Greg Merson

Sends The World Poker Tour To The Showers

Former WSOP Champ unhappy about the WPT 500 event.

© Fuse Media. All rights reserved.
Loyal patron, respecter of tradition or soon-to-be sponsored pro?

There’s no question where Greg Merson's allegiances lie.

Merson, the 2012 World Series of Poker Champ, apparently doesn’t think too highly of the World Poker Tour moving in on the World Series Of Poker's turf. The WPT is currently running their own $1M guaranteed prize pool event, the WPT 500, at the same time as the WSOP Main Event and it’s right down the street at the Aria. That doesn’t seem to sit very well with the 2-time bracelet winner.

World Poker Tour Executive Tournament Director Matt Savage quickly replied to Merson, indicating that he has the utmost respect for the WSOP and would never expect anyone to think of the WPT 500 as an alternative to playing the WSOP event (if they were already going to do so).

But the hits just keep on coming from Merson:

Strong words by Merson as he publicly dresses down the WPT. Merson hasn’t previously had any major public beef with the WPT (to our knowledge) and it was just a couple months ago, the beginning of March, that Merson played (and cashed in) the LAPC, a WPT event, at the Commerce Casino.

The tirade has some speculating as to whether Greggy is just a loyal WSOP customer, thankful for the gifts he’s been given by winning the WSOP ME a couple years ago or if there’s a deeper alliance between the brand and the player. Merson was, after all, sporting a WSOP.com patch during Day 1a of the Main Event.

Or maybe you have noticed that he has also been hyping WSOP.com, pretty much, all summer long.

While there may be some sentiment that the WPT is looking to capture a little of the WSOP’s spillover. Not everyone jumped on the anti-WPT train though, as players and industry came to the WPT’s defense.

Has the World Poker Tour hurt the WSOP numbers? Is the WPT 500 simply an auxiliary event that players can jump in if they aren’t playing in the Main Event, cannot afford the $10K or have a premature evacuation from the Rio? We’ll know soon as Day 1C is expected to be a massive field for WSOP and the WPT 500 is just under 800 people from fulfilling their own guarantee. Maybe everyone can be happy.

published 4 years, 1 month ago • by • permalink

Keep Reading:

« Back to Homepage

888's The Poker Brief with Kara Scott
Daniel Negreanu Collection: The Best Of Kid Poker
The Bad Beat Diaries
F5's Top Ten Poker Personalities
Molly Bloom To Speak At Unibet Open Bucharest

Molly Bloom To Speak At Unibet Open Bucharest

Unibet has announced that the Poker Princess, Molly Bloom, who’s “Hollywood high stakes poker game was the subject of the Oscar-nominated and critically acclaimed film Molly’s Game“ will be their special guest!

Do You Think This is Collusion?

Do You Think This is Collusion?

This story still has the poker community talking. Real life poker couple Kristen Bicknell (who is signed by partypoker) and Alex Foxen made the final table of a tournament at The Venetian in Las Vegas last month. Their alleged soft-play and collusion has the poker community riled up with the likes of Doug Polk and Justin Bonomo still talking about it long after play finished up.

Jaime & Matt Staples Win Prop Bet!

Jaime & Matt Staples Win Prop Bet!

A year on from agreeing to a crazy prop bet with billionaire Bill Perkins, the Staples brothers have walked away with $150,000 and won their bet to get within 1 lb of each other.

#QUEENRULES At Unibet

#QUEENRULES At Unibet

Unibet have worked with creative agency FCB Inferno to release a custom deck of cards to accompany the launch of a new poker format where the Queen outranks the King.The project is intended to help draw attention to gender equality and unconscious gender bias in poker.

Phil Hellmuth Thinks He'd Have Made A Good US President

Phil Hellmuth Thinks He'd Have Made A Good US President

In this great interview with CardPlayer Lifestyle, Robbie Strazynski goes one-on-one with Phil Hellmuth ahead of the launch of his new autobiography “The Poker Brat”—which Hellmuth hopes will become a New York Times Bestseller—to really find out the man behind the famous name.

Doyle Brunson Dishes The Dirt On Bobby's Room Bust Up

Doyle Brunson Dishes The Dirt On Bobby's Room Bust Up

Thanks to pokernyhederne and some cryptic tweets from Doyle Brunson it was revealed that the two men who lost their shit in the Bellagio’s high stakes Bobby’s Room were none other than Gus Hansen and David Oppenhiem.

Introducing Doug Polk's Comedy Show

Introducing Doug Polk's Comedy Show

Branching out into the world of YouTube beyond his usual poker shows, Polk is now reaching for heights of internet stardom by trying to recreate the success of renowned YouTubers such as PewDiePie, Markiplier, and jacksepticeye.