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As the WSOP gets going in Vegas, we got two pros not unaccustomed to bracelet glory together to chat about the summer’s highlight.
PRO-FILE
NAME: Howard Lederer
BORN: New Hampshire
WSOP BRACELETS: 2
WPT TITLES: 2
CAREER TOURNEY WINNINGS: $5,168,880
PRO-FILE
NAME: Eric Seidel
BORN: New York
WSOP BRACELETS: 8
WPT TITLES: 1
CAREER TOURNEY WINNINGS: $9,344,742
If you’ve been catching the repeated Full Tilt adverts on telly recently, you’ll know the World Series rivalry of our two Pro on Pro subjects this month.
With 10 bracelets between them and enough joint earnings to pay off several of Roman Abramovich’s fishy hands (see Donked Off this month), the Full Tilt Team Pros Eric Seidel and Howard Lederer head to Vegas, wrists laden with gold, with yet more glory in their sights.
After years on the circuit and 17 (count ‘em) final tables, Lederer finally bagged his first WSOP bracelet in 2000 in an Omaha event, besting a final table that included little-known whippersnappers Allen Cunningham and one Chris Ferguson (just days from his main event win). A year later, Lederer had bagged his 2nd bracelet, a run of cashes that continued up until last year when he cashed four times and final-tabled three events.
Eric Seidel will forever be immortalised from THAT World Series final in 1988 (and star of ‘Rounders’) when he was well and truly suckered in by Johnny Chan when heads-up in the main event. The experience obviously spurred Seidel on to a mammoth career, where, even 20 years later, he was reaching final tables, finishing the 2008 WSOP with five cashes and two final tables. His last bracelet came as recently as 2007.
We caught up with the tallest men in poker just as the World Series was about to kick off to talk about their prospects and predictions.
WPT Poker: What are your plans for the World Series?
Howard Lederer: I plan on winning three bracelets. I don’t know about you, Eric.
Eric Seidel: [laughs] I’m going to win $4 million!
HL: Is that all? You’re going to finish 2nd in the main event?!
ES: I’m just echoing Scotty [Nguyen]. He said he was going to win $4 million at the World Series. But I’ve offered to lay that 100/1.
HL: What do you think about the different structure? There are a lot more big buy-in tournaments this year.
ES: I like that.
HL: Me too. It’s a little controversial though.
ES: I like the new $40,000 No Limit event near the start. I’d like to see it mixed though; Pot Limit, No Limit, Omaha.
HL: I think it’s right in terms of the poker world right now. The game’s diversifying; Europe has a lot of Pot Limit Omaha now, you see more mixed games, H.O.R.S.E. type games going on. I think Limit Hold’em is on the upswing again. I think they made the right decision here to keep the big buy-in event…
ES:...there’s a $10,000 Limit event?
HL: Yeah, of course! What about the fact that there are no re-buy tournaments this year?
ES: I think it’s a mistake. They should have some re-buys. Not having re-buys at all is over-correcting the problem. They could have just scrapped the unlimited re-buy events, that was the problem. They could have just capped it.
HL: Why did they need to cap it?
ES: Because you shouldn’t be able to buy a bracelet. That’s not poker.
HL: My concern is that even if you limit re-buys then players with more money are in a different spot to someone playing on one buy-in. The way it should be done is to have ‘sort of re-buy’ events with compulsory re-buys. You choose when you want to rebuy for the remainder of your chips. Everyone will re-buy eventually or add on at the end. Everyone starts the tournament on an equal footing, a millionaire and a guy who satellited his way in.
WPT: This is like the Double and Triple Chance tournaments you already get in the UK.
HL: Really? They should do that here.
ES: A $25,000 PLO would be good for that.
HL: You just love your PLO.
ES: It’s just a great gambling game.
HL: It’s a game on the rise.
ES: If you look at it over the years, the players who play well tend to do well at the Omaha games.
HL: I think the problem is that the World Series is locked in to keeping the main event at $10,000 for the foreseeable future. Yeah, they’re doing this $40K Hold’em this year although they say it’s a one-time deal. Do they want to have a whole slew of tournaments that are bigger than $10K?
ES: I want to see a good balance. If you’re a Limit player you get to play the $50K H.O.R.S.E, the $10K Stud, Stud 8 or Better, Limit Hold’em. These all have very short fields, less than 200 players sometimes. If you’re a No Limit player you never get a chance to play any small fields. There’s something wrong with that.
HL: In terms of bracelet equity, I agree. This year, I think you’ll see more people playing non-No Limit Hold’em games. There’ll be more of a balance. I think there’s a chance that the No Limit events will recede and the Limit events will pick up.
ES: The truth is that the No Limit events have more interest generally. It’ll always be like that.
HL: Stud is an interesting case. I know a lot of Stud and Stud 8-or-Better players. How many opportunities do those guys have, six or eight tournaments? It’s unfair to say ‘oh, there are a lot of Limit tournaments’ and expect the players to play all of them. How many Stud tournaments have they got down to this year? Three? These guys feel a bit neglected. It’s hard to keep everyone happy, right?
ES: Would you class me as a Stud specialist?
HL: Yes, you are a Stud specialist if you’re sitting at my table [both laugh].
ES: How do you think the recession will affect things this year?
HL: There’ll be a lot less money around.
ES: I think the numbers will be down across the board.
HL: I agree, I think things will be down, but not as bad as some doomsayers are reporting. I think you’ll see people counting their dollars, saving up for the World Series. You’ve seen it in the run-up in the months before the WSOP; some of the pre-WSOP events have been down. But, even in tough times, the strong and popular events will hold up better. For a poker player, what suffers in a bad economy? Disposable, discretionary money. People will hang on to their used car and hold off from buying a new one. I don’t think people see the WSOP as discretionary if you’re a serious player.
ES: Some people do. When there’s not as much money around, you don’t have as many people willing to stake or back other players on top of them not entering themselves, and I think that’ll be the main thing this summer. I see poker money as disposable money.
HL: I agree, but if you look at the hardcore pro market, and that makes up a big chunk of the field at the WSOP, particularly at the weekday events, I don’t think those guys see the World Series as a discretionary choice.
EL: All the people at the top of the food chain will still be there. The argument for the casual player to take $5,000 out of the bank and go to Vegas is much harder.
HL: In general, I’m the optimist and you’re the pessimist.
EL: Haha, that’s true. That’s true in everything. |
