Think its getting more clear the WSOP, or more likely people who put large side bets on the outcome, would be angry if they admitted there was a chop.

If that’s true, then also true is that insta snap-shove 80+ bbs with 88 was ICM suicide.

It’s true today. Just woke up in America and enjoying my coffee reading through these outstanding posts in the best country in history of the world. It’s f**** great.

I can see how/why it happened though. He thought it likely it would induce a 3bet from Weinman and it did indeed.

He didn’t want to fold and he also didn’t want to call and play that pot OOP

Easy hand to play from one’s couch when you see the guy has aces though

I don’t think Deeb would be going about it like this though if there was a deal

He cares about his rep in poker world and wouldn’t want to be labeled as a liar

If there was a deal in place something could absolutely be said or presented at a later time indicating there was.

Then add in Ben Lamb tweet. He’s in the know I’d imagine and is a straight shooter

Flatter payout structure at the top would take away some of the incentive, which for this case with the $8.1 million difference between first and third was massive. I realize that having a humungous first place prize is sexy for the press the event gets. But when the pay jumps are this massive, the incentive is overwhelming to do a deal.

Arieh in so many words confirming that a deal was made.

Not my conclusion

People also seem to either be ignoring or not aware of Weinman being caught on camera telling Mercier “we might talk a deal if get heads-up”

There's also another factor in Deeb's tweet strongly arguing that there was genuinely no chop: taxes.

If there was a chop, Deeb certainly would only want to be paying taxes on the money he actually won. He would need to have documentation of the chop and the actual prize distribution.

But he would also now have several public statements that he won more than he actually won. These could be used against him by the IRS to suggest tax fraud.

Of course, if Weinman actually chopped for -more- money than his share of the prize pool (i.e. if they chopped and Weinmain finished 3rd), his backers might be incentivized to claim there was no chop, making this statement less credible. But claiming that you won more money than you would from a chop is a very strong statement against your own legal interest, giving it much more credibility.

I agree that in this particular case, the WSOP made the gap between 1st and 2nd too big just to claim the largest 1st prize ever.

But the prize pool you are suggesting is not a good solution.

It's already taking an additional $6M out of the prize pool to pay 3rd and 4th. And are you going to give $6M to 4th but keep 5th at $2.4M? Assuming not, you are going to have to give several additional millions of dollars to the final table.

This money will have to come out of the lower prizes, which are already pretty frustrating small. You can finish in the top 1% of this field and only win 7x your buy-in. You want to take money award from these prizes to give even more to the top 0.1%?

But the even bigger problem is that making the prize pool very flat on the top would just encourage even more cautious and boring play at the final table, as there would be more and more incentive to just sit back and ladder up. The only circumstance in which there wouldn't be ICM pressure to do this is if the tournament were literally winner-take-all. This of course would be unworkable and very unpopular, but the flatter the structure, the worse this incentive gets.

Really the only chance I would have made to the structure is to lop $2M off 1st, $500k off 2nd, and distribute it to the middle of the cash schedule.

Yeah, if they restructure it should be taking from the top and more going to people who outlasted 9500+ other players. Buff the bottom payouts, it's fine if the final 3 is "only" playing for 15 million combined.

Well first there is personal integrity they are/maybe trying to protect. "They" did not bring this up. So your comment that people are speculating because they are denying has the causation reversed. If they were not accused there would be nothing to deny. It is those speculating and accusing them of making a deal who are driving the issue.

As to making an entertaining finish. I watched FAR more of both day 1 and 2 of FT this year than I have in the last 5 combined. The play this year was much more entertaining w/o the 20 something robots.

Did they make a deal. I really don't know and don't care. The reality is that once Walton made his spazz shove with 88, it was largely over. Who won that hand was going to win. The strtucture was such at that point that with two even reasonably matched players left, the chip differential vs. size of blinds simply meant that unless the deck ran over the other player for hours, the guy with 150+ BB was going to win.

But the two left were more enjoyable to watch than any other recent HU that I recall and definitely that is true for the whole FT.

As to the 88 spazz, while I see it as a spazz it really wasn't too much out of character for him. He had done similar spazz moves, he just walked (jumped you might say) right into a bear trap.

That’s the thing, there is no documentation of a chop because WSOP doesn’t facilitate chops, they are “parking lot” deals. So no matter what “parking lot” deal you come up with, you’re still paying taxes on the stated payout schedule.

That said, it’s possible WSOP quietly makes an exception for the Main, but their stated policy is no facilitating chops because: 1) they don’t want to deal with this crap for every single daily deep stack, 2) there might be regulatory (NGC/NGCB) reasons why they can’t alter posted payout schedules once approved.

imagine watching the play on the final day and coming to the conclusion that no deal was made

the human species is an amazing creature

Imagine thinking that a jam with 88 versus probable perceived heavy squeeze range and going all in with top pair HU means 100% chop

Amazing indeed

I don't think that's true. You'd use an IRS Form 5754 stating the receiver of gambling winnings as reported on a W2-G was not the actual winner.

I've never needed to use this, but I assume it's the same form as a player would do to report winnings actually paid to a backer.

https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-5754

Why do people always think there was a chop in major poker tournaments but never any other sports?

Like, do people think Djokovic and Alcaraz chopped the Wimbledon prize pool before Sunday's final? They were clearly pretty equally skilled, and the difference between 1st and 2nd was over $1 million.

Pro tennis players get a freeroll tournament worth 100's of thousands to millions of dollars to play in every couple weeks, and the best ones are already pretty rich, so playing for an extra million is no big deal, they will be in that spot again several more time this year, (for the top players).

Also, chopping in poker is pretty popular even in smaller tournaments so it's a reasonable thought to have about people doing so for massive life changing amounts of money in the main event. I've never heard about a tennis chop before.

Yes but they had already locked in a life changing (or at least life altering) amount of money.

There’s a utility function of money

1) Poker players recognize skill difference is only a moderately strong component in winning a tournament like this. In a sport, if you play better than your opponent, you're going to win almost every time, there's very little luck involved
2) Making deals in poker is socially acceptable and normal
3) Athletes give a lot of weight to perception and integrity of the game. Chops like this are completely unheard of in real sports. If the public got wind something like this happened, it could massively backfire and compromise the reputation and perceived integrity of the sport. It would probably be banned harshly by the sport's organizational body.
4) Athletes tend to have a mentality that they're better than everyone else and if they just put in the work and do their best they'll get there. Poker players have a much more probability-oriented mindset, they recognize that even at their best there's always a chance of being coolered or sucked out on, there's no sense of "I'm the best player, if I play my hardest I'm sure I'll win.

Poker chops routinely, major sports probably never chop. So it would be ****ing weird if people thought Wimbledon was equally as likely to be chopped as a big poker tournament.

You have a point there. But deals may flourish, so be it.

They were euphoric after having locked up 4mil. Weinman had the same demeanor for a long time ever since binking the JJ, nothing but smiles and joy.

Why is this an issue? I would absolutely try to make a deal if I were in that position. Are people just mad that it wasn’t terribly exciting/dramatic?

I think that’s probably it.

I also don’t like other aspects of the FT tbh. The whole tournament it’s one player per hand. Now suddenly at FT the players can run over to Foxen, Jaka, Mercier etc. on the rail for real-time coaching and play suggestions. Kinda think that’s not right.

I fully agree. Players should be cut off from contact with the rail in that manner.