It looks like it will be a bumpy ride at the WSOP this year

The controversial 'Rule 115' has exposed a lot of things that could go wrong for players at the World Series of Poker next month.

It was a bad week for the WSOP after a worrying rule was published for the upcoming series, one which looked like it would render the event a disaster.

Rule 115 at first said that anyone who had come into close contact with a positive COVID case would be disqualified with no payouts or equity returned to them. A clarification later confirmed that this would only be true for unvaccinated people. A clarification on that clarification, from Daniel Negreanu rather than a WSOP employee, said that nobody would be tested or asked for proof of vaccination status, and it was entirely voluntary if somebody wanted to disqualify themself.

So at the time of writing, if you are unvaccinated and come into contact with a positive COVID case you will be disqualified, but it is using the honour system, you have to volunteer that information to the WSOP. If you keep quiet, even seemingly if you are coughing your guts up at the table, you can keep playing.

Cases are rising in the US and it looks like masks will be mandatory at the tables. Vaccines are free and readily available, but a lot of Americans don’t want them. This rise in cases is largely among the unvaccinated. America in particular is locked into a heated debate about the ethics of ‘vaccine passports’, but it is a hot topic everywhere in the world.

A bumpy ride

This year’s WSOP is going to be a bumpy ride and you can’t entirely blame the organisers of the event. They didn’t ask for COVID to happen and the rules keep changing. They have to be seen to be abiding by the CDC’s rules while also putting on an event people will actually want to go to.

Putting aside the actual risk of getting COVID itself, which is obviously significant and potentially terrible if you are unvaccinated, I can just see so many things potentially go wrong at the series this year.

If you are an international traveller you likely will have to spend two weeks in a country outside of Vegas before you even get there. It’s low probability but I could envisage some people heading to Vegas and not being able to get back home easily, if a rise in cases led to quarantining or borders being shut. Most countries will have safeguards to get their citizens home, but I am acutely aware of this risk because I have several Australian friends who got stranded in other countries unable to return because of COVID.

The WSOP currently appears to have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach to reporting if somebody has been in close contact with a COVID case. That seems like an approach that will work really well…until it doesn’t. It seems a certainty, if cases remain high, that somebody showing symptoms is going to be ejected deep into an event this year. This will also put pressure on anyone who shared a table with them or was seen with them to get tested. What if, for example, somebody makes a final table and it is revealed their roommate has tested positive? At the very least we will probably have friends less willing than usual to appear in the background of a winner's photo. 

That also means there will be unique opportunities to angle shoot in this tournament by implying somebody at the table has been showing symptoms or been in close contact with a positive case. This would have been much more rife with the first interpretation of the rules which suggested any close contacts could be DQ’d, but it still could be an issue.

A lot of things could go wrong

The only thing I am sure of is that things will be different by the time the first cards are dealt. Case numbers will have gone up forcing a much stricter enforcement of the rules, or indeed cancelling the series, or cases will have gone down and things will be much more relaxed. Proof of vaccination might be mandatory by the time we first hear 'shuffle up and deal'. 

I have no issue with live poker tournaments taking place now that vaccines are readily available, in fact I am going to my first live poker tournament in two years this weekend. I write this not to hit the WSOP while they are down but to simply state that the combination of rising cases, mandatory masks, percentage of unvaccinated people, travel restrictions and Rule 115 are all pointing towards things potentially going wrong.

If you are thinking of travelling quite a distance for the series, I’d probably just sit it out this year or at least be prepared for the chances it won’t go to plan. That is sage advice in any WSOP but that usually is just about handling the fact that you will lose money. This year, however, you are taking some gambles before you even consider the cards.

Would you go to the series this year? Let us know in the comments: