Quote:
Originally Posted by PokerFink
Not to bash women poker players, but if you're going to pick an event with "a clearly evident element of skill," this is probably not a good one to pick. A 64-person invitational field with a bunch of amateurs that plays best of 1 heads-up SNG crapshoots with a bad structure. It's a luckbox event.
Okay, I'm not qualified enough at poker to claim one way or another whether the variance in a standard "donkament" is higher or lower than a series of heads-up matches, but the real issue is that, to an observer, it LOOKS very much like a skilled event just from the association with single elimination events and virtually every sporting championship out there. Incidentally, the finals were best-of-3.
And if we are claiming that the Main Event "looks more like skill" than a single elim tournament, doesn't that just mean Duke's accomplishment was more impressive, given that she beat a Main Event winner (Yang), two runners-up (Seidel and Phillips) and a 3rd place finisher (Moon)?
I stand by my original point: There was huge television coverage (major network) of a very accomplished female poker player competing as an equal in, and winning, a competitive tournament featuring players known to the public as strong players, and what did it do to bring more women into the game?
Edit: If you are still unimpressed with the talent level of her win on NBC, though I would still claim that the extra exposure provided by being on a mainstream network FAR outweighs any public notion of "meh, these main event winners are hacks", how about her win at the WSOP Tournament of Champions in 2004. Stacked to the gills with the best players of the day. What did winning that all-star tourney do for women in poker?
Last edited by Moose; 07-19-2011 at 02:53 PM.