Poker fad …where art thou? I was a late adopter of the poker fad but I must admit that it was Texas Hold’em that really captured my imagination. Here was a poker variant that I instantly liked. The televised shows obviously went a long way toward further revving my mania to fever pitch. Yet it wasn’t a gambling bug, I don’t know how to explain it, for me the game is all about the strategy, the competition, trying to fathom what the others might have in their hands and more importantly whether they had any idea regarding what I might be holding.
As a late adopter I began following the World Series Of Poker main events in earnest in 2008 which isn’t that far in the past. Yet I have to thank the miracle of the Internet, YouTube and pokerchanneleurope.com for actually being able to watch historic hands being played as well as final tables from as far back as the late 1990’s. Also other reputable poker news sites like pokernews.com have allowed me to follow the WSOP tournaments almost in real time. My interest in Poker has also lead me to read books spanning diverse disciplines from body language, to mentalism, to mathematics and statistics, to gambling and poker history. Yes my interest still rests with the competition the game engenders but now I have a moderately better understanding of what the gambling component is really all about.
Yet these days, as I write this blog I am growing increasingly aware that the momentum the game enjoyed has dwindled and that we can no longer speak of a poker boom per se. Websites that formerly hosted poker games have now spread their offerings into Black Jack, and other casino staples like Baccarat, Roulette, Casino Hold’em, Caribbean Stud and Pai Gow. Even the larger websites with a few exceptions like Pokerstars appear to have waned in popularity, toning down their operations from the lucrative boom days. Even Holdem does not seem to carry the allure it enjoyed between 2003 and 2008-9. Everyone is now all about Pot Limit Omaha, or Omaha Hi-low because No Limits Hold’em has been worn threadbare …or rather (and I am an advocate of this stance) promoters are still in my opinion perplexingly wary of introducing much needed changes into tournament play that would place more emphasis on skill rather than embrace lady luck.
In my opinion the new rules would have the effect of legitimising the game further into a bone fide mind game and perhaps draw more upon the pool of skilled players that are out there rather than turning overly bloated tournaments into all-in races and lottery-type draws.
The feeling of, let us call it, the “end of an era” can also be perceived when visiting some of the websites of a few of the more brilliant poker pros. I mean when you step into their websites only to discover that their latest info is like two years old or more…it bothers you! Only few pros have remained vibrantly active and I am thankful to them because it means I can hope that the game will continue to evolve and hopefully so will the quality and structure of tournaments that will be played in the near future. I particular commend Daniel Negreanu, Phil Helmuth and Marcel Luske for never relenting when it comes to promoting this mind sport. The cherry on top of the cake to this rather dismal situation was when one evening I logged on to pokerchanneleurope.com to watch some live TV only to be faced with a televised Roulette oriented programme. Needless to say I felt very disconcerted.
The truth is that it’s not like there are no efforts being expended in an attempt to further popularize this mind game but if it is longevity and profit we are to look at, some of the major weakness of the current tournament structures proposed by the main proponents of the game need to be addressed seriously. Not only but all the major leagues including the WPT, WSOP, EPT etc., need to come together and establish a common set of rules that will be endorsed by all. It is pretty useless coming up with yet another poker league for just pros such as the EPIC poker tour but then not seek a longer term solution for the benefit of the game.
Having said all that, regardless of all my ranting and of all the intelligent discussions out there, poker will survive this slump as it has done since its inception. The only problem is that I fear, that if nothing is done here and now in 2012, it will just go back to what it once was, a game for unrepentant gamblers, colluders and card sharps, shunned by a segment of the public, embraced by another but more generally misunderstood and stereotyped.
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