Mike made some interesting comments in his recent article. He was addressing the dilemma of high buy-in, deep stack, multiple day tournaments.
Some of the issues I see were not really addressed…..like the growing number of Poker Tours/events going on…. Every time you turn around, there is a new one popping up and nearly all of them have a large buy in Main Event and many have a High Roller Event to go along with it. Many of these events/series overlap and it seems that is stretching the player pool thin and may be more to blame for the declining numbers in some events than the length of time involved.
Mike suggested cutting back the WPT events to 4 days which is reasonable. I have seen that many of these events play some rather short days toward the end so not much would have to be done to the structure to accomplish that. It does not seem to be a big problem to get to four days pretty easily unless there are multiple day ones, especially the ones with more than two day ones. In the grand scheme here there just aren’t that many events that last 5, 6, or 7 days.
Today we have the WSOP with almost 60 events in the summer (not to mention the other LV tourney series at the same time), WSOP expanded Circuit Event schedule, WPT, EPT, APPT, LAPT, and Aussie Millions to name some. They all seem to be expanding their schedules and local/regional casinos, i.e. Foxwoods, Commerce, Bellagio, Borgata, Bay 101 to name a few. Many pros and recreational players must pick and choose where they go. Just 3 to 5 years ago, a person, pro or amateur, could hit most of the main ones but that is no longer the case.
Another twist in these developments is the competition between the biggest poker sites….the Poker Stars and Full Tilt rivalry is getting a little sticky. Some of this is spilling over into the tournament arena.
It seems to the Hag that if the powers that be at the major online sites and the tournament directors of the different tours would coordinate the schedules and call a truce to the silly games being played by some…..it would make for a healthier situation for all.
Now the Full Tilt pros will not be on High Stakes Poker and The Big Game. Some pros are told by their sponsors to not go to certain tournaments. The powers that be at these sites should do what is best for the poker community as a whole…..
My last point here is that with so many choices across the country….speaking of USA right now…. most serious recreational players and many pros will probably not travel a long distance to play a big buy in tournament that may last only two or three days when they can stay close to home and play multiple events in a smaller Tournament series.. especially if it is not a televised event. Many of these things could easily be solved if some of this silliness would go away…