Aug. 11, 2006, 1:39AM
Open-door debate creates poker furor
Pros don't think best player wins with all-in policy
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
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-->LAS VEGAS - So on they played into the late hours Thursday night and, presumably, the wee hours this morning — the gabby ex-Hollywood agent, the stoic Las Vegas pro, the guy named Rhett Butler who is, in fact, not from Georgia, and the rest — all in search of $12 million and the title of best poker player on the planet.
But is he, really? Such is the growth of high-stakes poker events, including the Texas Hold'em Main Event at the World Series of Poker, that titles, tradition and pedigree don't mean as much as they used to.
As the number of Main Event entrants has expanded from dozens to hundreds to 8,773 this year and as many as 12,000 next year, poker seems to have splintered into two camps: one that favors the traditional open-door policy and one that thinks that even in a growth pursuit like poker, less can be more.
For the moment, the doors will remain open to all at the behest of Harrah's, which controls the 44-event, monthlong tournament that wrapped up this week at the Rio Hotel, a few blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.
"My goal is to ensure that anyone who wants to play and who can pay the ($10,000) buy-in for the Main Event is able to do so," said Jeffrey Pollack, the sports marketing executive who was named in January by Harrah's as commissioner of the World Series of Poker.
For that to happen, Pollack may need a stadium, not a ballroom. This year's Main Event started with more than 200 tables crammed into a ballroom in the Rio's convention center and continued for more than a week as the field was winnowed down to the nine who began play Thursday.
As the clock struck 9 p.m. in Las Vegas, Jamie Gold, a former agent and talent manager from Malibu, Calif., was in first place with $54 million in chips on the table after knocking out businessman Richard Lee of San Antonio with two queens to Lee's two jacks to win a pot totaling $35 million.
Still in the running with Gold were Paul Wasicka of Westminister, Colo., and Allen Cunningham of Las Vegas, the only well-known pro at a table dominated by relative newcomers and Internet hotshots. Rounding out the final five were Butler, an insurance agent from Rockville, Md., and Michael Binger of Atherton, Calif., who has a doctorate in theoretical particle physics from Stanford.
'Absolute mockery'
The winner joins the likes of Amarillo Slim Preston and Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, but the astonishing growth of the field, fueled in part by the poker Internet boom, has some thinking that entries should be limited.
Poker pro Daniel Negreanu, who writes a weekly column for the Chronicle and has won three World Series championships in other events, said considering the Main Event winner as poker's best is an "absolute mockery."
"You've got amateurs going against amateurs, and you can get to the final table without facing the best players in the world," he said. "There's so much hype put into the Main Event, but nobody in the poker world genuinely believes that the winner is the best player. And eventually, the people in power will see it. How can you say that this is the greatest nine players when each year you have players nobody has heard from?"
Negreanu thinks the actual MVP of the WSOP is the champion of the newly added H.O.R.S.E. event, which combines five popular poker games, including Texas Hold'em, in an event that required a $50,000 buy-in. All eight of the top finishers were established pros.
Lee, a native of Hawaii who attended the same San Antonio high school that produced Tommy Nobis and Kyle Rote, stars of another game Texans love, says pros who complain about the wide-open nature of the Main Event are hypocrites.
"(The pros) are making tons of money," he said. "Instead of scuffling around, being broke one month and having money the next, they get staked by online services, and they get endorsements. They're making money they never dreamed of playing poker. Life is good."
Much of the World Series boom has been fueled by the boom in online poker sites. Three players at the final table — Erik Friberg of Stockholm, Sweden; recent Duke University graduate Douglas Kim of Hartsdale, N.Y.; and Dan Nassif of St. Louis — qualified through online tournaments sponsored by www.pokerstars.net.
But it's the other side of the online boom, the dot.com sites where gamblers play for real money, that presents a potential problem, at least in terms of image and perhaps in terms of legislative intrusion.
Pay-per-view poker
While Gold walked through the Rio wearing shirts and caps emblazoned with the logo of his sponsor, www.bodog.net, all dot-com logos were banned from the premises as Congress considers legislation that would ban most Internet gambling in the United States.
Pollack speaks of the dot.nets and dot.coms with the precision he surely learned from his time handling digital media issues for NBA commissioner David Stern and for NASCAR's all-powerful France family.
"We have no business relationships with any dot.com," Pollack said. "People register as individuals or through third parties, and those third parties sign an affidavit stating that the funds they are giving us were not generated through illegal means.
"Our commitment is to operate this tournament with complete transparency. We are mindful of the legal and regulatory environment we operate in, and we're looking to keep the standards as high as they can be and should be for us."
Pollack, however, is just fine with dollars generated through other sources. His latest venture in that regard was to extend Harrah's relationship with ESPN for the World Series of Poker through 2010 and to launch a marathon pay-per-view broadcast of the Main Event's final table — at $29.95 for an event that began at 2 p.m. Thursday and was projected to last into this morning, certainly the cheapest PPV by the minute in the history of pay television.
Welcome mat stays
Neither Harrah's nor ESPN would estimate the number of potential buys, but, Pollack said, "I think it will be successful and am optimistic it will be back next year."
Now all he has to do is find a space big enough to fit them all in. Tournament director Robert Daily said the event can handle 12,000, but Pollack is concerned about retaining the everyman aspect of the event, where spectators can wander between tables and see people they've read about in poker magazines or on poker Internet sites play in person.
"It's the most open, egalitarian sporting event. Anyone who can pay the registration fee and is over 21 is welcome," Pollack said. "This is all very much about the American dream."
Open-door debate creates poker furor
Pros don't think best player wins with all-in policy
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
<!-- commented out ad <iframe width="1" height="1" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder=0 scrolling=no></iframe> <script></script>
-->LAS VEGAS - So on they played into the late hours Thursday night and, presumably, the wee hours this morning — the gabby ex-Hollywood agent, the stoic Las Vegas pro, the guy named Rhett Butler who is, in fact, not from Georgia, and the rest — all in search of $12 million and the title of best poker player on the planet.
But is he, really? Such is the growth of high-stakes poker events, including the Texas Hold'em Main Event at the World Series of Poker, that titles, tradition and pedigree don't mean as much as they used to.
As the number of Main Event entrants has expanded from dozens to hundreds to 8,773 this year and as many as 12,000 next year, poker seems to have splintered into two camps: one that favors the traditional open-door policy and one that thinks that even in a growth pursuit like poker, less can be more.
For the moment, the doors will remain open to all at the behest of Harrah's, which controls the 44-event, monthlong tournament that wrapped up this week at the Rio Hotel, a few blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.
"My goal is to ensure that anyone who wants to play and who can pay the ($10,000) buy-in for the Main Event is able to do so," said Jeffrey Pollack, the sports marketing executive who was named in January by Harrah's as commissioner of the World Series of Poker.
For that to happen, Pollack may need a stadium, not a ballroom. This year's Main Event started with more than 200 tables crammed into a ballroom in the Rio's convention center and continued for more than a week as the field was winnowed down to the nine who began play Thursday.
As the clock struck 9 p.m. in Las Vegas, Jamie Gold, a former agent and talent manager from Malibu, Calif., was in first place with $54 million in chips on the table after knocking out businessman Richard Lee of San Antonio with two queens to Lee's two jacks to win a pot totaling $35 million.
Still in the running with Gold were Paul Wasicka of Westminister, Colo., and Allen Cunningham of Las Vegas, the only well-known pro at a table dominated by relative newcomers and Internet hotshots. Rounding out the final five were Butler, an insurance agent from Rockville, Md., and Michael Binger of Atherton, Calif., who has a doctorate in theoretical particle physics from Stanford.
'Absolute mockery'
The winner joins the likes of Amarillo Slim Preston and Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, but the astonishing growth of the field, fueled in part by the poker Internet boom, has some thinking that entries should be limited.
Poker pro Daniel Negreanu, who writes a weekly column for the Chronicle and has won three World Series championships in other events, said considering the Main Event winner as poker's best is an "absolute mockery."
"You've got amateurs going against amateurs, and you can get to the final table without facing the best players in the world," he said. "There's so much hype put into the Main Event, but nobody in the poker world genuinely believes that the winner is the best player. And eventually, the people in power will see it. How can you say that this is the greatest nine players when each year you have players nobody has heard from?"
Negreanu thinks the actual MVP of the WSOP is the champion of the newly added H.O.R.S.E. event, which combines five popular poker games, including Texas Hold'em, in an event that required a $50,000 buy-in. All eight of the top finishers were established pros.
Lee, a native of Hawaii who attended the same San Antonio high school that produced Tommy Nobis and Kyle Rote, stars of another game Texans love, says pros who complain about the wide-open nature of the Main Event are hypocrites.
"(The pros) are making tons of money," he said. "Instead of scuffling around, being broke one month and having money the next, they get staked by online services, and they get endorsements. They're making money they never dreamed of playing poker. Life is good."
Much of the World Series boom has been fueled by the boom in online poker sites. Three players at the final table — Erik Friberg of Stockholm, Sweden; recent Duke University graduate Douglas Kim of Hartsdale, N.Y.; and Dan Nassif of St. Louis — qualified through online tournaments sponsored by www.pokerstars.net.
But it's the other side of the online boom, the dot.com sites where gamblers play for real money, that presents a potential problem, at least in terms of image and perhaps in terms of legislative intrusion.
Pay-per-view poker
While Gold walked through the Rio wearing shirts and caps emblazoned with the logo of his sponsor, www.bodog.net, all dot-com logos were banned from the premises as Congress considers legislation that would ban most Internet gambling in the United States.
Pollack speaks of the dot.nets and dot.coms with the precision he surely learned from his time handling digital media issues for NBA commissioner David Stern and for NASCAR's all-powerful France family.
"We have no business relationships with any dot.com," Pollack said. "People register as individuals or through third parties, and those third parties sign an affidavit stating that the funds they are giving us were not generated through illegal means.
"Our commitment is to operate this tournament with complete transparency. We are mindful of the legal and regulatory environment we operate in, and we're looking to keep the standards as high as they can be and should be for us."
Pollack, however, is just fine with dollars generated through other sources. His latest venture in that regard was to extend Harrah's relationship with ESPN for the World Series of Poker through 2010 and to launch a marathon pay-per-view broadcast of the Main Event's final table — at $29.95 for an event that began at 2 p.m. Thursday and was projected to last into this morning, certainly the cheapest PPV by the minute in the history of pay television.
Welcome mat stays
Neither Harrah's nor ESPN would estimate the number of potential buys, but, Pollack said, "I think it will be successful and am optimistic it will be back next year."
Now all he has to do is find a space big enough to fit them all in. Tournament director Robert Daily said the event can handle 12,000, but Pollack is concerned about retaining the everyman aspect of the event, where spectators can wander between tables and see people they've read about in poker magazines or on poker Internet sites play in person.
"It's the most open, egalitarian sporting event. Anyone who can pay the registration fee and is over 21 is welcome," Pollack said. "This is all very much about the American dream."
