When we left off earlier this week in December’s Poker Series on poker controversy at the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, hundreds of outraged poker players where wondering why they were shut out of competing and Mike Sexton was about to intervene. Sexton, who is known these days for his hosting duties in the World Poker Tour telecasts, wandered by the crowds and was quickly recruited to be an advocate for the shut-out players. He listened to their complaints and agreed to see if he could help out.
Around 2:15 on that first day, just as those who were already playing in the poker tournament were wrapping up, commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and several other members of the WSOP management gathered the crowd and broke the news that they could not allow any more entrants into the Main Event, that every option had been considered and rejected, and that operational problems prevented them from adding another session or pushing the schedule back.
Obviously the crowd was not pleased with this news. Americans, Australians and Europeans all started shouting questions at Pollack, blowing off some steam after having traveled so far. But Pollack stuck to his guns and simply apologized, stating that they would use what they had learned from this to better plan next year’s WSOP.
Mike Sexton was approached by the host of the radio show, The Lumiere Place Final Table, and agreed to do a segment about the poker controversy right away. The show, which went live and drew lots of feedback about this poorly planned Main Event, did not change the outcome. However, it did show the power of a crowd of poker players coming together to try to change the outcome of that controversial day. The World Series of Poker is an institution in the world of poker and it is unacceptable that so many poker players were shut out of taking part in it after traveling so far. Hopefully, the chaos that ensued and Mike Sexton’s intervention will act as a guarantee that this kind of poker controversy doesn’t happen again.
