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Reflecting on Entirety of 2021 World Series of Poker

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

The many iterations of the 2021 World Series of Poker are almost over. The last of them was the WSOP Europe, which is playing its Main Event final table on December 8 to wrap things up.

This year was the biggest ever for the WSOP, despite the ups and downs of planning it all as a pandemic still threatened everything. To keep everyone happy and in action, the WSOP planned a total of 188 bracelet-awarding events. It started on July 1 online and wraps this week in the Czech Republic.

There were several iterations of the 2021 WSOP:

-33 events = US online at WSOP.com for players in Nevada and New Jersey (Jul 1 – Aug 1)

-33 events = International online at GGPoker for players in select countries (Aug 1 – Sept 12)

-8 events = US online at WSOP.com for players in Pennsylvania (Aug 6-16)

-88 events = WSOP live in Las Vegas, Nevada, US (Sept 30 – Nov 23)

-10 events = US online at WSOP.com for players in Nevada and New Jersey (Oct 3 – Nov 21)

-1 event = US online at WSOP.com for players in Pennsylvania (Nov 21)

-15 events = WSOP live in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, EU (Nov 14 – Dec 8)

That’s a lot of bracelets.

Luckily, we had live updates from most of those events – both online and live – courtesy of PokerNews.

The WSOP did a lot to bring bracelet events to players in various parts of the world. Despite ring-fencing online and pandemic protocols live, WSOP and PokerNews worked with GGPoker, Caesars Entertainment (and the Rio), and King’s Casino to make it work.

Looking back at it all, there were positives and negatives. The only way to improve is to look at all of it. And y’all know that I have things to say.

(Views expressed herein are my personal opinions.)

Positive: Online and Live Numbers

Players turned out. They did so in solid numbers, hitting almost every guarantee and serving up solid prize pools. Many players braved travel restrictions and quarantines to go to the bracelet events. Some traveled to play online events in areas where available, and some international players traipsed halfway around the world to play in Las Vegas or in Rozvadov.

Positive: Vaccines and Safety

The availability of Covid-19 vaccines made live events possible this year. There have been and will be debates on the steps taken by the WSOP to protect players, but players turned out in huge numbers to both of the live series. That meant they abided by the vaccine mandate in Las Vegas and went through the steps to prove it. And players provided necessary evidence to play at Rozvadov.

While the WSOP couldn’t mandate that Las Vegas dealers and staff be vaccinated, they did work with Caesars to provide incentives for employees. And they did wear masks and follow health protocols. King’s Casino did advertise that every member of its staff was vaccinated.

The plan was not foolproof, but it worked for the most part.

It also helped that many players wore masks while playing in live events, despite not having to do so. Players did what they needed to do to feel safe, and some went out of their way to protect others. And when there was a bit of a Covid-19 spread toward the end of the Vegas series, some players stepped up to be completely transparent, warning others, doing their own contact tracing of sorts, and quarantining when necessary.

Positive: PR Response

Kirvin Doak Communications served as a media contact for the Vegas WSOP. When asked for information, Eirianne Kennelley of Kirvin Doak was very responsive and helpful.

Ty Stewart was also responsive to questions via email.

Positive: Coverage

PokerGO and CBS Sports Network worked together to provide solid coverage. Well, I haven’t seen anything that CBS Sports aired because, frankly, I don’t have the network via my DirecTV package. But PokerGO broadcast quite a few final tables and did some daily Main Event coverage, all of which was informative, educational, entertaining, and witty.

Jeff Platt of PokerGO did a lot of work for CBS and was phenomenal. He walked around during the Main Event to chat with various players – and not just the obvious ones. Platt provided quick interviews, usually one-to-two minutes in length, which were perfect for the casual followers on Twitter, not to mention those of us with a lot of work to do and little time to listen to hour-long podcasts and long-form interviews. He not only did his snippets with extreme professionalism and wit, but he inadvertently created an entire buzz with the way he took players from the table to chat. “Stand up for me, please.” It became a whole thing.

As for the commentating team of Norman Chad, Lon McEachern, and Jamie Kerstetter, they fit together perfectly as usual. Kerstetter has become an integral part of the group. Speaking for myself, I absolutely loved hearing a woman’s voice alongside the duo of male voices we’ve heard for so many years. Kerstetter is not only witty and wicked-smart, she somehow finds a happy medium between simple poker information and complicated strategy without being condescending or over the top.

In addition, the return of Tiffany Michelle was refreshing. She knows poker from her time in the media and as a player. She has been away from the game enough to stay fresh, and she brought a positive familiarity with the players and knowledge from her own experiences to her interviews.

Finally, it goes without saying that hiring Kevin Mathers to run the WSOP Twitter account is always a solid decision. He has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in poker always, and he is the best choice for handling WSOP information on social media.

Positive: Extra Main Event Flights

As soon as the United States government announced that many international travelers would be able to fly directly in to America beginning November 8, the WSOP looked at its Main Event schedule. Within days, they announced the addition of two more starting flights and late registration. This allowed for players who wanted to compete in the Main Event within about 48 hours of the border opening.

This didn’t solve the problem for many poker players, as last-minute flights and accommodations are generally prohibitively expensive. But there were quite a few players that made it happen. It was good for the Main Event and the players.

Positive: More Charity Events

Each year, the WSOP typically hosts two bracelet events with charity components. The Little One for One Drop has been running for many years, with the Salute to Warriors added a few years ago as well. This year, a third one raised money for frontline workers that helped the world during the pandemic.

Those three tournaments raised $482,089 in total this year. There were also numerous charitable events and opportunities that happened during this year’s WSOP. We outlined some of them here and then more here.

Positive: Proper Transition

It is hard to say goodbye. The WSOP did it well, with the help of PokerNews posting tributes, videos, and reflections on the 17 years of World Series action at the Rio.

The new venues were quick to welcome the World Series as well. On the day that the WSOP made its official announcement of the move to Paris and Bally’s on the Las Vegas Strip, those properties took to social media to welcome the WSOP in advance.

https://twitter.com/CaesarsEnt/status/1461002143272509448?s=20

Even more, the WSOP said that it will announce the 2022 WSOP Las Vegas schedule in January 2022. This is a commitment to get the information out there early. This is especially important because next year’s games will begin little more than seven months after the 2021 series ended.

Negative: Information Availability

Yes, there were positives about the PR firm and some of the people in charge of distributing information. There were negatives, too.

The WSOP needs to be transparent with Kevin Mathers. If they are going to do things that may be controversial – ahem, lammer restrictions – Jack Effel or Ty Stewart needs to issue a statement and provide answers to questions. To leave it to Mathers, especially when he has no warning beforehand or information during the controversy, is unfair.

Information distribution should also be consistent. Sometimes, news came from Mathers and the WSOP website, and other times, one had to be on the WSOP media distribution list to receive that news.

Further, information must be consistent across all platforms. There were several occasions during the 2021 WSOP in Las Vegas that PokerNews reported one number for tournament entries or a prize pool and the WSOP website listed something different. Some of those issues were never rectified.

Negative: Lack of Online Event Information

If poker players are supposed to respect online bracelet events as much as live ones, it would be great if the WSOP itself treated them the same.

Many online bracelet events received little to no fanfare. Interviews with winners were sparse, and the WSOP social media accounts couldn’t even keep up with the winner announcements in some cases. Even when the US online bracelet events took place during the Vegas WSOP, it often took days for the WSOP to release the actual names of the winners of those tournaments.

Negative: Totals and Overviews

It would be nice to see overall statistics for the 2021 WSOP. Those may be in the works, but that might be wishful thinking. I’m not holding my breath.

It would have been even nicer to receive totals for every part of the multi-part 2021 WSOP. The online series for international players, US players in several states, and two live series should have breakdowns as to total entries, prize pools, and nationalities of players and winners. Further, since reentries have become such an integral part of many WSOP events, a breakdown of the number of entries versus reentries would allow analysts to more accurately portray the WSOP trends through the years.

Negative: American Series or World Series?

As dictated by travel restrictions, the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this year was predominantly American, more so than in most years. And at no point did it become more apparent than when Allen Kessler tweeted about a player who was a “foreigner.”

Obviously, one player’s ugly statement – and his follow-up tweet stereotyping those “foreigners” – is not under the control of the WSOP. However, there is often a contrast between the name of the series and the actual global nature of it. The vast majority of the live tournaments take place in America, with only a fraction live in Europe. There is also a contrast in the scope of coverage given to events held in the US versus those held elsewhere.

The perfect example is the coverage of the WSOP versus the WSOP Europe. The WSOP Twitter account was very active during the Las Vegas series, posting a lot of information, including the prize pools and winners of nearly every tournament. That was not the case for WSOP Europe. All tournament results came from the King’s Casino Twitter account. And when there were major schedule changes due to pandemic restrictions, those were often neglected by all WSOP-associated accounts altogether.

Even more, the Player of the Year award included only Las Vegas tournaments and the ten online events in the US market during that series. Understanding that many players would not be able to travel to both the Vegas and Rozvadov series this year, it was still inherently unfair that the POY had no asterisk and that there was no POY award or prize for the WSOP Europe series.

Negative: Press Conferences

The WSOP tried to offer weekly “press conferences” hosted by Tiffany Michelle. They were to be live at a particular time each Friday. Several problems arose, though, not the least of which that they tried to schedule interviews around the bracelet ceremonies, which were not consistently on time. Tiffany Michelle was in a tough spot, trying to wrangle interviewees to go live during a chaotic series. The result was inconsistency and the weekly updates almost never happening on time. (Again, this appeared to be out of Tiffany’s control.)

More importantly, though, it is important to define a press conference. It is a media event wherein someone speaks and makes news, during or after which members of the media can ask questions. What the WSOP scheduled was not a press conference. The media was not invited to participate.

Schedule a live interview segment weekly? Sure. Call it a press conference? No.

Negative: Inconsistent Rule Enforcement

Few people can forget Event 19 at the 2021 WSOP. Anthony Zinno won his third career bracelet. But someone stole the thunder before Zinno could win that tournament, as Phil Hellmuth went on a rant like no other. It wasn’t just any rant, though. It happened on a livestream of the final table as Hellmuth sat next to poker legend and Poker Hall of Fame member Jack McClelland. Hellmuth was chasing his 16th career bracelet. But when he lost ground at the final table and things didn’t work out perfectly for him, he began cursing and ranting and threatening to burn down the casino. His rude comments to his competitors and overall childish, nasty behavior drew ire from players and poker fans. And in a rare moment, even many of Hellmuth’s friends criticized his behavior.

Who didn’t criticize his behavior? The WSOP.

I found that Hellmuth broke four WSOP rules and wrote about it at the end of this article. But what would have garnered penalties – and likely more – for most other players didn’t even warrant a warning from WSOP tournament officials.

It was nothing new, as players like Hellmuth and Mike Matusow have long been allowed to carry on as they choose with seemingly no limits imposed by the WSOP. And that wasn’t lost on anyone.

While Hellmuth reluctantly apologized in the days that followed and appeared to calm himself a bit for the rest of the WSOP, he paid no price for his rule-breaking behavior. It would be nice if all poker players were held to the same standards.

Negative: Lammer Policy

Longtime poker player Shane Schleger broke the news to poker players. The WSOP cracked down on its lammer policy, requiring players to show proof that they actually won the lammers that they were using to buy in to a tournament.

As players began buying in to the Main Event, the new rule seemed to be randomly applied by some cashiers. And the WSOP never issued a full statement about the change of policy from previous years, only gave Kevin Mathers a brief explanation for Twitter.

The entire controversy could have been avoided by clarifying the change and ensuring that players understood it before the WSOP even began. And the WSOP should make the policy clear to all players competing in satellites.

Conclusion: Simple Solutions

There are simple ways to rectify most of the aforementioned issues. Going forward, if the WSOP can be transparent and informative, consistent and proactive, everything else will be manageable.

 

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