2008 WSOP recap

November 13, 2008 · Filed Under Ranting, Vegas · Comments 

The World Series of Poker is finally over. Congratulations to Peter Eastgate on becoming the youngest player ever to win the Main Event at only 22 years old. I have a feeling it’s going to be a LONG time before anybody is able to beat that record.

This year, rather than playing out the final event of the World Series until there was 1 player left, when they eliminated the 10th place player, they put the tournament on hold and sent the players on a break. A LONG break. A 3 month break. If you are asking yourself why they would do something like that, well, you are not alone. Back when they first announced that they were going to do this, the explanation that I heard was that they were going to send the players home and invite them back in November to play out the final table live on TV. This would give ESPN time to show all the preliminary events, and the action from the main event up until the point where there were only 9 left. This sounded like an awesome idea. Last year I paid for the Pay-Per-View of the final table and watched about 7 hours of the event. I was definitely ready to watch the final table again this year. Unfortunately, that information was incorrect.

Over this past weekend, the “November Nine”, as they were so cutely named, took over the Penn & Teller theater and with about 1000 people in the audience, they played down to the final 2 players. The following evening, the final 2 came back and played it out until Peter Eastgate held all the chips in play. Of course all of this action was filmed, but there was no live broadcast, no pay-per-view, no extra content to be had at all. Instead, the well produced condensed version was shown on ESPN just like every week leading up to the final table. So why did they make the players wait? I have a guess; money.

If they had completed the final table back in July, even the most casual of poker players would have found out by now who won the WSOP. It’s not like the SuperBowl, but if you are in to Poker, you are going to run across the information on a website, magazine or word of mouth. But, by making everybody wait, they have a built up of excitement to find out who wins. This could cause poker players who may not normally watch the ESPN telecast to turn it on to find out who wins. Face it, most poker players don’t actually watch televised poker. ESPN wants those eyes watching. So anything they could do to build SOME excitement has got to be good for them.

I was pretty bummed when I found out they weren’t going to show the entire final table. But, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to watch the final show.

There were a couple of really ugly beats to knock people out, but I have to say, every player at this final table conducted themselves with a level of professionalism not normally found at the final table. When Scott Montgomery lost on the river to a one-outter, he simply smiled, shook everybody’s hand and walked away. It was a very refreshing sight.

ESPN did one thing during the telecast that is my biggest pet peeve when it comes to televised poker. When they were down to 8 players, they came back from a commercial and they are showing Kelly Kim shaking hands with some of the players. The announcer says that Kelly Kim has just been eliminated. Are you going to tell me that this player fought his way through more than 6800 players and you don’t even have the decency to show his final hand in the tournament? I don’t care if it’s the most mundane hand ever played, he deserves to have his final hand shown.

One other side effect of having a 3 month layoff before the final table, it gave all the players a chance to get sponsorships from dozens of companies. I had made a joke that it looked like we were watching a NASCAR event with everybody covered in sponsorship badges. For the players I’m stoked. Why shouldn’t they get an extra quarter-million if they can work the deals? However, for the viewers at home, I’m a little embarrassed. I would like to think that if I were to ever make it to a televised final table, I would pass up the sponsorship money and instead wear a comfortable suit that actually looks nice.

I’m really curious to hear the plans for next year’s WSOP event. I plan on playing in a couple events next year and want to know what surprises I have ahead of me. I guess I have to wait and see.

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