Gus Hansen gives his view on the changing state of the World Series Of Poker main event
I’ll admit that my gut reaction to the WSOP news was, ‘Is this another chance for Harrah’s and ESPN to make money without giving anything back to the players?’ That was my first thought. But the more I looked at it the more I realised it doesn’t really change a whole lot.
It’s still a final table, but just on a different day. You could say that you’re in a rhythm and feeling good about your game, but it’s not like a tennis tournament where Roger Federer is playing great right now and nobody can beat him and then the organisers say, ‘Let’s play the final in three months.’ He could get injured in the meantime.
Players can be more on top of their game at different times of the year, but if they know in advance that they’re going to be on the final table, they’re damn well going to make sure they’re on their ‘A’ games.
For ‘The November Nine’ (as I’ve heard them referred to), it’s going to give no-name players great opportunities to really promote themselves and take advantage of the fact that they might be the next World Champion. Even top players like Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu can benefit from a couple of months extra exposure – everyone will know that they really do have a serious shot at the title.
People are already asking me whether I would consider being a mentor to one of the final nine should the opportunity arise; let’s just say that I think I would be better than anyone else at it. My advice to anyone who reaches the final table is definitely to analyse all the hands of all the other players. If I get there myself, I know I should definitely take that advice, but I don’t know if I would – I’ve been known to be a little bit lazy before!
This ability to sit back and spend a lot of time analysing an opponent and doing your homework is obviously unusual; but remember that everyone has the chance to do the same thing. Some people have made the point that this nullifies a lot of the skill of live poker – the talent of piecing together incomplete information and making judgements based on your deductions, but in reality seeing everyone’s hands does not suddenly give you a complete picture of their play.
In my new book ‘Every Hand Revealed’, I exposed all 329 hands that I played at the Aussie Millions to win the tournament. Of course reading the book gives you a lot of insight into how I thought during that week
and how I approached certain situations but that’s not how I’m going to play every single live tournament table. Three months is a long time for the final nine to change the way they play and it would be naïve for any one of them to think that they know the complete ins and outs of another player.
One of the biggest worries is that some of the players will use the downtime to collude. I think that’s just scaremongering. If you’re a top pro and you make it, the chances of you even attempting anything dodgy is totally absurd.
The other end of the spectrum would be an internet qualifier who has got his seat through a $22 satellite. He’s guaranteed at least half a million dollars. Why on earth would he risk the biggest prize money he’s ever seen by trying some collusion scheme and end up being stripped of everything? That sounds absurd to me too. It’s just not worth it.
I know that a person’s integrity and mental state can easily fall apart when lots of money is involved but at the end of the day, just making the final table is a ticket to a lot of money in terms of sponsorship.
Gus was talking to Poker Player which is the World’s most popular poker magazine app and you can download it for FREE here
