November Reign

The World Series won’t crown a champ until the fall—what does this twist mean for poker?

BY ERIC RASKIN

WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT TO have a World Series of Poker Main Event where nine superstars reached the final table?

In the post-Moneymaker era, it’s been a struggle to get more than one or two big names to navigate through the amateur-drenched fields. In 2004, Dan Harrington made it, along with one-time bracelet winners Josh Arieh and Al Krux; otherwise, the final table was stocked with anonymity. In 2005, Mike Matusow was the lone superstar at the final table, with Andy Black the only other name poker insiders knew prior to the event. In 2006, it was Allen Cunningham vs. eight opponents nobody had ever heard of. And in 2007, Lee Watkinson was the most recognizable player among the final nine, with Alex Kravchenko his closest competitor in that regard.

In 2008, however, we can guarantee that each and every one of the last nine players standing in the WSOP Main Event will be household names.

At least they will be by the time they actually sit down to play the final table.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (and, no, we don’t mean living under a tight, conservative player), you know by now that the 2008 Main Event begins in July and ends in November. A field of somewhere between about 5,000 and 10,000 will be whittled down to a final table of nine on July 14, at which point play will be suspended for almost four months. During that time, the ESPN crew will get to editing the shows, they’ll begin airing on September 2, and on October 28, the episode trimming the field down to nine will debut. On November 4, ESPN will air a special one-hour final table preview show. And on November 9, with the nine survivors back at the Rio, final table play will begin. It will be halted when two competitors remain, and they’ll come back on the evening of November 10 to determine a champion. The two-hour final table broadcast will air in prime time on November 11, less than 24 hours after the competition ends.

It’s not exactly live. But it’s a lot closer than what we’ve grown accustomed to.

***

In the days following the blockbuster announcement (and the days preceding, since this was, frankly, one of the all-time worst-kept secrets), opinions pro and con filled up the blogosphere. The most obvious argument in favor of what the WSOP is doing can be summed up by asking a series of questions: Do you remember who finished fifth in 2006? Does the name Mike McClain mean anything to you? How about Yong Pak? Or Brad Kondracki? Do you remember who finished fourth the year Moneymaker won it all?

The last few years, the winner has become a superstar, the runner-up tends to hang around also, and everyone else fades back into the ether. This year, the potential is there for all nine players at the final table to become major stars in the poker world and beyond.

“The nine players who make our Main Event final table will have an unprecedented opportunity,” WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack insisted. “Instead of there being just one star who will emerge from our Main Event, there will be nine stars. I think this same-day telecast is going to be a cliffhanger, must-see television. What we’re doing is shifting the paradigm; poker fans will be asking who will win.”

That’s a very different, and infinitely more interesting, question than the one fans have asked prior to the broadcasts in recent years: How did he win? In the past, ESPN’s WSOP coverage was pure documentary. This year, it will at least blur the line a bit between documentary and sports event.

For those who hate having their endings spoiled, you need only avoid the Internet for one day to keep from finding out who won, a marked improvement over the cocoon you needed to climb into to remain blissfully unaware in years past.

By the same token, those who actually attend the final table live at the Rio will be attending a true event, where the participants are known quantities and the excitement is palpable.

“We think this will be poker’s biggest night ever,” said Pollack. “There will be ample seating for the public. We expect poker’s biggest names to come out, whether or not they’re playing at the final table. We expect a very healthy contingent of stars from film and television and music, just as you see courtside at an NBA game with celebrities and fans and family members.”

Whether watching live or on TV, this World Series will have a unique buzz about it, and the fans stand to benefit. But nobody will benefit quite like those lucky nine players (some have called them the “November Nine,” poker’s answer apparently to the “Oceanic Six”). Never mind that their prize money will increase slightly because after they each go home in July with ninth-place payouts, the rest of the cash will accrue interest; that’s small potatoes compared to the money these poker players will make selling advertising space on their hats and lapels to the highest bidder. The notion of some of these players bringing in more dough to wear a logo than they’ll make in pure prize money is a perfectly realistic one.

But if they want to win the most prize money possible, they’d be foolish not to enlist the coaching of some of the game’s best teachers. Say you’re an amateur player who reached the final table and have already been paid out about a half-million dollars; wouldn’t you gladly take $20,000 or $30,000 of that to get intense one-on-one tutoring from some of the best in the game (especially if you suspected all of your opponents were doing so)? The players will benefit because they’ll be all but forced to receive lessons and improve their games. And the fans will theoretically benefit because the play at the final table will be better.

Also benefiting from all of this will be the sports books, which will have an opportunity to post lines on the players and receive action because sports bettors actually have familiarity with the players for a change. That just adds an extra level of fun, having the opportunity to, say, place $5,000 at 6-to-1 on the guy who’s third in chips and watching the final table play out with a financial rooting interest.

The ultimate benefit will be enjoyed by ESPN, as ratings should increase (particularly for the final table), which means more ad dollars, which means networks are again lining up to televise poker, which means an all-around healthier poker industry.

Some pundits have recently suggested that poker’s bubble has burst. This innovation, which rates to increase interest in the WSOP, fuel a higher number of entries, and lead ratings to spike, has the potential to quiet those doubters by showing just how big the bubble can get.

***

With every innovation, unfortunately, there comes a backlash. It seems ridiculous now, but when Henry Orenstein invented the hole-card cam, a lot of old-schoolers and traditionalists were vehemently opposed. In truth, a lot of them were just being lazy; they didn’t want to have to adjust their games on account of potential opponents studying how they played. Regardless, the great majority of them are making a lot more money now than they were in 2002. The hole-card cam brought poker to mainstream prominence and popularity, and it’s scary to think how much worse off the game would be now without it.

And as Daniel Negreanu pointed out in a recent blog at fullcontactpoker.com, the hole-card cam doesn’t even count as the most significant change in Hold ’Em history.

“[Hold ’Em] used to be played with just one blind,” he wrote, “but that changed and a two-blind system was created so there would be more action.”

Poker has to continue to evolve in order to remain relevant, and the final table delay appears to be the latest evolution.

But some view it as devolution. And they have some reasonable arguments to support that viewpoint.

The obvious one is that the WSOP Main Event has turned into a TV show first and a pure competition second, and the purity of the game is being compromised. The flow of play from the final 10 players to the final nine players isn’t just being interrupted; a one-week break might count as an “interruption,” but this is a full-on destruction of the flow.

Purists will also note that players are sacrificing their right to keep plays they make private. A series of bluffs made during the tournament can now be exposed on ESPN, giving your final table opponents information they didn’t “earn.” And there isn’t necessarily a level playing field here; if one player gets more TV time than another, that gives his opponents an unfair advantage in gleaning more information about him than he can glean about them.

Also, endurance is part of what has determined WSOP champions in the past. This year, the player with the greatest mental and physical endurance will be sacrificing some of his edge. (But it still will take enormous endurance just to reach the final nine, so that rates not to be an overly decisive factor.)

Then there’s the coaching issue. Some, such as 2004 champ Greg Raymer, have wondered if the opportunity for coaching is necessarily a good thing.

“I am very torn over this proposal,” Raymer said. “It might be huge for the continued growth of poker. However, the downside is this long gap allows the players to become completely different people between the time they make the final table and when they play it.”

As noted earlier, that could lead to better poker playing from everyone. But the integrity of the competition suffers slightly as a result. In the past, players were forced to make adjustments on the fly. Last year, Jerry Yang devised his relentlessly aggressive final table plan on his own, and had he had four months of coaching prior to the final table, he may have actually done a lot worse. Either way, he had to succeed or fail on his own, whereas this year, coaches will share in the blame or the credit, somewhat diminishing the players’ accomplishments.

Some pros are worried that the new format favors the amateurs, who will use coaching to close the skill gap on whichever pros may make the final table.

“For sure,” said pro Isabelle Mercier, “the delayed final would give some great exposure to the finalists and plenty of time to get in good shape for the final. But it would probably favor the amateurs who would have time to train with a pro in exchange for a percentage of the winnings. My opinion, they should play the final straight with the tournament and not months later.”

Those who agree with Mercier are also playing several “what if” cards in challenging whether this change is good for the game.

They’ve asked, what if something tragic happens to a player during those 117 days off? Isn’t it bad for poker to have an empty seat and a blinded-off chip stack at the final table? And even worse, what if one player causes something tragic to happen to another? It seems like a longshot, but isn’t it possible that someone might hire a hit man to bump off the chip leader? Or at least to hit him in the knee with a lead pipe?

Then there’s this somewhat rhetorical “what if”: What if, when play is three-handed, two players go broke on the same hand? Obviously, the champion will be crowned then and there, and the WSOP’s grand plan of having the winner determined less than 24 hours before the final table airs will not come to fruition.

The biggest “what if,” however, concerns the seamy side of poker: What if, in those 16 weeks, two players (or, hell, all nine players) strike a deal? Isn’t there an inordinate amount of time here in which collusion and dealmaking, which crush the integrity of the competition, will be possible?

Pollack acknowledges that potential problem, and seems to be relying on faith in humanity—and on the intense scrutiny these players will be under—to win out.

“We think that the biggest mistake any player can make here is to test our sincerity in making this fair, and we think this encourages our final nine players to approach this with grace, style, and good play,” Pollack said. “We will be releasing a new code of player conduct that will absolutely clarify with a new sense of firmness that any play that is illegal, unethical, or constitutes cheating or collusion in any form will be met with penalties.”

In other words, disgrace yourself and the game of poker at your own risk.

Will the honor system and some good old-fashioned scare tactics work? We’ll know in November.

***

Perhaps the final word should go to Negreanu, one of poker’s most outspoken pros, a man who has railed against past missteps by the WSOP, and a member of the Players’ Advisory Council that ultimately approved this dramatic alteration:

“All in all, I think this concept has the potential to be a really good thing for poker,” he said. “If not, well, then we go back to the traditional format next year.”

Nothing is etched in stone. Harrah’s hasn’t signed a 10-year contract with ESPN committing to a four-month delay before the final table thru 2017. This is an experiment. It’s an experiment with upside and downside. It’s an experiment intended to better serve poker, in both the short run and the long run. But until the experiment is conducted, nobody knows for sure whether it will be a success.

The guess here is that it will be—that the pros far outweigh the cons. But if that isn’t the case, the WSOP can always return to the tried-and-true approach.

For now, though, the only thing that’s true is that this new approach is being tried. So sit back and enjoy the suspense over who will win instead of the anticlimax of who already won.

Sidebar 1:

The 2008 Main Event: Schedule Of Play

July 3: Day 1A

July 4: Day 1B

July 5: Day 1C

July 6: Day 1D

July 7: Off Day

July 8: Day 2A

July 9: Day 2B

July 10: Day 3

July 11: Day 4

July 12: Day 5

July 13: Day 6

July 14: Day 7

Nov. 9: Final Table

Nov. 10: Heads-Up

Sidebar 2:

ESPN 2008 WSOP Schedule

(all times Eastern)

July 22, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

July 29, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 5, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 12, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 19, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 26, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Sept. 2, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 9, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 16, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 23, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 30, 8 p.m. Main Event

Oct. 7, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Oct. 16, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Oct. 23, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Oct. 30, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Nov. 4, 9 p.m.: Final table preview

Nov. 11, 9 p.m.: Final table

Sidebar 3:

Early To Bed (Relatively Speaking)

Good news for those who dread the 15-hour days that have marked the early rounds of Main Event play in recent years: The WSOP plans to wrap up all of the Day Ones about two hours earlier than was the case in ’05, ’06, and ’07.

“In the past, we have tried to play additional levels at the beginning,” said Tournament Director Jack Effel. “This year, for the Main Event, you’re going to play five levels on all starting days, so that’s five two-hour levels, plus breaks, putting you out at about 12 or 12:30 at night instead of 2:30.”

Is it still a long day, especially for an East Coaster who hasn’t yet adjusted to Vegas time or, worse, a European player who isn’t even close to having made the adjustment? Absolutely. But those two hours should make a difference, and may help some of the older players go deeper in the tournament.

Yes indeed, it looks like this could be Jack Ury’s year.