Who will win the battle for December?
With the announcement of a $5 million freeroll as part of the WPT World Championship, will this be enough to beat GGPoker and the WSOP in December?
This week the WPT announced a $5 million freeroll at the Wynn on the eve of the WPT World Championship.
We have all been expecting perhaps an announcement of a big guarantee as a response to the $50 million guaranteed Super Main Event from the WSOP and GGPoker, so this was a surprise.
This may not be a big guarantee, but it is seven-figures of added money, which is arguably better. Was this the right move from the World Poker Tour?
Experience rather than prize pool
I must admit, I have changed my mind 20 times over on whether this was a good or bad move from the World Poker Tour. If nothing else, that suggests this is a creative move.
What I think I have landed on is that they realised they could not compete on prize pool, so instead they decided to compete on experience. The WPT World Championship is already considered one of the best experiences in poker, so that can be their USP which drives the marketing.
A $5 million freeroll is going to attract so many recreational players. It will make it the softest event in history for that level of prize pool and 100 of the players will win WPT World Championship seats too. The atmosphere will be much like the PSPC, which was unparalleled and reminiscent of the early days of the post-boom WSOP Main Event.
December's big winner will be...
My biggest concern is that I hope WPT Global players will have some way into this tournament. The freeroll does seem exclusively targeted at US players, which doesn't sit right for a literal 'World' brand like the WPT. Please WPT, provide some sort of qualifiers for your existing online audience.
My second concern for the WPT itself is that this event might hurt the field size even more for the Championship event. PokerStars once incurred a huge Sunday Million overlay which they put down to having a record-breaking Sunday Storm the same night, because the Sunday Storm players did not bother with the Sunday Million satellites. Players who would have ponied up the $10,400 for the Championship event might decide the freeroll is enough for them this year.
It looks, therefore, like WSOP Paradise will be the biggest event of December and the WPT will host the most fun event. The real winners, in my opinion, will be PokerStars. EPT Prague might suddenly seem like a great option for European players. WSOP Paradise is too high stakes for many and given the WPT freeroll seems to be targeted at American players, EPT Prague will look even more convenient for European players than it did last year (when it still managed a record field). This is all without PokerStars having to spend an extra penny in marketing budget, while the WPT and WSOP throw huge budgets at their events.
Which of the three events would you go to? Let us know in the comments:
