Column: What will the 2013 WSOP be remembered for?

Every year the WSOP is remembered as being the 'year of' something, Barry Carter asks what will this year's series be the year of?

Every year there is something at the World Series of Poker that stands out, something we remember it for. Last year for example the stand out memory from the WSOP was no doubt the $1 million buy-in One Drop, the year before it was memorable for being the first post-Black Friday WSOP with hardly any poker room sponsorship patches at the tables.

There are a lot of reasons why the 2013 WSOP could be memorable. It was the first WSOP after the Full Tilt saga was resolved which also saw online poker return to Nevada. But the memories usually tend to be strongest at the tables, so what might this year be remembered for?

The year of the Pro........no

Hellmuth a One Drop no show

Although clearly the vast majority of winners at the series, and any poker event these days, are what you would call professional players, there has been a clear poor showing this year from what we call the 'TV Pros' - the big household names that help boost televised poker ratings.

We have usually seen a bracelet from an Ivey, a Hellmuth, a Selbst, a Mercier, a Juanda, a Seidel etc. But in 2013 they all stayed out of the headlines and in many cases nowhere near the final tables at all.

Had Daniel Negreanu won the 2-7 Triple Draw event (which he came 2nd in) that might have changed things. Having previously won the WSOP APAC Main Event earlier this year I think it would have been the year of Kid Poker.

The biggest TV names to win this year were probably Mike Matusow and Erik Lindgren. As the latter of those two is embroiled in such controversy at the moment it is difficult to shout it from the rooftops as success for the big guys.

Even the two Super High Roller events which are normally a shoe-in for a big name winner - the $111,111 One Drop and the $50,000 Players Championship - were won by relative unknowns (to the mainstream poker audience).  

This was epitomised this year with the story that Gus Hansen and Tom Dwan let their Main Event stacks blind away so they could play Open Face Chinese Poker instead. Meanwhile Isildur1 stayed at home to play online and maybe the biggest shock of all was Phil Hellmuth opting out of One Drop.

It seems in this New World Order post-Black Friday poker ecomony that bracelets are not as important as they used to be, even to the Poker Brat.

The year of the second bracelet win

Michael 'Kaytor' Gathy

Every year somebody manages to win two bracelets in one series, and that honour fell to Tom Schneider (who had previously managed the same feat in 2007, giving him four overall).

However this year a lot of established players really put themselves on the map by winning their second career bracelet, eleven of them in fact.  

Matt Perrins, Eli Elezra, Cliff Josephy, Erick Lindgren, David Kitai, Michael 'kaytor' Gathy, Daniel Idema, Steve Sung, Mark Radoja and Athanasios Polychronopoulos all won their second bracelets this year, something which only 160 people can claim to have done.

The year of the woman

Loni Harwood

Last year was arguably the year of the woman, with Vanessa Selbst capturing her second bracelet, Allyn Jaffrey-Shulman winning the Seniors, and Elisabeth Hille and Gaelle Bauman coming agonisingly close to the Main Event final table.

This year it could well be a second year of the woman. Dana Castaneda and Loni Harwood both took down much larger events for the ladies this year, and unlike Jaffrey-Shulman last year, in completely open events.

In particular Harwood stands out because she cashed five times this year, made three final tables, nearly $900,000 in cashes and is a contender in the Player of the Year standings.

Another big success this year for female poker is the innovation of charging men ten times more to play the Ladies Event resulted in not a single male entry.

Let's get a woman at the final table this year and it really will be the year of the woman.

The year of Team Canada

Mark Radoja

Every year Canada does better than any country outside the US. Being their nearest neighbor it makes sense because they simply will be more numerous in attendance than any other country.

But this really was a breakout year for Canadian poker. Ten bracelets in total thanks to Charles Alexandre-Sylvestre, Benny Chen, Michael Malm, Levi Berger, Mark Radoja, Calen McNeil, Jason Duval, Justin Oliver, Daniel Idema and Kristen Bicknell.

Of the 79,471 players who attended the WSOP this year, 4,118 of them were Canadian, meaning 5% of the player pool captured 16% of bracelets and we still have the Main Event to go.

Of course these things often come down to positive variance, but the fact that Canadians are the nearest country to the series that have still been still able to play online poker no doubt helped their games tremendously going into the series this year.

What will you remember the 2013 WSOP for? Tell us in the comments box.

By Barry Carter

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