No News is Good News
Monday, June 02, 2008 23:14The past few days, fellow members of the media have been asking my opinion on what the big stories have been from the first few days of the WSOP.
Clearly, the biggest story is Nenad Medic's victory in Event #1, and the fantastic final table lineup he had to defeat for the bracelet (Andy Bloch, Kathy Liebert, Mike Sexton, Chris Bell, Patrik Antonius, Phil Laak, and young online pros Amit "amak316" Makhija and Mike "SowersUNCC" Sowers).
The second biggest story is the record-breaking field for Event #2 -- 3,929 players. It was the first WSOP preliminary event with two starting days, and it generated prelim records for largest prizepool ($5,363,085) and largest first prize ($831,462). (These records exclude $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. for obvious reasons -- it's not really a "prelim.")
The third biggest story? Nothing.
In past years there have been plenty of early complaints from the players as the WSOP experienced growing pains with the move from Binion's to the Rio and the exploding fields. But WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and his team have learned from their mistakes and strive to make improvements every year. One leading indicator that this year was different? For the first time in WSOP history at the Rio, Event #1 started on time.
In past years, everything from overcrowded restrooms and overpriced/underflavored food options to quick blind structures and hard-to-read PokerPeek cards were criticized in past WSOPs. And the lines -- oh, the long lines. But Pollack's team has tackled all of those problems, and more. The players and the media have apparently run out of things to complain about.
The WSOP has finally grown to maturity.
From this point forward, I expect most of the stories coming out of the WSOP to focus on the players and the action at the tables, which is as it should be.
