Probably both?

One guy says he cares about the title and trophy, the other one says he doesn’t. Now people argue guy #2 has to try to win anyway instead of being able to just get over with it so he can do something else with his time.

10 years ago, there was still significant sponsorship money involved and brands like Milwaukee‘s Best and Beef Jerkey sponsored the WSOP. Just take a look at WSOP sponsors/vendors today. When vapor brands are your most reputable sponsors, it’s pretty obvious where you stand.

Sure, LOL at being heads-up at a major tour final table and just wanting "to do something else with your time", doesn't really hold water. I'd bet the real story is closer to Mike giving Ryan way more than ICM in exchange for chip dumping the title to him.

Anyway WPT has rules against chops and deals, and certainly against chip-dumping the title to a 2.3:1 chip dog.

If WPT has any integrity they should nullify the results, make it a no-winner tourny, and remove POY points for both of them, and the TOC entry. Let them keep the money they won, but a WPT Title shouldn't be earned by a chip dump agreement, in fact it's against WPT rules. We'll see what WPT does.

A woman player right? No way the 83rd man won.

yes guy #2 should have to stay and play it out. maybe he doesnt have to try to win but specifically chip dumping is unsportsmanlike.

Facts matter. I'll go with Matt.

Matt is being so half-truthful here. (was he the TD of this tournament?)

2. WPT collects fees from the venue, which come from player rake.

3. WPT does not facilitate chops and will not alter stated payouts. That is what a "no deal" policy is.

If WPT/Matt Savage is happy to have chip-dump agreements to "win" a title when the "winner" is a 2.3:1 chip dog, I'd say WSOP was brilliantly correct in dumping Matt Savage in 2004.

There is a difference between not facilitating chops and deals being illegal. They should have just played it out for all the fan boys. Broke their hearts. Ignorance is bliss. Santa Claus is fake too.

I don't think it's too much to ask that when you enter a major tour event, you play it to completion. That should be implicit.

When it comes to sponsorships, we're in a down period for sure, but that doesn't mean we should just give up. Lack of online poker in the U.S is a killer but that is not necessarily permanent.

Certainly a title is marginally helpful to one's reputation and visibility under normal circumstances, which is helpful to get sponsorships.

But "winning" a title in the way Leah did, with all the controversy that has come out of it, cannot possible be helpful. This will be a significant black mark on Leah's reputation, which I have to think would hurt his sponsorship potential much more than just getting 2nd place fairly would have.

Given the flagrant nature in which Leah and his opponent threw the match, they must have known that this would be controversial. So Leah couldn't have done it because he thought it would enhance his reputation. The only reason I can think of to do this is for the POY points.

What does the WPT POY winner (or winners) receive?

I'm confused why people seem to think this would have been done for POY points and not for being known as winning 4 fallsview events in 5 years. He has even been referring jokingly to the series as the "Mike Leah Invitational" or something for years on his twitter.

Except he won't be known for winning 4 events in 5 years, he'll be known colluding his way to a fraudulent title.

The one winner gets a Hublot timepiece, plus hotel accommodation and ground transport for all WPT events he plays in the next season.

You claimed they have rules against chops/deals, which is clearly not the case. If players want to make deals, nobody stops them. The WPT just doesn’t get involved in it.

Again, I challenge all the ˋno deal´ people to rewatch live streams or even check posted tournament updates with HHs and figure out why there often is a point, usually after a break, where the pace of play mysteriously quadruples and a HU that could have lasted for hours is done in 15 minutes.

At least the EPT is honest about it and lets players just end their non-televised side-events after chopping if they don’t want to keep on playing.

I don't think anyone has a problem with doing a deal, whether ICM or otherwise to divide up the money. The problem is when the "money deal" also includes dumping the "win" to the guy who was trailing 2.3:1 in chips.

This is where I think WPT may want to protect the integrity of their Main Events. Chopping up the money and playing for the trophy is fine, no one has an issue with that.

The issue is when Mike said any ICM deal must include chip dumping me the "win", from a 2.3:1 chip deficit.

Are deals that include POY points as part of the deal fairly common? Is that maybe why they might have been so open about giving the win to Mike Leah - they've maybe seen it happen so much, they didn't feel like there would be a need to hide it?

People making side deals to try and stay atop the leaderboard was even a thing in the beginner league of Poker School Online back in the day. They even tried to put a rule in place to try and prevent it from happening - but it was kind of hard to police, so every other month there seemed to be accusations of collusion and all sorts of drama. Top prize was only something like $500 too lol.

For those that don’t have an issue with the chop but want the players to “play it out” for the “purity of the game”, I would like to point out that once the money is chopped up, the game is over. The purity of poker evaporates when the ability to apply real life monetary pressure to your opponent is gone; therefore any resulting poker after a chop is farcical no matter how honest the opponents play. It's the same concept behind bubble scenarios being so profitable and why refusing paying the bubble has nothing to do with being stingy and everything to do with optimal play.

But the title has real value independent of the prize pool. If it didn't, why would Leah have been willing to give up what he perceived to be an equity edge in order to win in?

So according to Matt Savage, he removed the 'No Deals' rule years ago.

I'm wondering: are these rules actually written down anywhere?

Not to Ryan Yu it didn't, in fact to Ryan it had no value unless he could get some equity out of Mike for it. Read his explanation on it, the TOC was completely worthless to him as he wouldn't even be able to play in it due to schedule constraints, this is straight from the player's mouth, you can't tell someone else what value is to them. Some people despise the spotlight, perhaps it's antithetic their place of employment's value system and they don't want a bunch of photos on the internet so winning the tournament has a -EV for them. Situational value has an infinite number of possibilities. People are recreationally outraged over this for no legitimate reason.

Negreanu Ivey Greenstein Hellmuth etc etc when WPT was in its Glory these guys were making deals weekly " good for tv " then golfing with sexton as WPT turned a blind eye

Matt Savage is running the LAPC right now. In an $1100 side event earlier this week, the 3 final players wanted to chop for various reasons. He stated that he could provide chip chop numbers, but if we wanted icm we would have to run those numbers on our own. 2nd in chips wanted the trophy and the player of the series points that went with it, but Matt explained that no matter what kind of financial deal we agreed to, the chip leader had to receive the trophy and points. As the short stack who felt I had edge, I said icm or play and the two big stacks agreed, allowing me to basically lock up 2nd place money. They facilitated the payouts based on our agreed chop.

I’d evaluate him as extremely professional - firm when the situation calls for it and more relaxed wrt less consequential issues. Though I don’t play tourneys, I’d have to guess he’s one of the best around and I did not see him make a mistake or compromise the integrity of the tourneys. There is a difference between the LAPC WPT main and an LAPC side event and he may be bound to enforce different rules accordingly. Wish I was chopping up 800k - even if it was in CAD lol

isn't this the exact same thing luske and boubli did like 15 years ago

Didn't Doyle purposely not win the main event in the WSOP's infancy because he did not want the fame that went with it? If I remember correctly Amarillo Slim was gifted his title and the notoriety that went with it, because Doyle was a Christian who didn't want fame at the time, and Slim was all about it.

Isnt this exact same thing Grant Hinkle did. The very same Grant Hinkle that called out Mike on Twitter for Fallsview

According to PokerNews article on Fallsview deal, Grant talks about his deal in Winstar 2016 Main where they chopped multiway, then went back and shoved all-in every hand.

How is that different than what Mike and Yu did ?

Also Bobby Brown said it best.

also I'd agree with this

https://www.pokernews.com/tours/wins...ost.248405.htm

It’s not the same thing.

Gordon Vayo was shown as winning the most money and is treated as the winner of the tournament. It also looks like the chop order is reflected in various databases and point scoring.

So while there might have been some bonus for winning the random runoff (the physical bracelet), the situations sound pretty different. It’s that kind of situation that many people are advocating: divide up the various assets, but treat the one with the most money as the actual winner.