Last tournament of the season ends up in a 3 way split

Posted by pokerguru on May 22, 2009

The season did not end up the way you would think as three amateurs split the final pot of the season and let one man walk away with the title with nothing more than a handshake. Jean Gaspard will be going to the WSOP, but you have to think the other two players will be kicking themselves for years to come for not sticking it out and seeing who really would have won.

The final World Series Circuit Tour Event of the season had a mere 167 players to get through and Billy Kopp had made short work of them all for the last two days of the tournament. He had gradually built up his stack to a point that he was assured of being a force and to think that he would just hand the championship away is almost criminal.

The way the whole tournament went down screams of rule changes. If this is truly a vehicle of the WSOP, splits should not be allowed. Add to the fact that one player was allowed to walk with the championship without actually having to win it and you just have to shake your head. Even if they agree to split, there had to be some kind of rule that they should have to keep a certain portion of the money set to the side and play until there is one winner.

What was going through the other two players minds that had them walk away from the table with $50,000 less and just flat out giving up a chance to play in the WSOP for free? You can almost understand why Christopher went for the chop as he was only sitting with under 500,000 while the other two were over 1,000,000 in chips. However, Kopp should be absolutely ashamed at walking away from this split when he had about 2/3 the amount of the chips as the leader. When you break down the cash, the split is hardly reasonable considering the difference from second to third.

Players wait their whole lives for this opportunity and to hand a tournament of this caliber to someone is absolutely ridiculous. This rule needs to be changed or the series will be regarded as a complete joke. You cannot even split a tournament on Poker Stars without playing to the end and putting a certain amount aside for the winner. How you can you justify allowing this to happen in a WSOP Circuit Tour Event?

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Filed Under: WSOP

Tags: Billy Kopp, Jean Gaspard, Online Poker, Poker, World Series Circuit Tour, WSOP

Final Circuit Tour event before the WSOP in underway in New Orleans

Posted by pokerguru on May 20, 2009

This is the final shot for a lot of amateurs to get into the big show. While there are pros at the event, a good portion of them were in Canada for the Canadian Open Heads-up Event or have already headed back to Vegas for a brief break before 2 month stint marathon of the WSOP. The fact that the main event will only pay the top 18 is further proof that this will be one of the weakest fields of the tour.

An unknown player from Kentucky took advantage of the opportunity and blasted his way to the top of the leader board after day one. With a chip count in excess of 270,000, he is almost double that of anyone else in the tournament.

With the way the day started out, it looked like a lot of the pros were there for nothing more than a quick appearance. Early in the session, a lot of the notable names were sent to the rail. As the dinner break arrived, several more were sent home and all the while Billy Kopp continued to add to his stack.

As good as Kopp’s day was, the second place chip holder’s was miraculous. Pilgrim was all but out of the tournament after losing a monster hand and found himself looking at only 9,400 in chips. For the next 30 minutes, he went on a tear that was unlike anything that anyone has seen before. He found himself in a 3 way hand and got the best of it with a straight and then let that momentum carry him to a stack of over 170,000.

Play stopped for the day when the field was narrowed down to 63 players. They will play down to the final table on Day 2 and then play to the finish on Day 3. It is rather amusing again that they choose to have a multi-day tournament in what could easily have been a one day tournament. You have to wonder if the structure is starting to hurt the turnout instead of helping it.