World Series Of Poker Delays Final Table
Harrah’s announced the other day that they will be delaying the final table of the world Series of Poker $10,000 Main Event final Table for…..16 weeks???? Are you kidding me? 4 months??? I’m sure someone at Harrah’s thought this was a good idea, but I’m not so sure. Could you imagine this happening with other sports? Like football for example. The Super Bowl is always a couple of weeks after the Championship game, in late February or early March. I couldn’t see the NFL going “OK this year the Super Bowl will be held the first week of July, 4 months after it should be played.”
Harrah’s has a couple of reasons for this. For one thing it has to somewhat do with the TV programming. It usually takes a few weeks to edit the telecast and have it ready for broadcast. There’s several bloggers and publications posting hand-by-hand updates from the WSOP and the results are known to anyone with an internet connection almost immediately. Harrah’s wanted more control over the way the results are known as far as I can guess and that’s one of the reasons behind the change.
But let’s think of all the possibilities. For one, it takes away from the mental and physical toughness that’s required to pull off a WSOP win these days, which is even more so with the huge fields we have nowadays. It’s a bit different trying to outlast 8000 people rather than 800! Also, it gives someone a lot more time to work on their game, hire a coach, study past broadcasts (hopefully) of their opponents. And lets be extreme about it. What if something happens to someone? What do they do if someone’s unable to return to finish the tournament? Take away their chips? If so, are their chips taken out of play, distributed equally among the remaining players? Do they forfeit?
Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s a silly idea. I can see maybe, maybe a week or two inbetween. But four months is just nuts. I feel it’ll take away too much from the integrity of the game and there’s just too much that can happen in that kind of time frame. But hey, maybe I’m wrong. You tell me.