Poker Game Tips

Last year’s WSOP Main Event featured 7,319 players and a $68.8 million prize pool. As for this year’s prize pool…..the jury is still out. This is especially true after several poker sites saw little harm in disguising player deposits as watches, necklaces and golf balls, thus attracting the wrath of the US Department of Justice. And seeing as how quite a few Main Event seats are given out through online poker sites, we could be seeing a drop in 2011 attendance.

Some industry insiders are taking a sky-is-falling approach by predicting sharp drops in WSOP Main Event attendance. Poker super agent Brian Balsbaugh is one of these people, and he unfortunately got a chance to share his opinion with CNBC. Balsbaugh was asked by reporter Darren Rovell, “How will this (online poker crackdown) affect the World Series of Poker?” Balsbaugh responded by saying, “I think that the World Series of Poker Main Event, the attendance numbers will go down from approximately 8,000 to right around 2,500.”

Besides having a ridiculous surname, Balsbaugh also has a pretty ridiculous view on how drastically the WSOP attendance will drop based on some of the bigger poker sites no longer offering satellites and qualifiers. If this statement had any shred of accuracy, we would essentially be transported back to 2004, when there were 2,576 entrants.

Speaking of that, 2004 WSOP Main Event champ Greg Raymer also weighed in on the matter by giving a more realistic statement. Raymer told reporters, “If I was actually putting a number to bet on, I would say more like somewhere in the low 5,000′s. If you made me pick a number because you were going to bet either over or under, it would be something like 5,250.”

Even if attendance dropped from 7,319 to 5,250, I don’t think anybody who made the final table would be complaining about their prize.