Wasabi Media Group (WMG) announces our largest contest ever.  Almost $2,000 in prizes and everyone that enters is guaranteed to get at least $50 in free advertising!!

The Prize Packs

Prize Pack 1 ($1,000 value) - A Free Business Edition Wiki for 1 Year at PBWiki - http://www.pbwiki.com

Prize Pack 2 ($100 value) – Permanent Featured Links in:

• WNPay http://www.wnpay.com
• Select Index http://www.selectindex.com
• Arctic Development http://www.arcticdevelopment.org
• Traffic4Us http://www.traffic4.us
• Wincyclopedia http://www.wincyclopedia.com

Prize Pack 3 ($100 Value) - $100 Sphere at AdSpheres - http://www.adspheres.com

Prize Pack 4 ($20 Value) - $20 Bidded Link at BountyWorld

Prize Pack 5 ($100 Value) - 5 Seats of Targeted Software at Aatmani - http://www.aatmani.com

Prize Pack 6 ($20 Value) - Site Review Package at Select Index Blog - http://www.selectindex.com/blog

Prize Pack 7 ($60 Value) -  1 Year Text Link at PageRankr - http://www.pagerankr.com

Prize Pack 8 ($50 Value) - 3 Months of a 160 x 600 Banner Ad on Tutorial Area - http://www.tutorialarea.com

Prize Pack 9 ($30 Value) - 5,000 visitors via Win Free Candy - http://www.winfreecandy.com

Prize Pack 10 ($120 Value) - 20,000 EntreCard Points

How To Enter

To take part in this drawing you need to sign up for the Wasabi Media Group Advertiser Newsletter by using the form here: http://www.wasabimediagroup.com/advertiser_subscribe1.php. By signing up and confirming your email, you will receive 5 tickets.  As a bonus, everyone that enters gets an automatic $50 in free advertising on our network!

You also can get five additional entries by writing about this contest in your blog.   An entrant only needs to mention the contest and link to Wasabi Media Group or the contest in his or her blog.  An entrant will get the additional entries only if he or she signs up for the newsletter.

Just comment on this thread once you have entered the contest, and we will approve your entrance prize of $50 in advertising and add your tickets to the pool.  If you have blogged about this contest, please include a link to the blog post in your comment thread also.

When Does The Contest End?

The contest runs from now until November 26th at midnight EST.  Prizes will be awarded on November 27th.

Many players found former Main Event champion Scotty Nguyen’s behavior at the $50K Chip Reese Memorial HORSE tournament deplorable. His verbal attacks on his fellow pros were universally derided (included here in an earlier entry) as tirades fueled by alcohol, sleep deprivation and the mental toughness required to play five diverse poker games at the highest level.

If all of these circumstances can mitigate Scotty Nguyen’s behavior, what excuses can fellow champion Phil Hellmuth use to pardon his unconscionable treatment of Christian Dragomir during this year’s Main Event? After he repeatedly called Dragomir an “idiot”, tournament officials threatened to penalize Hellmuth for his outburst. Hellmuth appealed his penalty, and WSOP brass rescinded their punishment. Some observers may believe that a certain cable channel with four initials recommended to Jeffery Pollack and company that the “Poker Brat” be given a pass for his childish tantrum. Since Harrah’s changed the timing of the final table specifically to meet their TV partner’s demands, such speculations should not be considered as out of line.

If the now-infamous “Joe the Plumber” would have received a stiff penalty for such outlandish behavior, why did WSOP higher-ups let Hellmuth off the hook? If they can make a rule banning excessive celebrations (the much-needed “Hevad Khan” rule), why don’t they enforce such a rule regarding temper tantrums and insulting players?

If you’ll recall, the unnamed four-letter network produces their WSOP shows under the banner of “original entertainment.” Similarly, World Wrestling Entertainment bills their product as “sports entertainment” so as to differentiate their shows from a true competition. Since the WSOP becomes more like a TV entertainment show and less like a competitive tournament since the Moneymaker boom, should we start to consider the WSOP “poker entertainment”? Will we see Daniel Negreanu hit Mike Matusow with a steel folding chair? How about a steel cage match between Nguyen and Hellmuth? Instead of bracelets, the WSOP can award big gold championship belts. Give the dealers striped shirts and string ropes around the tables – now that’s entertainment!

Up until recently, the marriage between poker and TV had been a blessing for both parties. Now, it appears, that the relationship has reached the stage where the “same old, same old” isn’t as exciting as it used to be. The more adventurous partner wants to “spice things up” and “try something different” at the expense of the synergy that made the relationship work in the first place. TV cameras encourage the kind of asinine behavior we see from the Hellmuths, the Matusows and the Khans in the interests of making “good TV”. The question is, when did good TV replace good poker?

Part I of this piece analyzed how the current economic downturn potentially could affect the future of poker. While the recent explosive growth in the game will not be able to sustain itself during these conditions, such a slowdown should not be interpreted as the tolling of the funeral bell for the game itself. In many instances, both live poker tournaments and live cash games will take a significant hit from this cash contraction. However, many players will be able to find new opportunities amidst this adversity.

Newer Players. With the widespread exposure of televised poker tournaments and their million-dollar prizes, many players who have never set foot in a casino or read a poker book may try to take a stab at what they believe to be quick, easy money. In their desperation, they may not take the time to study, learn and practice the game as well as they should. These aspiring players would be better served if they spent their money on state lottery scratch-off tickets. Their attempts to make the kind of gutsy bluffs and aggressive reraises that they see on TV will deplete their bankrolls and leave them as potential profit centers for the true students of the game.

Home Games. If you can’t afford the airfare to Las Vegas, hopefully you can afford the extra gallon of gas to drive to a friend’s house for an old-fashioned home game. Some of the better aspects of home games are:

• Players can choose the game, limits and structure.
• In most cases, the players all know each other. This can make for a much more fun and festive atmosphere.
• Food and beverages are usually plentiful during such games. On some occasions, the host provides for the party; at other times, the players chip in for the meals and drinks.
• The host can query the players as to whether they would feel comfortable with the house taking a rake from the pot.

One downside to home games is that laws on private games vary by local jurisdiction, so please do your homework before advertising or promoting a home game.

Online Sites. Not only do online games put the poker table as close as you computer desk or laptop, they also offer games and tournaments at much lower stakes than any live poker room could ever provide. For players with adequate skills but insufficient bankrolls, online sites offer the chance to practice your play, work on new strategies and learn different games and styles of poker for much less money than you’d spend on cab fare from the airport!

New Laws. From national lotteries during the Revolution to the legalization of gaming in Nevada during the Great Depression to the establishment of Native American casinos in the 80s and 90s, state and federal governments have built a history of turning to revenues generated from gambling whenever a financial crisis hits American shores. If history is any guide, US authorities once again will call a temporary truce in their war against the ‘evils’ of gambling long enough to wring out the ready cash they need to set the economy back on the right track. Many legislators are working on refining the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act so that it excludes online poker. As this cash crunch continues, authorities soon will realize that regulation and taxation will benefit their citizenry and their coffers much more than prohibition and incarceration of players.

“Is the poker boom over?” If that question implies the death of the hype and hysteria surrounding the game since Chris Moneymaker’s miraculous win five years ago, then the answer is undoubtedly, “Yes”. However, just like the dot-com bust that preceded the ‘Moneymaker effect’, the seeds of eventual triumph often find root in times of struggle.

The sudden, startling downturn in the US economy has affected almost every business arena. Poker, specifically live casino poker, is no exception. This deep recession will impact your live poker experience in several ways:

Travel Expenses: With rising prices for both gasoline and jet fuel, along with a tighter money supply, traveling to the major poker rooms in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere around the country will become prohibitively expensive. Instead of a fun weekend excursion or a summer-long tour of your favorite casinos, your poker trips will take a back seat to paying your rising household bills with your shrinking (or non-existent) paycheck.

Closing Poker Rooms: Last year, the Las Vegas Hilton closed their poker room. This year, Planet Hollywood shut down their popular poker room and replaced it with a high-limit gaming area. In this economy, casinos are seeking to improve their profit margins wherever they can. Until the recent boom, poker barely rated as an afterthought in the minds of casino executives. Loss-leading areas like poker will be among the first amenities to feel the budget axe.

No more ‘aquariums’: Another consequence of this widespread belt-tightening is that fewer and fewer new players will put their hard-earned money down on the table. With a thinner supply of ‘fish’ in the sea, the ‘sharks’ will have no choice but to turn on each other. For those professional players on the margins of the game (i.e. those not on the tournament trail or without web site endorsement deals), their primary source of income will quickly dry up. Even top-level touring pros will feel the impact in smaller tournament fields and diminished prize pools.

As we’re seeing now, any artificially inflated economic bubble cannot be sustained. Whether the fuel for that bubble comes from buying stocks on credit, investing in junk bonds, overvaluing dot-com public offerings or bundling sub-prime mortgages, that bubble inevitably bursts with catastrophic and far-reaching consequences.

Does such a catastrophe truly sound the death-knell for the poker boom? As with any boom, this one will eventually go bust. However, such events should not be interpreted as the funeral march for poker itself. The game has survived bad times and bad people, depressions and recessions, a civil war and two world wars. As long as people have cards, chips and cash, poker will survive in one form or another.

In fact, this recession may present some wonderful opportunities to open up this great game to new arenas. In Part II, we will explore some of the silver linings available in these dark financial clouds.

Recently, the World Poker Tour announced that, starting with Season Seven, their final table broadcasts would air on Fox Sports Network and its affiliates. Such a move could sever as a bounce-back for the struggling poker franchise. After their long and successful five-year run on the Travel Channel, their move to Game Show Network did not garner them as much attention as founder Steven Lipscomb had previously enjoyed. Even when the channel paired the WPT final table shows with their broadcasts of High Stakes Poker, their ratings numbers suffered. This setback, along with the failure of their Professional Poker Tour series, forced WPT executives to make a move.

With their new partnership with FSN, combined with their relationship with the MGM/Mirage casino chain, WPT is taking dead aim at the combined forces of the World Series of Poker Circuit, Harrah’s and ESPN. The widespread coverage offered by FSN will attract many non-poker sports fans in ways that neither the Travel Channel nor Game Show Network could provide.

For the regular touring players, such competition could result in more opportunities for exposure, which could lead to more endorsement and sponsorship deals available outside of poker.

For the Joe-Average player who want to live his dream of playing at a TV final table, more exposure could lead to more chances to realize that dream and more satellite tournaments to help pave the way.

For the host casinos, more TV time inevitably leads to more foot traffic through the doors. The hopes of these casino executives lie in having these poker players, students and fans of the game stop on their way to the tournament room to sit down at the slot machines or blackjack tables.

For TV viewers, it gives us a chance to see more of our favorite players at their best (or worst), glued to our screens, hanging on every move.