Can live poker work four max?
Following the news that Las Vegas is preparing to reopen with four max tables only, we ask can it work long term for the live poker ecosystem?
You are probably sick of the word ‘unprecedented’ by now but what the world is going through is truly unprecedented and that goes all the way down to poker. The live poker world is scrambling right now to find a viable way to offer games while maintaining social distancing requirements and nothing is looking particularly promising.
We had this offering from the House Club Poker Lounge in Texas which looks like a dystopian nightmare. Ignoring the fact that it looks uncomfortable and removes the relaxed social aspect of poker from the game, I doubt it would protect players from the immediate person on either side of them. Nice effort, but no thanks.
How many people would bash their heads on the glass after taking a bad beat with this poker table setup?? pic.twitter.com/sAubtB7gAN
— Joey Ingram #passion (@Joeingram1) May 3, 2020
A more plausible offering we will see play out in Las Vegas no doubt very soon. When poker rooms reopen, poker games will be four handed for the time being. Four players and a dealer that is. This is what the Nevada Gaming Control Board deem to be an adequate distance between the players.
Small stakes players priced out?
If you are an online player or an action junkie this seems like poker heaven. It would provide a fast loose game where you post blinds 50% of the time, you get the button 25% of the time and nitty players cannot wait for big hands. It sounds great, right?
Well, not really. For whatever reason most live players, especially recreational players, don’t like short-handed poker. It is deemed very much an online game and most people like a full sociable table when they venture out to a card room.
Practically speaking it makes a lot of games unworkable. To run a decent sized tournament, for example, would require twice as much space. It would also require more dealers which will cost more money, meaning that the rake would have to be high. This means the smaller buy-in cash games might be unbeatable or, more likely, only higher stakes games could take place.
Bad news for the WSOP?
This is very bad news for the World Series of Poker which plans to take place in the Autumn. How long these strict social distancing measures are in place remains to be seen, but if it’s for at least the remainder of 2020 then the WSOP as we would know it would be unrecognisable. A four handed Main Event would feel like if the World Cup took place on tarmac.
That’s not to say it wouldn’t be potentially fun or even preferable for some people. But there will always be an asterix against it in the record books.
One group of poker players who could enjoy business-as-usual are the Super High Rollers. If the kind of live poker people travel for happens in 2020, the first place it will happen is in the $10,,000+ buy-in events. They are used to small fields anyway and the buy-ins are so big that whatever rake is needed would not hurt the events profitability.
We are going to see live poker in 2020 and for those of who like to watch the live streams there is little doubt that the Super High Rollers will be leading the way in entertainment. For the rest of us I just doubt live poker will go beyond the local and thankfully most of us can instead enjoy an online poker ecosystem in rude health right now.
Would you play a four max WSOP? Let us know in the comments:
