Poker Gods ride the H.O.R.S.E. to guaranteed riches...
ELITE GET THEIR WAY Going back over its thirty six year history of the WSOP one thing has been acknowledged throughout the poker universe. Whoever wins the $10,000 buy-in Championship Main Event defines the best player in the world for that particular year. Largely due to the huge public popularity of Texas Hold’em and a recent spate of WSOP winners coming from outside the Las Vegas poker elite, there has been mounting annoyance and pressure from the big established names to preserve their status by making the contest more tricky for newcomers. Obviously, it’s rather demeaning for the so-called Poker Gods to see ordinary online poker players of just a few years experience emerging from a satellite and storming all the way to the multi-million dollar Main Event prize. Hence their desire to mount another H.O.R.S.E in order to ride to victory. As regular readers of this column will know H.O.R.S.E is an acronym for a mix of poker games: H-old’em-O-maha-R-azz-S-tud and E-eights or Better!
$50,000 BUY-IN! The $50,000 buy-in for the elitist H.O.R.S.E contest will be the largest ever set for a WSOP event and will ensure only the top two hundred players in the world can really afford to enter. There is no threat at this stage to the supremacy of the $10,000 buy-in Main Event but clearly in allowing the HORSE event to run, Harrah’s is tipping its hat to the poker royalty and to the demands of mass television audiences around the world.
WHY CHOOSE H.O.R.S.E? Simple. Not many new players have the experience or knowledge of the other games included in the mix with Texas Hold’em. Only seasoned professionals will have the kind of grasp of the different styles at a level that will be necessary to reach the final table.
FEAR NOT POKER VIRGINS Although the elitists battling out will provide a distraction it won’t divert money from the prize pot for the Main Event and all pundits are predicting a world record jackpot for the Main Event winner. Clearly, if two hundred professionals stump up their $50,000 buy-ins the H.O.R.S.E prize pool will reach $10,000,000. That would probably leave the winner taking home around $4,000,000. The Main Event Winner can expect to come away with more than twice that amount, guaranteeing their status as World Champ! However, given the many layers of the game in the H.O.R.S.E. contest (which kicks off 12th July at the Rio) there can’t be any doubt that whoever is able to excel in all those disciplines and come through victorious will probably be thought of as the Best Poker Player in the World. I can already hear the howls for a Las Vegas “Face Off!” later in the year.
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ALL THE ACES poker column: Saturday, June 24, 2006: "Mounting the Poker H.O.R.S.E. at the WSOP 2006"
