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Poker News Round-up: Week #18

By Adam Noone, 02/05/2008

Rupinder Bedi

There was no news report last week due to the birth of Noone junior so we will start off with a brief review of the previous week’s news. Firstly the Gala Casinos British Poker Tour main event in Nottingham saw Rupinder Bedi take first place for £29,500 by defeating a field of 224 runners. The event was already covered in depth by this site but in case anybody is yet to see the good work done by the live reporting team it can be viewed in the Live Reporting System.

Last week also saw the long running dispute over players’ image and endorsement rights at WPT events draw to a conclusion. During the 2006 WSOP Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem filed a lawsuit against the WPT claiming that the release form which all players taking part in a WPT event are required to sign violated federal and state antitrust laws. The signing of this release form would allow World Poker Tour Enterprises the right to use player names and images in various forms of promotional material as well as to form the basis of other products to sell such as video games and clothing. Any player not signing away these image rights (for which there is no payment from the WPT) would not be allowed to compete in WPT events, which is exactly what these players did.

Nearly two years on, the dispute has drawn to a close and whilst the WPT has made clear that it is not prepared to accept any wrongdoing in the past, it has now agreed to take the players’ concerns into account. A revised release form has been drawn up and the group has stated that it is now happy with the new terms.

Incidentally, two of the original group – Raymer and Hachem withdrew their names from the lawsuit despite the fact that Raymer had previously voiced staunch support for the cause. If this was at the request of the pair’s sponsor, Pokerstars, Hachem at least must have been secretly quite pleased at how it all turned out as upon his return to WPT events he won the Five Diamond Classic for over $2 million in late 2006.

This new agreement meant that the five remaining high profile players were now free to enter the final event of WPT season six – the $25,000 championship event at Bellagio. In all 545 players took part – less than for the previous two years, but nevertheless enough to generate the largest tournament prize of 2008 for the winner of possibly the toughest no limit hold’em tournament around. The field was packed with highly talented players, although that was no guarantee that there would be an absence of strange plays. On day 1b Joe Hachem appeared to hit the jackpot when his 5 3 made a straight on the turn with the board showing A 7 4 6. However, when his raises were repeatedly countered with small re-raises from Jordan Morgan, Hachem managed to convince himself that he was up against the only hand that could beat him i.e. 5 8. With nearly half of his stack already committed to the hand, Hachem folded his straight face up to the astonishment of the rest of the table, then immediately found out that he was ahead after all against top set. Surely the point of playing a hand like this is to try and crack aces in a deep stack tournament, but Hachem appears to have monsters under his bed if he’s folding the second nuts here.

Towards the end of day three, two very important hands took place that would significantly shape the outcome of this tournament. David Chiu managed to pull off a runner runner straight with A3 to crack Jayde Tran’s pocket aces and Gus Hansen won a monster pot with AK v AQ to take the chip lead. Although Amir Vahedi surged to the top at one point, Hansen continued to build his stack to massive proportions and entered the final table as chip leader with Chiu well placed in third.

Vying for a fifth WPT title, Hansen appeared to be able to do no wrong and he eliminated four opponents at the six handed final in the space of just 22 hands. Three times whilst all in he hit his draw on the river and once did actually manage to get it in with the best hand with a set over set confrontation, leaving him heads up against Chiu with 84% of the chips in play.

Few could envisage anything other than a Hansen victory at this point but a series of big pots for Chiu saw him take a slender lead over Hansen two hands before they both moved all in on the turn card. Hansen’s two pair was ahead but on this occasion it was his turn to get rivered, and suddenly Chiu had all the chips when he hit trip aces on fifth street.

David Chiu

David Chiu is not necessarily a name that would spring to mind for many people when they think of the top performers in poker as he is not the sort of player who is surrounded by hype, but he does in fact have a long history of success in big buy in tournaments including four WSOP bracelets. He now also has a WPT championship to his name plus the rather handy $3,389,140 that goes with it.

The main talking point of this week has been the announcement that Harrah’s has decided to do some major tinkering with the WSOP main event. Despite previously confirming the dates for this summer’s series, an announcement was made this week that the championship event will now be put on hold when down to nine players. These nine will then be asked to return four months later to play out the final table in November by which time ESPN broadcasts will have shown the rest of the tournament, enabling the final to be shown on tv “as live” with a short delay to prevent hole card info being passed on. The spin being put on it by WSOP commissioner Jeffrey Pollack is that “our goal is to create a greater sense of anticipation for the outcome of the final table” and that it will give the players “an unprecedented opportunity to capture the world’s attention.” However, few believe that it is the players’ best interests that are being catered for here.

It is undoubtedly an opportunity for Harrah’s and ESPN to try and generate more money from the television broadcasts but the number of problems it will create has left many feeling that it is just a terrible idea. Some issues are pretty much already guaranteed, some are “what if?” scenarios but amongst the concerns are:

The safety of the final tablists. The four month hiatus before the final table allows time to hatch and execute a plot to take the chip leader out of the equation via assassination, kidnap etc. Can we really assume that all 7000 or so entrants are above killing a man for the sake of $8,000,000?
Suppose a non US resident commits a crime in the interim period that would prevent them gaining access to America in future? US customs is hardly going to bend the rules for Harrah’s so that someone can take part in a game of poker.
The return journey to Las Vegas will pose problems for many. Whilst the cost for players will be covered by Harrah’s, amateurs will still need to take time off work or even miss other events in their home lives. Media crews will of course face the expense of returning, possibly spending more time travelling than actually covering the event itself. And finally, the atmosphere will surely be dulled by the lack of fans who would already be in Vegas for the WSOP. Compatriots of players like Raymond Rahme and Joe Hachem have played a big part in the past with their support from the stands, but most of them will not be returning four months later.
Suppose somebody doesn’t want tv crews following them round from July to November in order to hype the final broadcast for ESPN? Will they be pressured to sign a form consenting to allow the media into their lives – it’s not unimaginable. If that were to happen, there would surely be objectors and then a similar situation could occur to the aforementioned dispute with the WPT whereby players refuse to allow themselves to be used for free promotion.
The dynamics of the tournament would change dramatically. The hole cards of their opponents during their progress to the final would be available to view, removing much of the element of the unknown from play. Would Lee Childs have folded queens on the ninth hand of the 2007 final table had he seen how Jerry Yang had been playing up until then? Maybe, maybe not, but he would almost certainly have employed a team of analysts/coaches to work with him and prepare him for such a situation. The role of the individual player would suddenly become diminished as the strength of the support team they had managed to assemble would play an important part.

The 2008 WSOP final table

It’s easy to see why some have commented that the whole thing will become something of a circus akin to reality shows like Big Brother as Harrah’s push the tv spectacle aspect of it all. The grand old man of poker Johnny Moss would be turning in his grave if any of these fools actually took it a step further and decided that something so whimsical as a vote would determine the world champion of poker. Oh, hang on...

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