzz created by the reaching of the Final Table has subsided to pretty much an inaudible hum as the WSOP-Europe steps up to the plate and the World Poker Tour continues on with their new contract with Fox Sports.

Perhaps it is too early (we still have three months to go) to be looking for these things, but it seems that the experiment that the delayed Final Table has become could be something that we won't see again. It is extremely possible that, with a few weeks to go before they restart in November, that these advertising opportunities may flood in and we see Phillips, "Chino" Rheem and the others with logos bedecking their attire. In the current economy and with the demographic look of the average poker fan, though, it is not a guarantee that this will happen.

One way of looking at this is by looking at another one of the other possibilities that was extended by Commissioner Pollack. He seemed to be enthusiastic that the players at the Final Table would hire top professionals to tutor and train their particular charge to make the deepest run possible in the tournament. At this point, not one of the Final table participants has (at least openly) taken on the advice of a top tournament professional. A recent blog on CardPlayer by a former guest on my "The Tournament Trail" show at Hold 'Em Radio (http://www.holdemradio.com/), WPT champion Roy Winston, indicated that no one has contacted him regarding his offer of coaching for the Main Event.

There is still time for the fruition of the goals that were laid out by Commissioner Pollack to come to life but, to this point, it has to be honestly considered that the delay for the "November Nine" may not have been everything that it was cracked up to be.

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.

Thoughts On The Delayed WSOP Final Table

I wrote this piece on May 1st, the day that the announcement was made regarding the decision by Harrah's (or Caesars Entertainment, whenever they change the name). I'll be back after this to add on to what I wrote then:

A Troublesome Move: WSOP Changes Championship Event, Delays Final Table
by
Earl Burton

In a teleconference on Thursday, Caesars Entertainment (formerly Harrah’s) announced changes to this year’s World Series of Poker that could have long-term ramifications on the sport of poker, let alone the play of this year’s Championship Event.

Joined by Seth Palansky, the new Communications Director of Caesars Entertainment, Jamie Horowitz (the producer of the WSOP broadcasts for ESPN), and Jack Effel (WSOP Tournament Director), WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack announced that this year’s Championship Event, formerly scheduled to end on July 16th with the crowning of a new World Champion, will now be delayed until November 9th through the 11th, with the final table being a two hour broadcast on ESPN “almost live” the evening of November 11th.

“Our goal is to create anticipation for the Final Table and to create previously unimagined opportunities for the players. This will add new excitement to the World Series of Poker,” Pollack stated during the teleconference. “Instead of everyone knowing who has won the tournament when it is broadcast, there will be greater attention on the drama of who WILL win the event. It will truly be a cliffhanger ending to the most prestigious event in poker.”

The tournament, set to start on July 3rd, will play down to the final table roughly around July 14th. At that time, play will be suspended, the final nine players will receive ninth place money at that time and the players sent home for roughly four months (actual time is 117 days). They will reconvene at the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on November 9th and will play down to the final two players, who will return the next day to determine the champion. ESPN will cover the action and turn around a broadcast for November 11th that will show who has won the title in what is now planned to be a two hour broadcast.

In an attempt to drive viewership for the Final Table, ESPN is also planning to have a one hour special on November 4th. This broadcast will focus on the final table participants and presumably will follow them around for the four months following their achievement of making the Final Table and their preparations for that event.

For many poker purists, this could be a tremendously troublesome move for what is recognized as the Olympics of poker. Poker is a linear event, played out under a continuous timeline that demonstrates the skill, stamina and expertise (or, admittedly, even the luck) of the players who are participating. To have a forced delay built in for the benefit of television coverage corrupts the very tenets that the game of poker is built on.

For their part, ESPN and Caesars see the change as something that will accentuate the Final Table rather than hurt it. “People didn’t like it when there were changes in baseball, such as the Wild Card implementation, or in NASCAR, with the Chase for the Championship,” Horowitz elaborated. “This will only add more drama and excitement for the viewers.”

The problem with those analogies is that they are apples to the WSOP’s oranges. Neither of those organizations mentioned delays their championships for an extended time period to build the drama. Even the NFL (the organization that new Communications Director Palansky came from) only delays the Super Bowl for two weeks from their respective conference title games. Could you imagine what would happen with delaying the Super Bowl, the final race of the NASCAR season, or the NBA Finals for four months from the time the combatants are determined?

This doesn’t even begin to approach the possibilities that exist for bastardizations that may happen with the delay.

The Final Table at last year’s World Series Championship Event paid out over $20 million to its participants. Although Commissioner Pollack addressed this issue by saying, “We will conduct the Final Table ethically and without adjustment and we hope the final nine players will as well,” the probabilities of collusion, chip dumping, pre-Final Table deals and other such shenanigans increases exponentially with the delay. Although they have seemingly addressed if someone cannot return to the November playoff (if a player doesn’t return, he will be blinded off and awarded the position in which he finished), the possibility of some (or maybe all) of the players reaching financial deals beforehand among each other is now a reality.

And let’s not even enter into the speculation of death, incapacity or other nefarious activities that may occur with the amount of money that is on the line.

Another thing that will become evident by the time the Final Table plays is the lack of continuity of the players. While former World Champion Johnny Chan, in a USA Today article that details the story, stated that “Poker is a game of skill. The hands are random. … It's how you play your hand. I don't believe in hot streaks,” the change will enable a player to come to the Final Table now with potentially a completely changed game. When we watch the broadcasts of the Championship Event that will lead to the Final Table, the styles of the players more than likely will have completely changed, affecting the continuity of what is supposed to be tournament poker.

Players will hire coaches (presumably professional players), drill themselves on the nuances of the game rather than their instincts (one of the charms of the game of poker) and scouted their opponents through the ESPN broadcasts or other methods. This doesn’t seem to be a cause for alarm for Pollack, who said “…it makes it more like a sporting event.”

Although it may appear that there are only negatives, there are potential positives to the move. The players will have more time to obtain sponsorships outside of the poker realm (Pollack said he envisioned the Final Table players “looking like NASCAR drivers”), there will more than likely be an increase in attention on the tournament (not necessarily viewership, but other mainstream media attention) and the Final Table will now have the opportunity to be stars, instead of just the winner. But do these pros outweigh the potential cons?

All in all, it looks like a troublesome move for the World Series of Poker and the sport of poker in general. The potential for skullduggery, the interruption of the basic concepts of tournament poker and the drive to make the WSOP more of a poker reality show than a sporting competition are all ominous omens for the game we love. It remains to be seen what will happen and whether the move will be a prosperous one for the WSOP or be its demise.

-----

Having had a few weeks to mull it over, there is a greater chance that this will build into something. I've talked with several people, including Robert Williamson III (who was on my radio show at Hold 'Em Radio) and other compatriots, who seem to think that we should give this a shot.

Oliver Tse, whom I have always respected for his insight onto matters in the poker world, sees this as a last ditch effort to save the game of poker on television. When you look at many of his thoughts (which are plentiful at 2+2 and other poker discussion groups), there is a logic to what the WSOP is doing. When shows like "High Stakes Poker" get dropped despite being one of the best shows out there, what will the game of poker do?

So now I have to adjust my thoughts...I'm willing to give this a look and see what happens. I still think the possibility of critical problems exist and, even with the 117-day delay to puff up the final table players, still don't think that it will save poker on television. I would love to be proved wrong...

A Rebirth Of Poker World Wide

For those of you who may have been here before, then hopefully the rebirth of Poker World Wide will be a welcome return. For those of you who haven't come across this blog before, welcome and please let me reintroduce myself.

For the past five years, I have written about poker. Over approximately 800 online articles, numerous magazine pieces (including Poker Player Newspaper, Woman Poker Player Magazine and TopPair Magazine), I have written about the people in the game, tournaments, offered my opinions on the game and many other topics. One thing that is consistent is that I often have an opinion on poker and am not afraid to share it!

With the introductions out of the way, one of the reasons for the "comeback" (if you want to call it that) is that currently I have no outlet for my writing. While I have been searching for another place to call home (after working with two prominent outlets), the poker media today is dwindling perhaps to a point we haven't seen prior to 2004. This makes it difficult for established writers who want to work daily or newcomers to get into the game. Still, I will attempt to plug along and hopefully will find another place to call home in the near future!

Now...on to the news of the day (OK, maybe the past few weeks!).

The World Series starts in a week and it will be a penultimate time for poker itself. With the current recession in the United States, exorbitant travel costs for players from outside the U. S. and the new 117-day delay on the WSOP Championship Event final table, anyone who can predict what will happen over the next six weeks should just step immediately to the sports book and bet the champions of major sports over the next year (they would make much more money!).

Will we see a drop off of epic proportions? Will we see an increase, as players throw caution to the wind and take their shots? Finally, how will the delay in the final table affect player participation? It all becomes a test of many aspects of the poker world and it is impossible to predict at this time what will happen.

In the future, I'll throw out my thoughts on the FT delay (trust me, I'm not fond of the idea, but there are logical reasons). I will also keep an eye on the action at the WSOP and other instances throughout poker. Hopefully you'll enjoy my return to my thoughts of the poker world and, most particularly at this time of the year, the WSOP.

Yang Jams WSOP FT - So Now What?

For those of you who didn't see it last Tuesday night Jerry Yang, a previously unknown poker player from Laos and living in California, took down the $8.25 million first place prize at the World Series of Poker Championship Event. For those of us (yes, I did) that viewed the entirety of the fifteen plus hours of PPV coverage, it was very interesting to watch this final table play out. Yang went on the attack from the outset and seemed to throw everyone off their game, including the two notable professionals at the final table in Lee Watkinson and Alex Kravchenko (who was my choice and went out fourth). He's admitted that he knew that was the only way to get out of his eighth place starting position and it seemed to work magically for him.

I've hypothesized that Yang used a "reverse" strategy in this tournament. In most tournament strategy it is thought that you play tight at the onset of a final table and, as the players drop away, relax your starting hand standards. Yang seemed to turn this around from the start of play at the final table, using a hyper-aggressive style early and tightening up late, and it worked perfectly for him. As the players dropped away and his chip stack dominated the table, he selectively chose hands to eliminate his opponents and is a deserving champion.

The next question to answer is what kind of World Champion and ambassador of the game will Jerry Yang be? I don't see him rushing to play in every poker tournament that comes around. He seems as though he wants to do well for his family and for his community (his donation of 10% of his championship purse is an excellent statement to this) and, as such, could be just what poker needs at this point. Yang can show something that many of us involved in the poker world know...that the poker world is filled with players with just as big a heart as they display at the tables, that they can do admirable deeds from within their own convictions and, yes, that a man who has a deep devotion to religion is a part of the poker community and is successful at it.

Some may say that his "prayers" at the tables were disconcerting and wrong and, yes, I would be one of them. After some thought, though, I have to let that go. Yang is a man who simply was caught in the moment and vocally stated what many players potentially do in their heads when they play. I don't think that we will have this type of situation show up at the tables so it isn't a thing we have to worry about.

We will see Jerry Yang at some tournaments, perhaps increasing knowledge about charitable causes, perhaps serving as a spokesman regarding how he quantifies his faith with gaming, perhaps in ways we haven't thought of yet. I believe he will be a gentleman first and will be something that was necessary for the game of poker. And if he doesn't win another tournament, earn another cash or even participate in another game again, he has given us a champion that we can be proud of definitely.

Let The Games Begin!

The World Series of Poker $10K Championship Event (and that's what it is called...the "Main Event" monicker is a television creation) is about an hour away from its start and, from the reports I have viewed, there could be anywhere from 4000 to 12000 players that come to the felt to take their shot at becoming the next World Champion. There are many aspects that will bear watching as the cards fly.

First off is that question of how many players will actually be there. There was a much ballyhooed annoucement last week that TPTB at the WSOP (read: Harrah's) added a fourth day to the action, but this is to alleviate overcrowding and to avoid having to use the much hated Poker Tent there at the Rio. I have long contended that there will be around 5500 players who will be there and, even over four days, this still sounds logical (1500 players over the four days runs out to 6000 players). If the numbers approach last year's record, then we can definitely say that the 2007 has been an overwhelming success.

Secondly, who will win it? Looking back at the winners over this year's preliminary events, it was a pretty even balance of professionals (both notable, as in the case of Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham and Erik Seidel), "unknown" professionals (just look at double bracelet winner Tom Schneider, who played excellent poker to take down the WSOP Player of the Year award) and newcomers who now can say they are a World Series champion. This is the year, though, that I believe a notable professional can take it down. I think Allen Cunningham last year demonstrated what has to be done...patient play, grind it out and, once at the final table, let the game come your way.

I certainly hope that some of the issues that plagued last year (the "mystery" chips, youthful and inexperienced "exuberance" to the point of arrogance, etc.) won't come into play. It would be refreshing to see a couple of known names make it to the final table and battle it out with the hopefuls without any theatrics being played out.

With that, let's get the chips clicking and the cards in the air. About eleven days from now, we will find out who is the champion of the World Series of Poker.