Greg Merson Clarifies World Poker Tour “Showers” Tirade
WSOP Champ sums up his feelings on Facebook.
Former World Series of Poker Champ, and (maybe?) WSOP.com representative/affiliate/lover Greg Merson took to Facebook to clear up his Twitter tirade from earlier this month where he called out the World Poker Tour for poaching players from the Main Event.
Miss that? Check it: Greg Merson Sends The World Poker Tour To The Showers
Making sure that you know that these are just HIS thoughts and not those of any online site that he may or may not be an affiliate or pro for, here’s what he wrote about the situation:
First I would like to say that these views represent my thoughts and mine only. I’d like to add that Matt Savage is an incredible TD and we are lucky to have him in the industry. The comments on my twitter were not directed towards him.
Basically I think it’s very unlikely I would have fallen into poker without the boom in 2003 (or several of you) which was caused predominately by the main event. The main event blew up poker to another level and keeping the numbers strong for the main event is important for the industry as it continues to struggle without federal legalized online poker in the states.
For partypoker/WPT (which segregated player pools in there online games which is another lol issue) to poach the traffic for the biggest event of the year was a little grimy. Lets see how they would feel about WSOP putting a $500 bracelet event the same days and in same city as there WPT championship. It mostly comes down to the fact that the 3 major tours fight for the same players and should be working together and not against each other.
How come WPT couldn’t just start this tournament on day 2 of the main? Its silly to think that poker players have unlimited money and someone that comes to play sattys into the main sees a 2 day 500 and plays 3 days for 1500 and thats all he brought well then hes not playing main event sattys and hurting the overall numbers of the field. Yes you could play both, yes this issue could be over maybe 20 players missing main because of the event but thats still 200k extra pirze money. We can’t have tours fighting over the same players. We need them to work together to not schedule stuff on the same dates so that fields are large which helps promote the game.
OF COURSE competition is important for any industry to thrive and I liked the idea of the WPT 500. It was a great price point for players that can’t play a 10k to get in there and have a chance at a major title and a nice six figure score. I will continue to play in certain WPT events and plan to play the Borgata in September. I just wanted to clear up some of my comments and explain the reasoning behind my views.
editor note: We broke this up for easier reading. On the post it’s a massive paragraph.
In addition to his WPT 500 views, Merson cleans up the books a little and gives a monetary trip report of his WSOP. You can check out the full report on Greg Merson’s Official Facebook Page.
Go ahead, give him a “like.” We like him.
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