Some pros are questioning whether the WSOP's prestige is being compromised by having too few big buy-in events in different forms of poker.
In 2012 there were championships for six different variants. In 2010 there were nine. This year only PLO, 2-7 Draw Lowball and Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em are being offered at the $10k level.
But while professionals with big bankrolls are pushing for more $10k events, other grinders like David Williams think $5k is a more comfortable and maintainable price.
WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel, meanwhile, plans to take all sides of the argument into consideration and think long and hard before making any decisions for 2014.
To get a look at this issue from a few different perspectives we spoke to Matt Glantz, David Williams, Adam Levy and Jack Effel.
For some background on the discussion check out Matt Glantz's recent blog post on the subject.
PokerListings: Is the WSOP missing some prestige by eliminating the $10,000 Championships?
Matt Glantz: Without having a championship event in each discipline there’s a lot of prestige missing. The $10k’s were something everyone looked forward to.
And as far as people saying you shouldn’t have Razz or Stud/8 or better, I was writing more about a framework, I really wasn’t concentrating on which game was more important than another.
A framework that would be much better for World Series and for poker in general. They could just have a $1,500 in each discipline (or most of them) and a $10k in each of the disciplines also.
This way it fits both needs.
One of the biggest things I don’t understand is that it seems like the WSOP is worried that if we have more $10k’s we might have pretty small turnouts.
Maybe 80 players or even 70 in a certain discipline and I don’t really think that’s a bad thing.
I think it’s understandable when you have a $10k special event you’ll only have the best players and you won’t have big numbers.
I don’t think it hurts the World Series to have certain prestigious events with low numbers but you also have to have the $1,500’s and the big No-Limit fields with tons of players.
David Williams: I don’t think $10k events are going to get as big fields. I think there should be a $5k for all the disciplines, which there wasn’t.
I think there should be a $5k and a $1,500 for each one to give everyone a chance to learn the games.
I don’t think $10ks are the solution. The buy-ins are too big to have all $10k events; people can’t afford them. There’s $100ks, $50ks, $25k 6-max and adding seven $10ks is just too much.
Adam Levy: I feel like there needs to be $1,500s for a lot of the other disciplines. Stud-8, for example, there needs to a $1,500 for that, not a $10k.
Overall, it would be too much for a lot of people. You want players to have to fork out $250k to play the whole series?
Three years ago there were like seven $10ks and that was way too much.
Jack Effel: I know some players are very passionate about particular games that should be represented at the WSOP.
We are very open to players’ feedback, and obviously we want to have all the games represented at the WSOP at the proper buy-in levels.
We want to make all the games special and have the best prize pool.
A lot of players have been vocal and we’re going to take a long hard look at the schedule for next year.
We will continue to have all the disciplines of poker represented and the players have given us a lot of good ideas about how we can achieve that next year.
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