Monday, January 26, 2009

 

WSOP SHMSOP

The WSOP schedule is out. Cliff notes :

- $40K NL event at the start
- No rebuy events. Off all people, Negreanu lobbied for this to stop players from "buying a bracelet". You have to laugh.
- Final table in November again
- Apart from that, pretty much same old.

Me, I'm not planning to go, at the moment. You have to try to avoid rationalizing this kind of decision with fake reasons. For example, Matusow recently claimed that he and Hellmuth weren't playing in the just-filmed series of High Stakes Poker because they felt it was "inappropriate in the current economic climate". Right. Not because you're busto and totally outclassed in the game respectively. Similarly, I could talk about being green by not flying, or taking a stand against the corporatization of poker, but the truth is I did my bollocks last year and didn't enjoy it. I'm still nicely up in WSOP events thanks to 2007 but the bottom line is I can make more money at home.

Thinking about it, the WSOP is not really for me anyway. I mean people like me. Professional online tournament players. The WSOP is for the TV pros and the kids with a dream. Better to just accept that and deal with it. It's still kind of annoying how many people regard bracelet count as an indicator of standing in the poker world, but that's their problem. I might still play the ME, especially if Stars can sort their act out with the double shootouts this year. If they don't, I'll probably just make a late decision, and not worry about it for now.

Comments:
Comments from Hellmuth regarding the removal of rebuy tournaments:

"I think that's a mistake," Hellmuth said.

Hellmuth said he likes re-buy tournaments not because he likes to spend money to stay in a tournament, but because opponents assume they will have to and therefore don't play as well as they should.

He said that players like himself and Johnny Chan, a two-time world champion in 1987 and 1988, need only one buy-in to do well in re-buy tournaments.

"I don't think you can buy a bracelet," he said.
 
It says a lot when Hellmuth is the voice of reason !

Andy.
 
Andy, from your experience, do the big MTTs on the various sites get softer during WSOP with a lot of the grinders plying their trade at the felt rather than online or is there no difference really?
 
I'll let you know in June :-). Seriously, I've always been out there at the WSOP since I've been concentrating on online MTTs. I would expect them to be a bit softer but I know that a lot of online pros still play online while they're in Vegas to some extent.

Andy.
 
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