We poker players have never had it so good, all this televised coverage and the invention of online poker has made the game absolutely huge. But Internet poker had a serious credibility issue at the outset but has overcome that problem in the past few years. But poker took a serious jolt towards the back end of last year with the new legislation that came out of the United States. The effect that it will have on Internet poker and sites like www.pokerstars.co.uk will knock on to live poker simply because of the sheer number of qualifiers that enter these big tournaments that have qualified online.
What poker cannot afford at this present time is a credibility issue on top of that. For heaven’s sake, we all die if the supply of new blood dries up and this is why the game is hyped to unbelievable levels. But it would be very naive and blatantly wrong to assume that cheating does not go off in poker and the seven figure prize pools attract cheats like a light attracts moths. Even if a player had never cheated before in their entire life then a million dollar first place prize provides a serious incentive.
Financial incentives have always provided people of a certain character with enough of a reason to cheat and this has happened in all sports and poker is certainly no different. But late last year at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, we had the $10,000 buy in main event of the “Festa al Lago” which was the latest stop of the World Poker Tour. During that event, tournament director Jack McClelland made a decision to redraw for tables every time that nine players had been knocked out once the bubble had been surpassed.
This was done in order to prevent cheating by way of chip dumping, soft playing and other shady practices. Apparently many of the players caused a stir by vociferously opposing the rule forcing McClelland to alter it to the final 54 places before the rule came into effect. The point is that if poker is going to remain credible then it has to be seen to be clean and well policed. Negative controversy and news could hit the industry like a sledgehammer and those players that caused a stir ought to wake up and smell the coffee.
A little inconvenience is a small price to pay if the game is to remain credible. All it needs is just one incident involving high profile players in a high profile event to get people fearful of playing in big tournaments on their own. I mean back in my early days when I used to play in the local £20 rebuy tournaments, there was loads of cheating going off. If players cheat for stakes as low as that then what if first place was a million….I mean come on.
History has taught us that the people who are losing at poker and especially online tend to blame anything but their own short comings. They don’t need much of a reason to cry wolf and poker must not give them that reason. It may not seem like it at the time but rules like this are for the long term benefit of the game. If the only way that you can get an edge is by cheating then the poker world does not need you so go and take a long hike.
The big wigs in the poker world and I am not talking about the players here, want and need poker to be clean and they don’t give two hoots about a few whinging players. Quite simply there are millions of players out there and millions more still to come who can easily fill the void left by a few big name prima donna’s. If you are clean then what is the problem, just shut the **** up, knuckle down and get on with it. The players at the top are earning big pay days because of the losing players at the bottom and they should never forget that obvious fact. If those same losing players withdraw their money for whatever reason then we are all in serious trouble.
