Not a fan of more closed tournaments
As tournament poker evolves, festival organizers continue to experiment with new types of events, constructing a schedule that will get the most people to the tables. This past weekend, Event #15 of the WSOP Circuit stop at Harrah’s Cherokee was something we haven’t seen all that often: a $400 No-Limit Hold’em event restricted to players 40 years of age and older. And poker pro Adam Hendrix wasn’t thrilled to see it.
On Sunday, Hendrix, who finished sixth in the 2025 World Series of Poker Main Event for $1.9 million, tweeted his concern about the tournament, starting off by saying, “At what point do we get to say tournament operators have gone too far?”
Surmising that most professional poker players are young, Hendrix fears that this sort of age restriction will keep most pros out of the field.
“My fear is eventually tournaments will be slightly privatized which goes against the whole beauty of tournament poker,” Hendrix continued. “I slightly understand if they added this event but it was a complete replacement of an open field event. Honestly it is already hard enough to be profitable in circuits with expenses and rake that now I believe 3 events are blocked off make it infinitely harder to make trips worth it. I still believe in Senior and Ladies field events but at what point have operators gone too far?”
Diplomatic in replies
Most people who replied to Hendrix disagreed, ranging from not caring about another age-restricted event, to chastising him for being a successful pro who sounds like he is gatekeeping poker tournaments.
Poker pro Will Jaffe shot back at Hendrix, telling him, “Bro you just cashed for 2 million dollars in the Main. How you could possibly care about something like this blows my mind.”
Another person told him that this topic “is really not tweet worthy at all.”
For his part, Hendrix hasn’t been combative with those who disagree, admitting that perhaps he is making too much of it.
“I don’t mind being wrong here with this specific event but do think it is important to start discussing a line where certain factors can’t stop you from entering a tournament.”
“Best thing about poker for me,” he said in a different reply, “and how it was introduced was any day you play you could sit with anyone from any background, skill level etc and compete.”
Hendrix did admit he may have been incorrect on the 40+ event replacing an open field event. Looking at the Harrah’s Cherokee Circuit stop at this same time last year, there were two Seniors events compared to one this year, so it looks like this new “middle-aged” event replaced a Seniors event.
Image credit: PokerGO.com
