Poker in the front, liquor in the rear

Well I just finished watching the opening days of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker, and let me just tell you, poker sucks right now.

I believe that amazing jump in popularity is the worst thing to happen to poker in a long time. Granted, I'm not the oldest fan in the world, this being only the third WSOP I've seen, but it's not hard to tell.

For one thing, there were 3 times the entries this year compared to last, and like adding MLB teams, you do nothing but dilute the talent pool when you add more players. The field went from 850 last year to just over 2,600. Obviously this is going to bring the overall level of talent down, and unlike most other sports, this fact hurts the good players. Sure, the bad players are going to loose much more frequently than the good players, but with so many of them the bad players are bound to suck out on the pros now and again.

For instance, I watched an internet newbie up against Sammy Farha earlier. Sammy had the hand read perfectly, he knew he was way ahead and just kept allowing the newbie to bluff. And when I say bluff, I mean seriously bluff, he was up against 2 pair and had no draw, only 6 outs left in the deck. But of course he got one on the river, and took down a huge pot he had no business being in from the beginning.

I saw interview after interview of frustrated pros that got knocked out on amazing draws.

How bad are these players? If I didn't know better, I'd think the best starting hand in hold 'em was K-8 suited. Of course they would get their ass handed to them 19 times out of 20, but that's not often enough for the pros. Every time they knocked out some moron, an even bigger looser would take his seat (literally, they had alternates that had to wait on the street because they didn't have enough seats). The game became who could get lucky against the pro first.

After the first day I saw Chris Moneymaker, Men Nyuegn, John Juanda, Daniel Negrauno, Sammy Farha, Phil Ivy, Dutch Boyd, and Scott Fey all knocked out already. There are still 4 days left (they had to have 2 days of first round action because there were so many people) and Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Chris Fergeuson, Scott Fischman, and TJ Cloutier are all that's left.

If things continue like this, I predict that the Main Event will stop being the premiere event in the poker world. The game already isn't very much fun to watch, and I think it's only going to get worse as the field narrows.

The worst thing poker ever did was become popular.