I’m still not entirely sure what to think about this, except my gut instinct - and I’ve come to trust it - says that it’s a pretty bad idea. It also says that I’m not really that interested in the WSOP in general, but I do get that a lot of people are.

tl;dr: The WSOP Main Event will play down to the last 9 players, at which point the remaining play will be delayed until November 9th.

Basic argument FOR the change: It will make for better television, with plenty of time to interview the contestants, follow them through their three-month preparation, etc. Because it’s better television, it might make more people start to play poker and cause another mini-poker-boom.

Basic argument AGAINST the change: It’s unorthodox. It lets people hire coaches and practise their game, making the final table a lot tougher than it “should” have been. The risk of collusion increases greatly. Also, waiting sucks.

I think “people will have a chance to get better at poker” is a non-argument. Sure, it makes the final table more difficult for the serious players, and gives the one-in-a-million amateurs a better shot at playing more than just their luck for the big money. There ought to be no lack of coaches ready to charge big bucks for the service of explaining the M-concept to a PokerStars $1 qualifier. And, of course, given how much money is at stake, the amateurs should be really keen on the idea of preparing as best they can, coaching included.

So why is it a non-argument? Because it doesn’t make the main event worse. We will see better play and probably more interesting situations (by “we” I mean people who watch it, of course, and that probably excludes myself), and complaining about the opposition getting tougher sounds a lot like whining.

Collusion, however, is a problem. And waiting, objectively and majorly, sucks.

That it’s unorthodox is also a non-issue.

Whether it’ll be good or bad is hard to gauge. From where I’m sitting, anything that increases the chance of a lot of new players sitting at the tables is a great thing, so while I’m still torn, reasoning seems to tilt me towards approving of the idea.

Gut vs. reason. I hate it when that happens. Fortunately, I can’t do anything about it whatsoever, so all I really need to do to find piece of mind is just put my feet up and wait to see how it plays out.