Poker Rooms Battling Rakeback...

For those who play poker for hours every week, rakeback is one of the great poker ideas ever.  With rakeback, players can receive a percentage of the rakeback that is taken from hands they participate in.  And for those who play poker for a living, rakeback is absolutely essential since it rewards them with a large part of their earnings.

However, there are some people and poker rooms who aren’t exactly thrilled with what rakeback has done to their industry.  More specifically, they’re mad at the affiliates of poker rooms who use rakeback to convince people to sign up through them.

Peter Marcus, who is the COO (chief operating officer) of William Hill argues that rakeback allows affiliates to cannibalize traffic and encourage people to switch rooms quite frequently.  Marcus also points out that affiliates aren’t doing anything to draw new customers into poker, and are only focusing on recruiting existing customers.  Instead, Marcus believes that rooms and affiliates need to band together and think of ways which can rewards loyal customers that don’t encourage room jumping.  He also thinks more money needs to be put into advertising on non-poker mediums to draw new people to the industry.

Looking past the fact that Marcus sounds angry because William Hill must not offer a good rakeback deal, I agree with him on what he says.  I’d like to see affiliate sites spend more money on bringing in new players to the game so their can be more soft competition around.  As it stands now, things are pretty tough out there and most players are only able to make a living because of rakeback.  If new players were brought in, veteran players might actually be able to make a living on the actual games again.

What ESPN has done for Poker...

When people speak of the rise of poker over the last few years, they often point to the impact that the Chris Moneymaker effect had in 2003 where a small-time accountant with little previous poker playing experience won his way into $2.5 million.  But I definitely don’t think that you can attribute all of this solely to the Chris Moneymaker effect.

Because, without ESPN there to catch all of the action at the WSOP Main Event in ‘03, we wouldn’t have the footage of Moneymaker’s intense (and  stupid) staredowns along with the proof that any no-talent player can have at least one glory day in poker. 

Now as we get set for the biggest poker event in the world once again, the ESPN cameras will be rolling and looking to catch all of the special moments from the Main Event.  And this time, ESPN will be increasing its coverage from 20 hours to 32 hours because of the demand by fans.

The fact that people are demanding to see more of the WSOP Main Event just goes to show how popular poker really is today.  And it’s only going to grow more popular due to the increased TV coverage that the Main Event will be receiving. 

Of course, ESPN also helps poker’s cause by showing a few non-Main Event tournaments too which shows that there are other options for people to strike it rich with poker.  When people can see others winning hundreds of thousands of dollars (or even millions) on television in just a single poker tournament it really helps draw more people to the game.

WSOP Competition heats Up...

The World Series of Poker has always been a tough event to play at since it commonly attracts many of the best poker players on the planet.  The WSOP is also where the most prize money is at, and is the most glamorous event too.  Seeing as how this is the case, there has always been great competition at the WSOP. 

But that competition has only gotten better over the past couple of years due to the fact that tons of talented online players have been taking their game to the highest level.  Since so many more good players are in Las Vegas during the summer, a lot of pros are saying it’s never been tougher to survive on the felt.

Phil Hellmuth, who holds the record for WSOP gold bracelets with 11, admitted that the Series is so much tougher these days.  He stated, “I’ve never worked this hard and then my results aren’t what I want them to be.  I was hoping for something great to happen this trip but it just hasn’t happened yet.”

A lot of people think that the passage of the UIGEA is still having huge effects on the poker world since most of the casual players dropped out of the game at that point.  As Barry Greenstein said, “What the (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) has done has really taken a lot of the recreational players out of poker.  What you’re left with is really just mostly people who are trying to make a living.”

Of course in America, the economy has taken a downturn which has also affected the number of casual players out there.  Seeing as how there is less money to go around, not too many novice players are going to be booking their flight to Las Vegas anytime soon.