April 4, 2005

Poker, Golf and the PPT

For the past couple of years poker has been on the rise on public popularity. As a result of this, new issues have arisen as to the legitimization of poker as a sport (or some sort of official competition). The largest advancement in terms of structured legitimacy is the Professional Poker Tour. In many ways the PPT reflects the organization of the PGA. Each year the top poker players are selected to compete in that year's "tour" of tournaments. Players are selected based on qualifying factors such as tournament finishes and dollar earnings. Once they make the cut they get to compete in a rotation of tournaments around the country in which the prize pool is completely covered by advertising and sponsorship. Starting to sound familiar?

Last year Vijay Singh was the top money winner on the PGA tour, topping $8 million in prize dollars. For professional poker players, the PPT promises the possibility of such revenue. However, unlike the norm in the poker world, this would all be "new" money. It's not the same money that basically circulates around the top of the professional poker world, occassionally making pit-stops in the bank accounts of Negreanu and the likes. It would seem as if the potential for huge expansion in net "income" for the poker industry is the real windfall of this explosion in popularity. Unfortunately, the average low-limit player will never see any of the benefits of the pros chopping up big free-roll dollars. Like the guy with the big handicap hacking away at the public golf course, all we get is something to delusionally aspire to as we slice our third drive into the wrong fairway or call down again with a middle pocket pair only to get a nice dose of reality.

Incidentally, I just read an interesting article by Hellmuth. To check it out yourself, click here.