WSOP ME Final Table to be delayed...

read this, World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table to Take Place in November

dont u just hate what they are doing?

Is this definitely what is happening, or is it still just a rumour?

yeah, Im gonna have to disagree here, there are so many reasons why too. I mean induring the long days of play and playing day after day hour after hour are just what the wsop is so famous for, its why the title is so prestigous. Waiting that long to rejoin the game is upsurd, forgetting reads getting out of a heater, or somone getting out of a losing streak could kill you. Not to forget about the players who didnt know you get more time to research and study. Who the hell is directing this...all I can say is by the time I play in this thing(we''ll see about that) i hope it changes.

Sounds like some journo has got his fact wrong (hopefully) as surely ESPN would already have the schedules worked out in advance >> World Series of Poker - Official Tournament Coverage and Results <<

Who is going to pay for the players to travel back to Vegas 6 months later for a FT?

What is gained by killing the flow of the series stone dead and having to close up shop and wait?

Have they forgotten the WSOPE events would happen in between the 10th and 9th player being knocked out?

Why would you want to make Jerry Yang* the longest reigning World Champ

The whole things sounds insane, ill thought out and ridiculous.....so it must be true then


*Jerry Yang what a great World Champ he has been
Raymer & Hachem great ambassadors even Jamie Gold has improved his public standing this year i feel, Yang - where the hell has he been? still praying i suppose

jerry yang is playing with his 8 million dollars

The mind boggles. WTF are they doing!

I personally think this is a GREAT idea. It should be extended to other events.

For example, how about they play the first three quarters of the Superbowl on schedule and the last quarter on Memorial day. Or, maybe play the final round of the Masters in September.

Anything for a buck!!

I really don't have a problem with this. Anyone care to make a serious argument why it so ridiculous?

Some points here, but I don't find any of them all that that persuading.

^^ does it seem like we're not being serious, i think some of my points were good lol,

Yes, I find it hard to believe that "getting out of a heater, or somone getting out of a losing streak" is an actual real argument.

Surely you don't actually believe that 'heaters' and 'losing streaks' are actually real tangible things (do you?!), or even if they were, that these are the elements that should determine the champion.

As to the reads and coaching argument, oh well, the meta-game is one level deeper, guess you'll have to adjust (you know, kinda like... poker).

NEVER, and I mean NEVER, underestimate the power of marketing guys in suits to screw-up a good thing. This is 100% the doing of the idiots at ESPN. They did an expert job of screwing up professional tournament bass fishing when they bought B.A.S.S., and now they have moved on to my other serious hobby, poker. It's time we protest this and inundate Harrah's with so many e-mails that theyWAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still waiting for real reason why this is 'screwing up a good thing'. Enough with the ZOMG CHANGE BAAAAAAD reactions already...

I think KC made quite a few good, serious points on why this is an awful idea.

At least from a player's perspective, having months between the end of the penultimate day and the start of the final table would completely throw your game. You've spend the past week getting reads on players, carefully analysing their game, taking mental notes... then you walk away for months and come back cold. Even if it were all still in your mind, what's to say any of it's still valid? Having to start cold like that will put a major dent in the advantage of the good, observant players.

If mental fatigue from the previous week's play is an issue then sure, take a rest day. But months? Nah.

I can see the commercial reasons for doing it, of course. But as a player (and a fan), I think it'll blow.

And your opponents have now got 4 months to track down players that have played with you and grill them for info and tells.

What does 9th place get, $500K+? That may not be a lot of money to Daniel Negreanu and the other morons that have signed off on this, but that's a hell of a lot of money to me. You are supposed to wait 4 months for it, and then play live on ESPN for free? And this is a good idea?

Things change in 4 months. What if you are in a coma? What if your wife is? What if you are in jail? What if you don't want to come to America twice? What if you lose your form?

What about collusion? You think that mini deals and team ups aren't going to be proposed? And if they aren't, do you think the public wont think there has been?

This whole idea just shows what a shambles the WSOP really is. Who's in charge? Who decides what's going on? Players pay their entry fee, a substantial chunk goes to harrahs (as does the TV money), and the players (6-8,000 of which pay $10K to play in the main event) are represented by 15 self serving, image pushing Pros who cant possibly have any interest in the wishes and rights of the ordinary Joe satelite qualifier?

One reason is the fact that a tournament is supposed to have strain and push you to the limits until a champion is crowned.

This is like running a marathon, then with a mile left taking a month break and finishing the race for television purposes. It's just changing the sport for marketing and business purposes.

Honestly it wont really effect anyone other than the nine that actually make it there. Most likely none of us will ever be in that position, but I really wouldn't like to take a month or two to start the final table.

Are you saying that there is no such thing as momentum in poker?

Aliengenius: See the comments of KingCurtis, Ozexorcist, and Robwhufc. I agree with them all.

1 days rest before the FT ok but 6 months get serious.

Play Baseball from April till October but not have the World Series until January, yeah sensible, not.

It's all completely academic, of course, because the official structure sheet for this year's Main Event has them playing the final table on July 16...

World Series of Poker - Official Tournament Coverage and Results

Which is why I asked whether it was just a rumour...

Attempted refutation of the potential negatives:

1. "I spent all this time getting good reads, now they are gone" is just silly, imo. Reads should IMPROVE for all players, as you will be able to see (some) of your opponents previous play on tv, etc.

2. No one is going to be able to drastically change their personality/playing style, even with conscious effort. Everyone learned that Jamie Gold defaulted to telling the truth about his hand during his table talk, and he knew that everyone now knew!, but he was unable to stop himself from continuing to fall into this pattern in later play, even for huge stakes (HSP). To the degree that anyone is successful at this, oh well, I guess the player who can adapt the best and/or get reads the fastest will have an edge (you know, just like in... tournament poker).

3. Someone might die or not be able to make it. This is silly as well. Someone might die the night before the final table too. But come on, we, as poker players, are supposed to be able to deal with percentages and statistics fairly well-- do you really thing that an additional three months increases your chances of death a statistically significant amount such that it is a real reason to not delay the final table? I guess if the odds are that high for an individual they probably are not going to get to enjoy their millions for very long if they win anyway... As to conflicts of interest that's just lol.

4. Coaching. Oh no, the quality of play might be higher now at the final table. I for one welcome it, after the relatively horrible display last year.

5. Everyone wont have access to equal levels of the above new available information. I just disagree completely. Sure someone will get coaching from Phil Hellmuth, and someone will get it from Chris Ferguson, but everyone came into the event with different skill sets to begin too.

6. The ME should be an endurance contest. This is total bs. Players have long complained about the format of the days being too long. This eliminates poker skills, the opposite of what the ME should be doing (ostensibly trying to crown the world champion). Sure you can argue that endurance IS a poker skill, but do you really want to make it THE defining skill? I think it was Doyle Brunson himself who stated that the winner will never be over x (can't remember exactly-- 45?) age again, because of the current format.


On the other side of the coin:

1. Better for ALL players as far as endorsements. Obvioulsy the winner is set for life as far as sponsorship deals, but the delay allows EVERY final table player negotiation time for lucrative deals.

2. Better for the game as a whole as far as the marketing of poker. I don't have a problem w ESPN promoting it and hyping it for months. That's a good thing. Mainstreaming of poker needs to continue (no, it's not completely there yet).

I know people from the UK that save up all year to play in this, a large part of their expenses is the cost of travelling to/staying in the USA, and they have to book a fair chunk of their holiday too. Having to go back a second time would definitely make the difference for some ordinary people as to whether they could play in it or not. So it's easy for the pros, but not so easy for joe public, that's for sure.

If they have made the final table money shouldn't be a problem.

imo

Aliengenius: Some of your points are well taken. But, to me, holding the final tables months later somehow changes the very nature of the WSOP title and the nature of the game in terms of how the final table would have played out had it been held immediately, as usual. Whoever wins will always have an "asterisk" by their name, at least in my mind. Although I am not certain that I completely agree with Likminutz's marathon analogy, it does make some sense to me. Maybe even closer to the point, Robwhufc's last point about "momentum" or being on a rush, or more precisely a player being in the "zone" will be broken with the interruption in play. Being in the "zone" is something that even the best players just can't "will" to happen.

yes i understand the heater and loosing streak, but more reads by having more time to research is something you couldn't have done before but like you said adapting by switching gears so others cannnot do this and get confused or actualy do research yourself . But thanks for being so direct sometimes i need someone to tell me im not making sense, mainly because i think to fast, or speak/type before im done thinking about it through......btw i havent read the rest of the post but what are you arguments for it being good?

Thought you'd be on the other side of this arguement for some reason AG?

nvm once again i spoke before i read and thought

Who knows how it "would have" played out. This, to me, is akin to a blackjack player criticizing another player's choice to hit or stand because the opposite decision "would have" caused the dealer to bust. You just can't know if the card will help or hurt you, just as you can't know if the three month delay will help or hurt you. Maybe someone will be able to get some psychological help with their 'stage fright' issues so they can play better on camera, maybe someone will die in a train crash, maybe maybe maybe..

How is someone being "in the zone" in July any more deserving of winning than someone who will be "in the zone" in October? You have put an artificial construct on it. In fact, you are supposed to think of poker as one long game, with individual start and stop times are arbitrary and capricious-- so continuing again at a later date should be totally irrelevant to you.

On a related side note, ALL winners have had to endure different conditions on their way to victory, sometimes drastically different from their predecessors. We don't put an asterisk by Stu Ungar's name because he had to beat Doyle Brunson heads up instead of David Williams. We don't put an asterisk by Amarillo Slim's name because Pearson and Brunson basically ceded the title to him because they didn't want name recognition at the time. We don't put as asterisk by Jack Strauss because the field he had to beat in 1982 was so much smaller. Etc.

This is probably true for the pros, but I don't know if it holds true as much for the amateurs.

A pro isn't going to make any huge changes to their game in the space of three months. But an amateur could spend those three months devouring every poker book they can get their hands on, and it'd potentially make a huge difference to their play. Good for the amateur, not so good for the pro.

I think the bottom line is that this would be:

- Good for the amateur players who make the final table
- Good for the casual poker-viewing audience
- Good for ESPN
- Bad for the professional players
- Bad for the serious fans (I follow all the major tournaments on the net, for example - having to wait three months to find out who wins is likely to hack me off)

But like I said, it's all academic because the actual gap between playing down to nine and the final table starting is only one day.

If I was playing in this and got to the final table then the few months gap waiting to win that kind of prize would kill me. I'd rather jump straight into it.

I'm pretty much against a 4-month delay. Then again, something has to be done to bring the Main Event into a sense of reality. What are they up to now, 4 days of the first flight?

What needs to happen is a series of kockout satellites during May-June where the top 50-100 of each go to the Main Event. A player could only enter one. Think of it as anybody that would be normally ITM of the Main Event would come back and play a two-day event to determine the ultimate winner. This would allow even more players to negotiate deals with sponsors, give a better atmosphere to the final event, and provide a more manageable setup for all.