Earl Burton has an interesting post up wondering why the sponsorship dollars for the WSOP main event final tableists haven\’t been rolling in. While he leaves room for the possibility that it\’s just a matter of time — I agree, as the kinda deals we\’re talking about here don\’t take place over a matter of days or even weeks — he also highlights an example that has me simply shaking my head:
A recent blog [sic.] on CardPlayer by a former guest on my \”The Tournament Trail\” show at Hold \’Em Radio (http://www.holdemradio.com/), WPT champion Roy Winston, indicated that no one has contacted him regarding his offer of coaching for the Main Event.
Sorry, Roy, but I\’m laughing. Because no one has contacted me, either, about my offer to put a Pokerati patch on them in exchange for guaranteed internet coverage! No offense, but whothefugk are you? A WPT champion? Big deal! The final nine — whether by luck or skill or some combination thereof — have outlasted 6,400 players to get to where they are. Have you ever done that? I didn\’t think so.* Why would someone want to potentially mess their game up by receiving \”coaching\” from someone other than Phil Hellmuth (who clearly knows how to win WSOP final tables with any starting chip ratio) or maybe Erik Seidel? If I were one of the Nueve de Noviembre, I gotta say, I\’d be feeling pretty good about my poker skills in general … and would be having many talks with the poker friends who helped get me there (The Arizona Posse, Batfaces, et al.) and probably just about any other poker player I ran into between July and November. But hire an outside coach? That would be like an athlete qualifying for the Olympics and hiring someone in the interim who happened to win a similar event in the Pan-Am games.
The story here isn\’t on whether or not the final table delay was a right idea for the sake of marketing … it\’s about how the remaining WSOP main event players are somehow smart enough not to fall for sales pitches from interlopers trying to get in on their action.
*Note: Roy \”the Oracle\” Winston has come close — outlasting more than 6,300 players in the 2007 main event, but going out early when it got down to three tables. So maybe it should be the other way around and he could get some coaching from one of them?
Roy\’s website: www.OraclePoker.net
Let me protest a little here. Roy Winston’s blog on Cardplayer is very well done and usually pretty insightful. While I agree with teh fact that being a WPT winner and having a deep run in the Main Event does not put someone on par with the insight that a Hellmuth or Seidel might have, realize that his offer involves him AND Michael Binger helping out. Check it: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/blogs/article/15?page=8
I don’t think there are many people on the circuit, save maybe Jesus, who get more respect for their analytic poker mind then Binger, and his results over the past 2 years are staggering. If I were a Nov 9 guy, I would consider their help above most.
Really? I would consider talking to the guy, but actually hiring him? For what, a percentage of winnings?
Winston also posted on his Card Player blog how he felt FTP (where he’s a red pro) was “rigged” (which he later says was done tongue in cheek).
They are going to get a shitload of advice whether they want it or not. It will be a seven blind men, one elephant prop going in. You know a poker player who does not think deep down inside that they have very useful advice to give to someone facing the final table? Probably the folks under nine and those in their first month. The rest of us are experts.
Dear Mr. Winston,
I have heard about your amazing finish with WPT and I am so impressed with your poker skills that I have put off many phone calls by Daniel Negreanu to become my coach for the November Nine. Although I’m not one of the WSOP November Nine, I am a real November Nine in my poker league here in Dallas. You see, we started with 27 players at $50 a piece, and we played it down to the final table which will take place in November. I am November Nine. While I am excited about winning a share of a $1350 prize pool and the coveted Oak Cliff bracelet, I am very unsure about my poker skills as I believe luck may have gotten me there. I watched you in the WPT and I saw how you unmercifully took down your opponents as you mastered your way to that WPT bracelet, and this is the reason why I have personally contacted you. In exchange for your coaching, I will offer you room and board in the pool house and 15% of all winnings and endorsements. In addition, if I come out on top, I will pay for your buy-in into Next Year Main Event…umm of Oak Cliff, and who knows, you may be one of next year’s November Nine like me!
If you are genuinely interested, please get back with me here, and let’s get started, I only have 3 months left to prepare.
Sincerely yours,
Donkey
Maybe any deals made stated they could not mention said deal?
Hey Karridy, I just came up with another domain name you should invest, iamnovembernine.com, it’s available!
I think it’s hilarious that so many people thought they’d get in on the November Nine action. Winston/Binger, CardRunners, Negreanu’s PokerVT, etc. If any of these such players or companies thought they were going to cash in on this, they were delusional.
Dan is right. Why would these nine guys get advice from anyone other than close friends, which is free? Maybe one of them would buy a membership to CardRunners or PokerVT, but that cost is minimal, and many of them seem to simply be playing tournaments to hone their skills.
And sponsorship dollars? These guys need good agents to get high-dollar sponsorships, so whoever signed with Poker Royalty should be wondering the same thing… Where are my big sponsors? And those who didn’t sign with an agent, presumably Dennis Phillips and a few others who didn’t buy into the slickster talk, might just be content to take their online poker site $$$.
There’s a reason sports trades always go down at the deadline – that’s when you get the best price. It’s disadvantageous for these guys to sign anything right now; why not haggle for two more months?
Shronk, do you really think they’re haggling? Who are they haggling with? Nike? Right Guard? Pepsi? Doubtful…
Cap’n Ron’s Shrimp Shack?
One in particular might be wearing a patch from “Big Al’s Bail Bonds.”
I will be ‘free enterprise crushed’ if at least one of the Nine does not show up with a big name, big time, big cash Ad Patch. I mean has a chest been worth more cash anytime since …. Pamela Anderson first bust on the scene?
I think Winston and Binger could be very helpful. However, there are many people that fall into that category. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. I have never taken down a big no limit tourney. My advice to the final 9 is to have fun, and work like hell to get a great sponsorship deal. That could be more important than trying to improve their game.
By the way, I have heard that Michael Craig has done some research on the Nov9 and most of them have already proven that they can play outside of the main event. And now, they have proven that they are main event savvy.
Just in case any of them are reading Pokerati, (yeah right) I am available and would do it for free. I just need a little air time around a no-limit event.
If I were one of the 9 I would let you hang around me for free, Tom.
Hey, seriously, the offer still stands … we’ll happily put a patch on any one of them who isn’t from Missouri, California, Canada, or Europe. They won’t even have to pay us to wear it! Triple-quadruple guarantee that said player(s) would get extra-special coverage.
I think Shronk is right, by the way — Jen, why so doubtful? you two are usually on the same page.
TV time (on ESPN) is TV time … and someone will pay for it. And before there’s a last-days fire-sale on upper-torso space … I’m sure Ty Stewart and the WSOP marketing crew wouldn’t have moved for a delayed final table had they not been hearing from potential sponsors a desire for whatever it is that the WSOP and ESPN are creating.
(Sigh.) Still lamenting what might have been possible had Tiffany Michelle been one of them.
http://www.winstarworldcasino.com/WWCS/RiverPayout.html There’s no mention of based on full capacity.
kevin, i think you meant that to go on the winstar post? i don’t think i can change the actual post your comment is attached to …
I don’t think I like the idea of postponing the final table until November.
Jen wrote:
> I think it’s hilarious that so many people thought they’d get in on the November Nine action. Winston/Binger, CardRunners, Negreanu’s PokerVT, etc. If any of these such players or companies thought they were going to cash in on this, they were delusional.
BINGO
The so call poker “coaches” should be offering their services on a no-cash, barter basis in exchange for having a player wear a logo during the WSOP Main Event final table.
30 seconds of logo exposure during the first airing of the WSOP Main Event final table TV show is worth at least $20,000 for the U.S. market alone, based on an estimate of 1 million TV viewers between the ages of 18 and 49 inclusion, and 500,000 TV viewers between the ages of 18 and 34 inclusive.