Thursday, June 16, 2011

WSOP Day 16

France take down thier second bracelet of the WSOP as Elie Payan wins Event #22: $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha for $292k and the coveted gold bracelet. European players are doing well overall this year and are giving the home players a run for their money. David "Doc" Sands made the final table but could only manage a third place finish after mounting a comeback from a short stack early on. Payan takes another one for the amateur players although that's probably to be expected when the event is a) PLO and b) has over 1,000 players.

Event #23: $2,500 Eight-Game Mix was taken down by John Monnette after a six hour final table defeating Eric Buchman heads up for the bracelet and $278k. John Racener was among those at the final table but fell short of the win in 8th place.

Jess Welman over at Bluff has done a great piece on the WSOP by the numbers and Pokernews also have a piece on prizepools and field sizes.

It looks like only a handful of the events have seen a decrease in numbers from last year and numbers were pretty good last year too. There is a feeling that this is, in the wake of Black Friday, a last stab at WSOP glory for some. While many still have money locked up in Full Tilt accounts, some will also have money burning a hole in their bank accounts as they were forced to cash out from PokerStars. I think the WSOP in 2012 will be the real test, and who knows what might happen between now and next summer.

The line for the WSOP Main Event seems to be around the 5,200 mark and I think a big part of how accurate that is depends on the sattalites PokerStars offers. Stars typically contributes a large number of players to the field (how many is hard to say as players are able to simply cash out the money or play with it online) and the less WSOP centric Main Event Passport now offers a single tournament entry that can be used for not just the WSOP, but also for EPT events, AAPT events and events like the PCA.

That has to have a significant impact on numbers, as does all of the people who'll be busto by the time the Main Event rolls around and can't simply withdraw more money from their online roll.

It's the Main Event of the World Series of Poker though, so you never know!

---

No comments: