A Tale of Two Tournaments

Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, welcome to the 2008 World Series of Poker. The poker world has converged upon the Rio for the next month-and-a-half for a summer of poker in Las Vegas, and the next 46 days will write the next chapter in the book of WSOP history.

The question on everyone's mind this year seems to revolve around the number of entrants that will pony up the ante for each event, and how that might have changed from last year (especially given the fact that numbers were down in a lot of U.S. events this year). The first two events of the summer have closed for registration and two divergent pictures have been painted. One tournament was down slightly, while the other exceeded all expectations. Two tournaments with very different tales, which will most likely represent the quality vs. quantity tournament field dichotomy that will emerge this summer.

Event No. 1 was the first of eight $10,000 World Championship events that are scheduled for the summer (think of them as eight WPT/EPT stops within the flow of the 55 bracelet events – although the $10,000 main event will always be an enigma unto itself). They are as follows: Event No.1 – pot-limit hold'em, Event No. 8 – mixed event (H.O.R.S.E. + no-limit hold'em, pot-limit Omaha, and 2-7 draw lowball, Event No. 14 – seven-card stud, Event No. 25 – heads up no-limit hold'em, Event No. 30 – limit hold'em, Event No. 37 – Omaha eight-or-better, Event No. 50 – pot-limit Omaha, and the grand daddy of them all Event No. 54 – no-limit hold'em main event.

These eight events, along with the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship provide the quality control portion of tournaments for the summer.

The decision to lead with one of these World Championships was a good one, considering it gave the tournament staff a warm-up for the madness of the first $1,500 no-limit hold'em donkfest that took place on day two. A manageable tournament field of 352 players took over one corner of the room on the first day, and the pro-heavy field led things off with a bang. The impressive start was laden with professionals and it continued all the way to the final table three days later, which was the most impressive WSOP final table lineup since the inaugural $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship.

Andy Bloch, Nenad Medic, Mike Sexton, Mike Sowers, Amit Makhija, Chris Bell, Phil Laak, Kathy Liebert, and Patrik Antonius provided a number of compelling storylines. Two veterans were looking to add to their bracelet collection (Sexton and Liebert), and they were joined by two internet young guns looking for their first (Makhija and Sowers), as well as four seasoned professionals who were looking to leave the best player without a bracelet club (Bell, Bloch, Laak, and Antonius – who might be the very best player in the world yet to win a bracelet). There probably won't be another final table this impressive for the rest of the summer. In the end Medic won his first gold bracelet, and the first marquee event of the summer had a marquee champion. Chapter one was a tale of quality from beginning to end.

Event No. 2 was an entirely different matter. The fourth largest tournament field in the history of poker stretched the physical boundaries of the Amazon Room, and most likely the intestinal fortitude of the fire marshal in charge of the Rio. Only the main event's in 2005 (5,619), 2006 (8,773), and 2007 (6,358) were larger. A record turnout of 3,929 players anteed up $1,500 on day 1A and day 1B, and then more than half of them proceeded to play hot potato with their chips. Only 448 players made it to day 2 with chips left in their stacks and there was not a famous Phil, Doyle, Daniel or Johnny in the mix. The first quantity chapter of the Series had been written, and the sotry featured warp-speed play that led up to an abrupt, prolonged halt at the money bubble. It was standard operating procedure for a low buy-in, large field tournament, and one that will happen multiple times over the course of the summer. Bad if you're watching poker, but great for poker in general considering the gigantic turnout. We'll see what the final table has to offer tomorrow, but at this point 2-3 known pros sounds about right.

The first two tales have been written, and their stories of quality or quantity should dominate the rest of the summer.