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If you haven’t already heard, the world series of poker main event final table for 2008 will be delayed until November 9-10, 2008.  Yikes…

It certainly is an interesting concept.  The days leading up to the final table will be played the first week of July.  Is this a buzz kill?

Many of the top pros are supporting this decision by Harrah’s, and while initially I thought this was a pretty gary move I am starting to come around on the idea.  It will certainly be a buzz kill for those in Vegas during July.  But having been there the past few years myself, I can attest to the fact that the cash games dry up during the main event (especially the final few days/final table day) and people are generally on their way out of vegas. 

This leaves us to the shotty updates of the likes of cardplayer, pokernews, et al. to learn who the winner is.  There was a pay-per-view type live coverage of the final table, but that isn’t a perfect solution either since final tables take foooorreeevvveerrr in the live setting.  Then ESPN edits it down and plays it a few months later, when the poker community has long since forgotten about the wsop and cares more about who won the sunday million last week.

So the final table excitement has always been a little anti-climatic, and now this new change in format provides an opportunity for people within and outside of the poker community to discuss who will possibly win – and watch it together in a more real time setting.

Also of note – anyone making the final table in July will be paid 9th place money before they go home to practice sng’s for the rest of the summer.  Last year that was in the 9th place finisher received a little over $500k.  I’ll take it.  They will also be paid airfare and accomodations for two to come back in November.

It will be funny to watch all the degenerate scrubs who make the final table come back with a whole new swagger in November – look out new shiny shirts, shoes, and suits…papa’s got a brand new bag!

You can read the official press release here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 11:26 am and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.