Transitions…
Friday, November 20, 2009 - Annie Duke
There have been so many transitions the last two weeks around here. Obviously, the main transition as far as UB is concerned is the big rebranding. Ultimatebet.com is now UB.com and that is really exciting…mainly because everyone always called Ultimate Bet UB anyway and, honestly, there are fewer ways to mistype it in your browser now! Seriously, that is not for nothing because I am the worst with the typos because I type so fast. There are so many ways to screw up Ultimatebet: Utlimatebet, Ultimeatbet, ultimatebte…you get the piture. How am I going to screw up UB.com? Especially now that Firefox automatically corrects misspellings of “com”!
Anyway, I am really exciting about the rebranding. I think it is such a positive change for UB.
On the not so positive side, I am really sad about Jeffrey Pollack’s departure from the World Series of Poker position. Jeffrey has been Commissioner there since 05 and has really done amazing things with that brand. I don’t think people remember what the WSOP was like before Pollack got a hold of it. Of course, prior to the brand being bought by Harrah’s, the WSOP was being run at Binion’s by the Behnen family who had acquired it from Jack Binion. When Jack ran the WSOP it was amazing in terms of how player friendly it was. I mean, sure, the structures sucked but tournaments were being completed in one day then so they kind of had to. But juice was incredibly low, less than 5% and the main event had ZERO juice. Comps flowed freely as well. If you were playing the events you basically never paid for any food during the whole tournament and that included at the yummy Binion’s steakhouse. Those were the good old days for sure (except that hardly anyone was playing poker tournaments back then lol).
When Becky Behnen took the tournament over from Jack the player friendly days were over. Juice went up and up and up. Comps no longer abounded. I was so upset personally about the direction the WSOP that I didn’t even play in 2002 except for exactly just the main event. It would take an army to keep me away from the WSOP and that year there is apparently an army keeping me away because of the way I thought players were being treated.
Now in walked Harrah’s and right from the start it looked bad. Still no comps, higher juice, no relationship with the players and, here was the worst thing, all of a sudden every tournament at the WSOP was No Limit Hold’em. Every day it the tournament was NLH and in the $1500 buy-in range. It was like Harrah’s knew nothing about poker at all and was taking its lead only from what was on TV. The rich tradition of the WSOP is supposed to be about all of poker, not just the small part of it that is NLH. We were losing the ability to reward Omaha play, split game play, limit play and all the other games that make up the rich world that is poker. For all intents and purposes, the WSOP might as well have been called the World Series of No Limit Hold’em.
Now, at the same time as this was happening at the WSOP, the WPT was also acting as a very poor partner to the players. At the time, the WPT set structures at the final tables to accommodate 6 hour windows (apparently after 6 hours they would have to pay overtime). Setting structures by how long you want to film rather than what is good for the players who paid the entries and the fees is preposterous, of course. What that meant was that you could have a tournament that leading into the final table had smooth 90 minute levels with no doubles ever and at the final table the levels would revert to an hour with the blinds doubling each level. At heads up, the levels went to 30 minutes. That is as player unfriendly as it gets and was directed by the WPT’s attitude that the Poker itself was the star of the show and the players were completely interchangeable. With that attitude there is no reason to treat the players well at all and it showed in the way they treated us.
So enter Jeffrey Pollack. Jeffrey had a completely different idea, a revolutionary idea even
Outside of his hand in insuring that the poker at the WSOP was great, he always worked hard to make sure the experience of the players was great, too and that the players who had endorsements could fulfill their obligations and the ones who didn’t could still get a logo deal if they were lucky enough to get to a final or featured table. That, of course, is all good for poker. Jeffrey really has been a generous partner to the players and, in a very real sense, the players’ protector and defender at that brand. So I am sad and a concerned to see him leave the brand. I fear for what the relationship with the players will look like in the future if the people remaining at the WSOP don’t take the lesson from Jeffrey that success at the WSOP must be a partnership with the players.
Here’s hoping the powers that be at the WSOP and Harrah’s have taken note of the legacy of Jeffrey Pollack. His success comes from his bridging the gap with the players. His egacy is that of a great friend to the community and that is an amazing legacy to leave.
Tags: espn, Firefox, harrah's, jeffrey pollack, NLH, Players Advisory Council, Poker Poker Poker, ub, ultimatebet, WPT, WSOP
