So basically what happened was, Yu wanted icm chop, Mike said no only if he gets trophy and other perks of winning, Yu agrees to this.

To me this is the same as chopping a tourney where you talk the guy into taking a chop in your favor. Fish gonna fish.


POKER IS NOT DEAD.

Thank you for that link.

Ryan Yu pretty much answered my main question, which was “why would Yu not want more money AND the title?”

As for Mr. Leah, he did not request the chop, and would not do any chop unless he is awarded the title. At a 2:1 chip disadvantage, how can we fault Leah for accepting the title, along with a fair ICM distribution of the money?

Yu did not want to go to the TOC and did not care about any POY points. Why should the two of them be forced to play for a title only one of them wants?

I do not fault either player, and Leah won the right to negotiate the title by making it to the final two. This is poker, I have no problem with this.

So, why the farce chip dumping?
That is the only problem here. WPT should allow them to stop playing. If this “looks bad” then WPT needs to hire someone who gives a damn about the dismal future of poker and knows what bad optics is.

For televised events, the drama of closed door chop negotiations would be easy for commentators to exaggerate and up-sell the pros and cons to either player.

Forcing a continuance of play is the fault of WPT, not the players.

That is a massive overstatement and simply not correct. The tournament is not over once a monetary chop is agreed to, especially in a heads up situation.

It sounds like you are referring to random online tournys. Yes in online tournys after a chop its an all-in fest because no one cares who wins if there is nothing left to play for.

Not the case in main events of WPT and other major tours. The title and trophy actually mean something, POY points, free TOC entry this year and right to buy into all future TOC's, puffing up the player resume of major titles won, resulting future sponsorship, etc, etc.

Others who say once a chop is made, players loosen up and are going all-in lighter, well at least the title and trophy are still on the line.

Chip dumping the "win" as a condition of a chop should have no place in major tour tournament poker.

I hope Mike Leah realizes how farsical (to use your word) it is to consider himself the "winner" when he had to get it through chip dumping from a 2.3:1 deficit.

And this represents everything wrong with poker right now, and an utter embarrassment for WPT, which has clearly approved the buying and "negotiating" who wins the title/trophy once you make the final table.

What a great direction for poker to be heading!

BTW, are the 1919 Chicago White Sox your favorite team of all time?

Stop disrespecting online tourneys. Who are you to decide for others what this title means? You somehow think a WPT donkament has any value, well that's great, but that's like your opinion man.

They added the TOC value to the price pool. So Ryan Yu got ~$11k in cash instead of potentially winning entry into a tournament he can’t or doesn’t want to play anyway. That sounds like a good deal to me.

He also doesn’t care about any of the other things you mentioned and I think that’s his prerogative.

FWIW, I wish I didn’t have a hendon mob entry and if I wasn’t so freaking lazy I would try to find out if I can have it deleted.

So imagine WSOP ME FT, down to final two players, one has significant chip lead, but for same reason you both state, decides to obviously dump Bracelet and Title to other player, you still ok with that scenario? What would Effel do? How would that look on ESPN national TV Coverage?

Mike Leah, the self-described great player, has made a mockery of the game and himself that he has to "negotiate" a title from a 2.3:1 chip deficit. What a great player, poster boy for the game......

I read another article that explained that WPT only allowed this because it wasn't televised.

If they chip dumped during a televised event, there would have been repurcussions.

I don't even know who won the last WSOP ME, so figure out my answer. By the way that is a totally different situation since I believe they actually have rules in place against that sort of stuff, and they are actually broadcasted with a decent amount of financial stake in it. Obviously the response from WSOP is going to be different than when someone pisses off a few people on the internet.

Me, I still wouldn't care much and would actually find it hilarious, but I do believe they would treat that differently. But again, different scenario.

However it is telling that random posters on 2 plus 2 are more passionate and concerned about WPT'S brand image than the WPT management team itself.

If they don't care about persevering the integrity of their brand, what's the point in us giving them advise?

Rome will burn when Nero is the king.

Imagine that happens in your $10 home game tournament. Would you make such a big deal about that one, too?

Don’t know, don’t care.

One thing I know: if I made it HU at the WSOP I would chop in a heartbeat unless the other guy is terrible. I also wouldn’t care at all how that looks like and would probably immediately end my poker “career” anyway.

Poker is not a sporting event. None of the sports analogies apply, regardless of how many people like to make the comparison.

i'd agree there are differences between the two events

Question for the mob...

If Yu had had 10,000,000 chips, and Leah had 10,000,001 when they chopped then would you now be OK with Mike getting the title?

cmon why do you care so much? the guy bought himself a nice trophy and the pics to show his kids. bid deal.

edit tho: is that POY ladder money rewarding or a simple trophy? i could understand the concern if the POY get decent $.

This. And what's the difference between what actually happened and Yu just slowly grinding himself down to be less obvious. Fly, it'd be better for your health if you just pretended that it happened that way.

The remaining players in a tourney should always be able to make a collective agreement on the remaining prizepool, BUT:

1)The tournament should have a right to decide who gets the trophy, and in theory should have a right to complain/do something about this deal

2) Making a deal for POY points hurts the legitimacy of the POY, thus deals should probably be public and POY sites should make adjustments for deals

3) When you're playing for a seat to another tournament deciding who wins is no longer a 2 person decision, you're affecting everyone else in that tournament and their action was collusive


I don't think Mike had any bad intentions but I hope he understands those points as deciding in a backroom who gets POY points and a seat into a future tournament are like the only ways players could commit collusion heads up. I also think that just going all in blind until a winner is a very notable difference.

Above post is pretty good. I'd have to say I agree with it all.

#3 is sort of pushing it but I hear ya.

Fully agree with Thayer's points as well. Poker tournaments are won on the felt with playing cards and chips, not off to the side with slick negotiating skills.

Two guys tied for second at Fallsview. Ignoring the chip dumping nonsense, they essentially opted to end the tournament with a chop, so they should both get 2nd place POY points and no one joins the Champions Club. Kudos to both of them for a great run and nice payday, but that's where it ends. Chopping the money is fine, but no one should ever be gifted a trophy or bracelet.

Hopefully the WPT will consider crafting a new rule or two to address this before next season. I've never been a fan of the strict "no deals" rule at the WSOP, especially when it's applied to the daily deep stacks, but credit to them for having a clear rule with no gray area.

This is why the EPT has insisted that with every chop, a part of the remaining prize pool is set aside to go to the winner. In the big main events, it's at least 50K up for grabs.

But people chop them anyway and always have the fear of getting screwed over in the end.
That’s only for televised events. For everything else, they don’t even force players to play it out for the trophy.

The WPT should address the couple valid points people brought up here like POY points and start to support players in facilitating deals. I am sure players would agree to play it out in an at least reasonable way if they have the assurance their deal will be honored.

Wars are won on the battlefield with tanks and aircraft carriers, not off to the side with slick negotiation skills.

The issue I see comes down to those who think Poker is a sport where all that matters is outcome and the glory of winning and those who see it as business where all that matters is money. in my opinion poker is buisness so agreements like this are perfectly acceptable although it did become convoluted with the rise of sponsorships during full tilt time. Comparing Poker to baseball or football is rediculous because Poker players competing at the highest level are not payed to entertain... they risk their own money and compensation is completely dependent on their results. No other sport is like that.

All tours, WPT, WSOP, etc. have explicit rules about soft play, collusion, chip dumping, etc. In fact they are all considered forms of cheating within the rules.

In this particular case it appears the WPT is simply choosing not to enforce or do anything about an obvious chip dumped trophy/title. As others have said, if this was a televised WPT, I suspect the consequences of these actions would be different.

Kind of sets a bad precedent though for WPT. As long as the tournament isn't televised, you can wheel and deal at the final table not just for a prize pool money chop, but also who will be allowed the privilege of "winning" the title/trophy.

I would say maybe they allowed the chipdumping because the only 2 players left in the tournament agreed to it, and the prize pool had effectively already been determined. Obviously (I think) its cheesing people in other/the same tournament over unearned tourney player points.

It is pretty clear that WPT would not allow this if it was televised, but ignores it when not televised.

Pick one policy.