The poker world has had some time now to digest the final table at the World Series of Poker, won by Denmark’s Peter Eastgate over Russia’s Ivan Demidov in a heads up duel that lasted four hours. Now that the crowds have gone and the remaining prize money has been divvied up by “The November Nine,” it is time for the poker community to ask themselves whether the 117 day delay in play at the final table of the Championship Event was worth it or not.
The current poll on Poker News Daily shows that many believe the officials at Harrah’s should not do the same thing in 2009. This highly unscientific vote, however, is far from a slam dunk. While many don’t believe it should happen (at this point, 47% of the vote is leaning this way), there is a greater percentage that either believe it should be done again, done with a shorter delay or don’t have an opinion either way (53%). The only way to judge whether or not WSOP officials should play the 2009 event in the same manner is to look at some of the positives and negatives of the situation.
The Good
Both Harrah’s and ESPN had to have been enthused about the television ratings and the audience that came to Vegas for the finish of this year‘s WSOP. Viewership for the final table was up almost 50% versus last year’s ratings in key demographics, indicating that the delay did build the suspense for the television audience that ESPN wanted. Harrah’s also had to be excited about the crowds that turned out to watch the event unfold live, filling the Penn and Teller Theater in the Rio for two days while hundreds of other fans waited outside the theater for a chance to witness the action. The theater audience also provided the atmosphere that made the finish of the tournament so exciting for both the live and televised spectators.
The play at the final table of the tournament was arguably better than in previous years. With the nine men rested and prepared for battle, there weren’t many ill-advised moves and performance was noticeably better. The fourteen hours it took to work down to the heads up match between Eastgate and Demidov and four hours of heads up play is proof of this.
Finally, the effort to make the finale of the WSOP Championship Event more than just the end of the tournament – with the presentation of the WSOP Player of the Year award to Erick Lindgren and the induction of Dewey Tomko and Henry Orenstein into the Poker Hall of Fame – kind of made it seem that it was poker’s Big Night. In the past, these prestigious awards were done outside of the run of the tournament and, by adding them to the proceedings, brought the respect that they deserve.
The Bad
Probably no other player at the final table was hurt more by the delay than chip leader Dennis Phillips. Phillips had been on a tremendous heater in getting to the final table and the delay arguably interrupted that. While we don’t know that the outcome of the Final Table would have been changed if it had been done as in the past, Phillips never seemed comfortable at the final table and, although he was thrilled to be there, would have probably been more thrilled with the championship.
The idea of not having anything for the ninth place player, in this case Craig Marquis, to play for was a bad move. Although everyone had received the ninth place payday of $900,670 back in July, it would have been worthwhile to see something awarded to the first man who left the table. A seat at the 2009 Championship Event would have been a nice parting gift to give Marquis for coming back nearly four months later to participate.
The delay was also supposed to allow time for the players to obtain sponsorships and advertising that would have moved the game of poker more towards the mainstream of sporting events. From the best of my observations, none of the players had any other sponsorship other than the “usual suspects” (poker rooms, other poker websites, poker magazines, poker drinks, etc.) that you saw during play back in July, Phillips’s charity auction sponsorship notwithstanding. Whether this was because the players were more intent on preparing for playing the most important tournament of their lives or what, there was a huge opportunity missed for mainstream advertising to be utilized there.
The Ugly
Promotion for “The November Nine” was almost nonexistent on all sides of the equation. WSOP officials did send out occasional e-mails that featured profiles of the players but, other than that, there wasn’t the blitzkrieg that you would expect out of a major corporation promoting a signature event. With more time to prepare for this type of situation should it come to pass in 2009 (the decision to delay the 2008 final table was only made just before the start of play at the WSOP), perhaps the WSOP and Harrah’s can make a bigger deal out of any postponement.
ESPN also is to blame here. With what seems like half of the channels on the average cable box, you didn’t see the players making any appearances on their shows such as “First Take,” “SportsCenter” or ESPN News prior to play at the final table. Even ESPN Magazine didn’t have any features on the players, although they did feature a Q&A with a WSOP dealer in the issue before the final table was to be played. While ESPN has been one of the boons to televised poker, they could have made the event even more special by focusing their full resources on it.
There was also the violation of the purity of the game, as Ylon Schwartz put it in an interview with Poker News Daily. Tournaments are meant to be played in a linear fashion, with the field whittling down to the last man standing without made-for-television delays. When you adjust the game of poker to make it more appealing to television (delays, altered structures, etc.), then the beauty and skills present in poker are destroyed.
When the 2009 WSOP schedule is announced by Harrah’s we will learn whether the delayed final table will become part of the mix or whether it will fall by the wayside, as the last great experiment – the 1997 Fremont Street outdoor final table – did. For now, we can revel in what proved to be at the minimum a slight upward tick in the popularity of poker on the mainstream front. Whether it is done again or not, for the next few months we can also debate on whether the delay was worth it as well.
