I like all three parts of this post:
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Originally Posted by borg23
There's never gonna be another poker boom remotely close to what we had.
I bring it up every time the subject of a boom comes up, as do others, but I'll say it again here: if there is another boom, it won't be because of a person. Even the Moneymaker boom wasn't really because of him. There still would have been a massive uptick. Moneymaker may have enhanced it, and certainly put a face and (literal) name on it, but even without him, the WSOP was bound for a massive growth because of online poker and the role of television – which largely went hand-in-hand†.
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With that said the only thing that might bring a mini boom is a woman winning.
I do agree with the term "mini boom," though. Those probably do take place in certain parts of the world if the game experiences an inflection point (hence why I asked if something happened in Japan in recent years). Whether or not a woman shipping the Main results in a mini-boom depends on the actual reasons why women aren't more represented at the major tourneys. It's funny, at the stakes and events I play, women probably make up 10-15 percent of the room. Not exactly 50-50, of course, but not the 3-4 percent that turn out for the Main.
But yeah, to me, it's the one situation where a person can create an uptick. Other than that, a boom happens because of legalization and accessibility (not the ADA definition of that term, but just how available the game is to as many people as possible).
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Some guy nobody ever heard of going back to back does nothing for poker.
Agree overall, but a while back I noticed something from the first 30 years of the Main: Stu Ungar won in 1980 and 1981. The field size went from 73 and 75 in those years to 104 in 1982, 108 in 1983. It then jumped to 132, perhaps thanks to Tom McEvoy's win and thus refuting my point that a person can't create an uptick.
Then at the end of that decade, Johnny Chan went 1st-1st-2nd from 1987-1989. The field sizes were 152-167-178, then went to 194 in 1990 before breaking 200 for the first time (215 in 1991).
It made me wonder if these consecutive scores encouraged some players who previously considered tournaments to be more like lotteries, as if they reinforced the notion that tourney success is in itself a skill that could be honed. (This is all before my time, so I can't speak to how big a deal either achievement was back then.)
But yeah, Aldemir winning back-to-back would not really change much for poker. Those who follow the game like us will see it as an impressive achievement, sort of like Dan Cates winning consecutive PPCs (although mathematically more unlikely). And those who don't follow poker probably think it happens quite often, in the same way that an athlete or sports team defends a title. I can't even think of a reasonable example of a person who – upon seeing Aldemir winning a second Main – would suddenly start playing.
†Not to derail my own post, but this reinforces why Isai Scheinberg is so overdue for the Hall of Fame. Henry Orenstein (hole card cam) and Chris Moneymaker are both enshrined specifically for their respective parts of the poker boom. Yet Scheinberg, whose company arguably played the biggest role, is still not in.
