Enjoying Borgata and a Conversation With Harrah's

I am currently in Atlantic City at the Borgata and have been playing some no limit cash games. It looks like the turnout for this Sunday's $2,000 event will be great. The tournament has a great structure and a starting chip stack of 30,000 so there should be great play. They just started a mega satellite and the participation is larger than expected, which is a good sign.

Over the past 24 hours I have received a flood of emails from players concerning the WSOP final table change. My initial impression is somewhat tempered after speaking with one of the Harrah's executives and gaining some insight about the change. I assumed that the reason behind the change was financially motivated by Harrah's, which appears to not be the case at all. What I have been told and believe is that the three month delay in playing the final table is to create excitement and PR for the players and poker as a whole. So I guess in a roundabout way there is some financial incentive for Harrah's, which as a corporate entity I would expect nothing less, in the profits realized from the long term growth of the WSOP and poker as a whole.

Perhaps the direction they took wouldn't have been my first choice, and maybe a shorter time before playing the final table, say two or three weeks would be more logical, but I applaud the initiative. The growth of poker seems to have dwindled and this could help create some excitement and increase the player and fan base. I do have some concerns about the possibility of undue influence or collusion being more likely because of the time to organize those types of things. The event will certainly never be the same. So I guess we will have to see what transpires and be cautiously optimistic.

For more information on Roy Winston, you can visit his website: www.oraclepoker.net or send him an email: [email protected]