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WSOP Bracelets Won By Children
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Author: Marc Weinberg
June 20 - James Mackey looks like he's twelve years old. He just won $730,740 in the WSOP 2007 by claiming the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em event, which begs the question where does a child get $5k to enter with? What were his parents thinking? And he's not even the youngest official winner this year. That honor belongs to Steve Billirakis, another poker player who is "officially 21".
Whoever has the fake ID concession at the Rio is making the biggest money of all this year. You look at a photo of Mackey and tell me with a straight face that he is no stranger to a razor, and I will brand you a liar, sir.
The World Series Of Poker looks like daycare for degenrate gamblers in 2007. The list of previously unheard of winners (plus of course Phil Hellmuth, Jr.) this year is quite incredible. Who on earth are all these people? Ryan Hughes, Alexander Kravchenko, and a bunch of other players who are either big in Europe, or big online, because they're certainly new to me.
At least Allen Cunningham won a bracelet, and he must be over 25 by now. Poker is a young man's game, although a few old-timers have also won bracelets this year, not that Michael Keiner or Chris Reslock are exactly household names, even in my household where poker is on the computer, the television, and my mind all the time.
The WSOP has turned into this wonderful egalitarian enterprise where anyone can win a bracelet, but it's also cheapening the whole concept of the bracelet as being this valuable and rare commodity. I'd like to see Phil Ivey win one instead of finishing third to some dude who no one will ever hear a peep from again.
I love reading the interviews of the winners as well: They all say they played great, consistent poker and never got their money in bad except this one time when three guys were all in, they held A6 against AA and QQ and the board came 6-7-6-x-x. Yeah, just that one time.
Look, part of me (99%) is envious, and sure no one would know who I was if I captured a bracelet. But I'd be cheapening the game as well because I'd have as many bracelets as some truly great full-time players, simply because I survived a crapshoot.
A $500 10-player SNG at a good online poker site requires more skill, and comprises more skillful play, than a WSOP event at the Rio. If you're looking to ban something for being pure gambling it should be the latter and not the former. Oh wait, you don't have to because that takes place in Vegas where gambling is ok.
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