Legal Commentary

(If poker does not amuse you, by all means skip this post...)

So, besides the election, there were two big media events I was looking forward to in November.  The first did not happen, and the blame for that I put squarely on the shoulders of He Who Must Not Be Named.  The second, though, went off without a hitch.  That was the Main Event of the World Series of Poker - the World Championship No Limit Hold 'Em Event.

The World Series of Poker -- wasn't that in July?  Well, sort of.  The main event began on July 3, with 6844 players putting in their $10,000 apiece for a chance at the first place prize of $9 million.  (This was down from the 8000+ players in 2007, in large part because the federal government has made it so difficult for those in the United States to get money in and out of online poker).  By July 14, the 6844 were finally winnowed down to 9, the 9 who would play at the final table.

But, for the first time, WSOP this year decided to postpone the playing of the final table, as a way of stoking publicity and coordinating with ESPN.  So the players all got their initial check (for $900,670 -- the 9th place amount).   And then they waited for 4 months before squaring off for the remaining $24 million or so that would be distributed quite unevenly among those 9.  Now there were all sorts of potential problems with this.  4 months and only 9 players creates plenty of opportunity for collusion.  It is also somewhat unfair to the pros and semi-pros at the table; it gives the rookies 4 months to bulk up on their poker knowledge.  (Apparently, professional poker players not in the tournament made a killing offering lessons.)  And, especially as someone who teaches Contracts, I couldn't help think about the other potential disasters.  What if someone gets seriously ill?  Or dies?  The usual poker rules (see paragraph 52) offer no sympathy to ill or deceased players.  Such players simply lose their clips, which are anted and blinded off.  Now that makes sense for regular tournaments.  (Indeed, any other rule risks creating very bad incentives for poker players, who are by their natures both calculating and deceptive.)  But the 4 month lag before the final table obviously increased the risk of something like that happening, and the $24 million at stake would have meant that any such events would have been spectacularly interesting.

But nothing like that happened this year.  (It will have to wait for my Contracts exam.)  On November 9 and 10, the November Nine simply sat down and finished the thing.  ESPN edited the footage down into a viewable 2-hour segment.  (You don't want to watch poker unedited; it's as bad as watching unedited chess matches.)  It will be broadcast and rebroadcast -- it'll be hard to avoid.  And I cannot but recommend it.