The Poker Majors - Part I

You could not take four steps on the tournament floor of the World Series of Poker over the past weekend without watching Tiger Wood's amazing performance at the U.S. Open (broadcast on the dozens of plasmas that line the walls of the amazon room). Tiger transcends his sport in a way that no other athlete on earth can. While no poker player on earth can transcend poker to the Tiger-degree, there are a few who can capture the larger publics' imagination – they include Ivey, Negreanu, Hellmuth, Matusow, Doyle, and whichever amateur wins the main event in any given year. Golf fanatics, casual fans, and even degenerate gamblers all took notice of the U.S. Open last weekend. Tiger's performance also brought back a column idea that had been dormant in my mind for the last few weeks. Thanks to Tiger it is active and kicking around, so here goes…



When Greg Raymer was sitting in on the EPT Live commentary at the Grand Final in Monte Carlo the subject of the largest tournaments in poker in comparison to professional golf's four major championships (that constitute the sport's grand slam) came up. This got me thinking about the comparison between the two games and a lot of similarities that are apparent. It's not a perfect comparison, but there are just as many similarities if not more than those that exist between baseball and poker, and these comparisons do go beyond the fact that most poker players love to play golf (World Series of Golf anyone?)



Note: These comparisons apply to professional tournament poker and professional tournament golf only. Cash games are not considered in the equation.



1) Poker and golf are both solo sports. There are no teams in poker or golf, and even when team formats are applied to these sports it is only by combining each individual's performance into the larger team's score. When you are on the green or on the felt you can only rely on yourself to make the play. Now you might have a caddy giving you advice, or a railbird for that matter, but in the end you're the one who has to make the drive/pitch/putt or check/bet/raise.



2) Poker and golf are both lifetime sports. Both have been branded with the minutes to learn and a lifetime to master mantra, which make both wildly popular as recreational sports for the general public. Men and women can, and do play golf for years past their retirement, long after their physical prime is behind them. It is the same with poker. Johnny Moss was a championship-caliber player until his dying day. Doyle has joked that his best poker years are still ahead of him. The only small difference here is that while professionals can still play golf well into their senior years, they can't compete at a world-class level the way that professional poker players are able to at the same age.



3) Poker and golf professionals pay their own way. Traveling on the PGA tour is notoriously the most intense expenditure in professional sports, and when you compare it to baseball, football, basketball, and hockey – team sports where the team fronts the bill for everything – that is true. Golfers pay for their entry fees, equipment, travel and lodging, caddies, etc… (supplemented by sponsors to varying degrees) and it adds up quick. Poker players pay for all of their travel and lodging as well, but their expenses trounce those of a golfer in the fact that they (supplemented by sponsors to varying degrees) create 100 percent of the prize pool for their tournaments, while golf purses are infused with corporate sponsorship money (this could be the future for tournament poker). Still, almost every week of the year, professional poker players and professional golfers are on the road and paying their way to sustain the travel involved with their sport (minus a slow period around the holiday season each year). The WSOP and the conglomeration of deep/mega – stack events that dominate the summer months in Vegas td represent a period of no travel for poker players (although only for those who live in Vegas).



4) Poker and golf professionals are judged by money won. This comparison gets a little tricky, but the philosophy at the heart of it is similar. First, the money a poker player holds at the end of the year is much more important to that player than the money a professional golfer holds at the end of the year. But the fact that the money list is usually found right next to the world rankings in most golf box scores is interesting. At the end of the day golfers are playing for money. At the end of the day poker players are also playing for money, the difference being that they are playing with money for money. It is also hard to compare the golf money list to the poker money list at the end of the year. Both sports feature tournaments with larger-than-average prize pools, but in the world of poker those larger-than-average prize pools represent anomalies that make a straight-up money list misleading. Every year the poker money list top five would include the WSOP main event champion, the main event runner-up, and the main event third-place finisher, along with the World Poker Tour Championship winner, and the European Poker Tour Grand Final winner.



Up Next: Part 2 – The four major tournaments of poker.