Money Makes the World Go Round

They say money makes the world goes round. I’m not so sure but clearly it oils the cogs of the poker phenomenon. Poker is a multi-million pound industry, it is also a gambling game. A game where ones hard-earned is put on the line. That’s the way it is and that’s the way it should be.

I’ve heard countless claims that some of the bigger ‘made for television’ events should be free to enter by and for the superstars of the game. Folly! Poker is a game of skill but not one which sees the sports elite win repeatedly as is the case with disciplines such as darts and snooker. Any such exclusive free-to-enter events will take away the very essence of this, the quintessential card game.

Therein, believing the players should shuffle up and deal from a level playing field, I am forced to condemn the implications of industry commerciality on conventional land-based poker tournaments.

Paddy Power set the ball rolling by offering a cash bonus to the online qualifying player who progresses furthest in the two major tournaments they sponsor, the Irish Open and Irish Winter Festival.

Resultantly part of the field have an agenda different to those who have put their cash on the line and play to win. Consequently, towards the business end of proceedings, the non-internet qualifying part of the field are disadvantaged as the play of those simply wishing to progress furthest can be and is farcical.

Now Boylepoker have tossed their spanner in the works, likewise doubtlessly induced by commercial pressures, with a gem of a promotion which offers players who have played on their online poker site an increased starting stack for the forthcoming International Poker Open (IPO), an event they sponsor.

It’s a simple strategy for getting people to play on their site: Do so and you will receive 2,000 extra chips at the IPO giving them a 10,000 starting stack as opposed to other contestants, who have paid the same entry fee, 8,000 chips.

From a commercial viewpoint it is brilliantly simple, for players taking this game seriously it is incomprehensible, akin to a darts pro playing off of 401 as opposed to his opponents 501 as reward for playing in a few pub games in the build up to a major tournament or a Derby runner getting a 5lb allowance for running at Epsom (or Churchill Downs) as a two-year-old.

Lunatics are not running the asylum… Quite the opposite, its organisations, seeking to increase their profits, which are. I believe it’s the lunatics that are allowing this to go on.

Maybe I am wrong, after all when I posted this opinion on a well-known Irish poker forum someone e-mailed me to say I was a joke and disgrace.

Some of the feedback was a little more constructive explaining the sponsors have to recoup the cost of staging tournaments they sponsor. I thought they did through customer acquisition and satellite rake, but even if they do have to drive yet more players to their site possibly they could reward those customers with a 25 percent concession on the entry fee as opposed to 25 percent extra starting chips.