Jeff Haney says ‘Big One’s’ big turnout cements status

By Jeff Haney

Wednesday, July 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When their mixed martial arts card sold out the Mandalay Bay Events Center this past weekend, officials with the Ultimate Fighting Championship couldn’t help but take a not-so-disguised shot at their rivals in the boxing business.

While boxing promoters such as Bob Arum have blamed high gas prices for some substandard gates — including a smaller crowd at the same venue a week earlier — the UFC appears immune, the officials said.

If they were so inclined, World Series of Poker representatives could make a similar comparison between their organization and rival poker circuits.

The World Series is bucking a trend in today’s poker environment, which has had the fields of major tournaments suffer a drop-off in the number of entrants in the past year.

The main event of the World Series, the $10,000-entry world championship no-limit Texas hold ’em tournament that is playing down to its final table through Monday, can boast of an increase in the number of entrants from last year.

When the figures were tallied after the four-day opening round that ended Sunday at the Rio, it was determined that 6,844 players had entered the main event — an increase of 7.6 percent from the 6,358 players who entered a year ago.

The top prize will be $9.1 million, up from the $8.25 million Jerry Yang won in 2007.

All of those numbers are down from 2006, when Jamie Gold outlasted a field of 8,773 to win $12 million. The decrease in entries since then has been universally attributed to the government crackdown on online gambling, which essentially severed links between the World Series and online poker parlors that cater to Americans.

The impressive size of this year’s field in the main event, also known as the “Big One,” cements the World Series of Poker’s status as the game’s premier destination.

It also speaks to the international popularity of the World Series of Poker — and possibly to the strength of foreign currencies against the American dollar in 2008. Even before the main event, the 2008 World Series, in its 39th year, had set a record with players from 104 countries or territories competing in its various tournaments. That’s more than competed in the 2006 Winter Olympics, World Series of Poker spokesman Nolan Dalla pointed out. The old record was 87, set last year.

The number of entrants picked up significantly as the weekend progressed, with Day 1A on Thursday drawing 1,297 players, followed by 1,158 Friday, 1,928 Saturday and 2,461 Sunday.

The total prize pool exceeds $64.3 million, with 666 players to earn prize money of at least $21,230, making it the second-largest tournament in history behind the 2006 main event.

The field in the 2008 main event exceeds the total number of players in the first 34 years of the World Series combined, according to Dalla. The years 1970-2003 drew a total of 6,809 players.

The number of women in the main event field remains low, holding steady at about 3 percent of the field, or an estimated 209 female players.

This year’s World Series also set a record for the biggest field in a tournament outside of the main event: 3,929 players paid $1,500 apiece to compete in a no-limit hold ’em tournament that began May 31.

The phenomenon of poker players as celebrities showed no signs of slowing either, as former world champs Doyle Brunson, Scotty Nguyen and Joe Hachem drew long lines of fans during special appearances at the World Series.

Also pulling a crowd was poker pro Humberto Brenes, signing autographs, posing for photos and pretending to attack well-wishers with a nearly life-size plastic shark.

Bellagio Cup

Just in time to catch some of the spillover from the World Series main event, the World Poker Tour Bellagio Cup will be contested Friday through July 17 at the Bellagio.

The tournament is another major one, carrying an entry fee of $15,000, with a $25,000 seat in the 2009 World Poker Tour Championship at stake along with the prize money.

This is the fourth annual Bellagio Cup but the first in which players will receive “triple chips,” or $45,000 in tournament chips for the World Poker Tour event. The new structure, designed to create more action throughout the tournament, was also in place for preliminary events leading to the World Poker Tour Bellagio Cup.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the players will benefit most from this change in our structure,” said Jack McClelland, director of poker tournaments at the Bellagio.