Spring Break
Campus poker push
Online play hosting, campus competition make it easier for students to get fix of popular poker action during school year
Craig Bidiman
Issue date: 10/30/07 Section: News
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When Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker main event in 2002 with the flip of the river - or the last card in a hand - there were 839 entrants. After this "any man" of sorts won the tournament, interest more than tripled, with 2,576 entrants the next year, including an overwhelming number of amateurs.
Children of the baby-boomer generation could now be seen as part of the "poker boom."
Once Moneymaker won the tournament - the first complete poker coverage aired by EPSN - people across the world began to take up the game with great interest.
"I started playing online poker to take a break from Halo," said Brian Williams, a freshman at Linn-Benton Community College. "I played for a few months to get a feel for the game."
Participants in the tournament have grown tremendously. Until 1982, the pool never topped 100 entrants. In 2006, there were over 3,000 participants entered.
Virtually overnight, online poker sites appeared and stores began to stock do-it-yourself poker tables and cases of brightly colored poker chips.
Now, online poker and poker video games allow players to pick up the game easily and without monetary consequence. Such games also teach amateur players the basics of the game.
"You see a lot of hands through the course of playing, so you encounter different situations. I think that's where people do the most learning," Williams said.
According to Oregon state law, anyone under 21 is prohibited from gambling in casinos, so house games and online sites have quickly gained popularity for underage students looking to play a hand.
"I play because of the strategy involved," said Evan Connett, a sophomore majoring in political science. "Reading people and trying to gauge the odds that I have the winning hand is the challenge."
Connett said he began playing poker three years ago, around the same time the poker boom exploded.
While some online poker sites offer the chance to win a seat in WSOP events, themajority of sites offer fake money accounts that players can develop.
Both Moneymaker and 2004 winner Greg Raymer qualified for the tournament through online satellite tournaments.
The WSOP main event has a $10,000 entrance fee, so winning one of these satellite tournaments can turn out to be more profitable than investing in the full buy-in.
Winning, however, is far more arduous than most may think.
"People who play online play very aggressively, so it forces others to go in on hands they are completely sure of," Williams said.
"It makes it so the better players are unable to capitalize on weaker hands and potentially bluff to make them better hands."
In order to move up through satellite tournaments, players typically must finish first or second; most sites will only allow first place to move up.
Since the poker boom and the rise of amateur competition, it has been questioned whether or not a professional player will ever again win the WSOP main event.
"The World Series seems to be getting a bit oversaturated with amateur players," Connett said. "[WSOP] lets basically anyone enter, no matter their skill level.
"[Luck] is the element that ruins the chances for professionals [to win] again."
Carlos Mortensen was the last professional to win the main event, in 2001, when the field consisted of only 613 entrants.
The WSOP placed a cap of 6,358 entrants - based on a first come, first serve basis - for the main event in 2007.
Professionals in the field, frustrated with the fact that the number of entrants and amount of competition have grown so large, have created their own competition, HORSE. Consisting of five variations on the game, the competition has such a high buy-in at $50,000 that most amateurs cannot afford to enter.
Since the poker boom, amateurs and professionals alike have grown in number. It doesn't look like that number will go down anytime soon.
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