ShareIn the aftermath of the 2023 World Series of Poker, Mike Matusow has brought attention to a couple of contentious points that look to have split the poker community down the middle—are Day 2 registrations fair and should WSOP Online events count towards the prestigious Player of the Year title?
Time for a Rethink?
The point that Mike Matusow wants to drive home is that allowing players to register for an event while avoiding a whole day’s play is detrimental to the game. Rich players and pros can come in late and leapfrog their way up the chip counts at the expense of starting short. Todd Witteles was another well-known player who feels this is unfair.“Mike is correct here. It completely perverts the concept of tournaments, allowing deep pocketed pros the ability to shave off a full day's worth of play, giving them a way to leapfrog much of the field, in exchange for coming in short. It shouldn't be allowed.”
Matusow suggested limiting those buying in late to a maximum of 10 big blinds for NL games.
Reading through the threads on the matter, there wasn’t much positivity about casinos and event organisers changing this as they would just be reducing their income. Plenty of the replies were quite scathing about a lack of care about the game.
“However , I 100% agree on any multi entry event . That should not be allowed a day 2 entry period but the casinos and poker rooms do not give one sh*t about your opinion on this . It's all about the RAKE !! Period !”
“I agree with you completely. They want to maximize rake they do not care about the typical recreational player. They also allow known cheaters to continue to play, they want their rake too.”
Should WSOP Online Tournament Count of Player of the Year?
Although mutterings about WSOP Online events not having the same status as the live ones have been around for a while, it really kicked off when a revised table was posted on Twitter showing how much of a difference it would have made not to count them for the Player of the Year race.Chris Brewer would have been the 2023 winner, followed by Josh Arieh, the pair winning two bracelets during the summer. Ian Matakis, who won this year, would only have finished in 10th place without his online results counting.
Mike Matusow tweeted congratulations but made his stance very clear.
Daniel Negreanu chipped in and stated that he doesn’t think online events should count but maybe final tables and wins counted more heavily.
“If it were up to me online results wouldn’t count for POY at all It forces those in contention to multitask and in some cases lug a laptop to play while also trying to play live”
“Yeah, there is a lot to think about with how to create the best system to give everyone a chance but we agree for the most part on FTs and wins being weighted heavily”
