Home / Poker News June 2011 / Looking Back at the First Week of the 2011 WSOP
Looking Back at the First Week of the 2011 WSOP
Posted by: Randy Williams - Wed, 2011-06-08 10:00
The first week of the 2011 series is in the books and it is safe to declare that the event so far has been resoundingly successful. There was a lot of talk before the Series kicked off about the possible effects of the Black Friday events on player numbers. Looking back at week 1, we can now safely put those fears to rest. Not only have the Black Friday and Black Monday events failed to reduce player numbers, the fact that they can no longer play online had the opposite effect on US players: they showed up in droves, bought into the events and created starting fields which have mostly obliterated last year’s records.
Phil Ivey shocked the poker world by announcing via Facebook before the Series that he was going to boycott the WSOP, on account of the US player funds that have apparently remained stuck in
Full Tilt Poker’s coffers in the wake of the Black Friday indictments. Everyone was in a shock for like 24 hours, but after that people managed to digest the idea of not having Phil Ivey play in any of the
WSOP events and they moved on. The poker world has obviously not stopped spinning on account of Phil Ivey’s absence from the WSOP tables.
What else have we learned during the first week of the WSOP? That British railbirds are much more creative when it comes to encouraging their players than Americans? While all the Americans seem to be able to produce come crunch-time is a USA-USA chant, the Brits deploy a wide repertoire of more or less witty songs, turning some of the rails into soccer-stadium stands. Some people hate them for being loud. It may also be though that they’re simply envious of their superior creativity.
We’ve also learned that the bracelet so many dream of putting around their wrists doesn’t mean a whole lot for Allen Bari. According to Bari the bracelet is nothing but a mere jab between the ribs for his haters.
