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Chuck Blount: WPA aiming to standardize tournament rules
Published: 2006-04-13
 The rules of poker haven't changed much since the inception of the game.
A pair still loses the money to a bigger pair and a straight will always be trumped by a flush or a full house. The action always moves clockwise around the table, and you have to show your cards whenever your hand is called on the final round of betting.
Standardization is needed in poker (or any other game or sport) so people around the globe can play the game properly under a uniform set of rules.
What fails to attain the same consistency is the structure of both large and small buy-in poker tournaments. Here, it gets crazy.
With the exception of the World Series of Poker, the blind structures vary from event to event in regards to both chip increments and level intervals. For example you may play a big tournament with $25/$50 starting blinds that go up every 45 minutes one week, then move on to a $25/$25 structure the next week that goes up every hour.
Players are assessed a 10-minute penalty every time they launch the F-word at the World Series, but can do it with regularity in a similar $10,000 buy-in World Poker Tour event. It's not polite, but imagine the pain of letting one slip out of frustration only to be told that you had to miss an orbit of play during a crucial step of the tournament when it was OK to do so a week earlier. It could make a large financial difference.
Tournament payout structures also vary greatly. One tournament may only reward 10 percent of the field, while another will put 25 percent into the money.
Such inconsistencies provided professional player Jesse Jones the spark to launch the World Poker Association this year. Jones, who wears a signature tuxedo every time he makes the final table, has traveled the poker circuit for over 20 years.
His aim is to establish a standardized list of poker tournament rules and regulations that can be implemented by this time in 2007.
"When we have standardized rules, everybody will benefit from it," Jones said. "There really is no uniformity right now and one of the problems with poker is that it has exploded to the point where more and more of these tournaments are sprouting up. We need to get them all on the same page."
Jones' WPA is a non-profit organization that is modeled after the PGA Tour. The WPA will allow members to have a say in how it operates and effectively turn it into poker's judicial branch.
"All of the members will get one vote on any key issues that come up," Jones said. "Our goal is to speak with one voice and elevate tournament poker to a more professional status."
The WPA is currently seeking members (details available at wpapoker.com). Once membership reaches 1,000, the organization will vote on its board of directors and begin working on a consistent tournament-structure platform.
"There have always been tournament issues that needed to be addressed, but they were always handled on an individual basis," Jones said. "We want to address these issues as a governing body."
You don't have to be a pro to join, but the organization already includes some of the top names in the game. Anybody with an interest in poker can join
The main focus of the WPA will be the larger buy-in tournaments, but in due time Jones feels the standardization will trickle down to the smaller weekly tournaments found in casinos around the world.
"Hopefully, we can develop something that everybody will agree is a pretty good way to run a tournament," Jones said. "It will be a standard that everybody will want to replicate."
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Full house for a red-hot craze
Published: 2006-04-09
 By GENEVIEVE READ
09apr06
IS poker back in style? You bet.
Clubs are meeting weekly, women are taking their cue from Desperate Housewives and poker kits are popping up for sale in the most unlikely places.
Most attribute pay-TV tournaments and the internet for the surge in popularity of Texas Hold'em, the poker game played most widely around the world.
In Tasmania, the boom started late last year when poker kits started appearing in Christmas catalogues.
At furniture and homewares store Freedom, not even the sales team could believe the interest.
"People kept asking us about the kits but wholesalers couldn't supply us until late December because they were so popular elsewhere," said Freedom homewares' Lesley Graves.
"When they came in there was a rush of sales, lots of women buying them as gifts -- for their husbands or girlfriends, we're not sure."
Liza, 37, of Launceston has been hosting weekly poker nights with her girlfriends since Desperate Housewives hit TV screens last year.
"Following the girls' lead, we decided to learn the rules and have it as a social catch-up night," Liza said. "We all bring something to nibble on and it's a great laugh. Plus, no guys are allowed."
In Hobart, a strictly guys-only night is held weekly by Shannon Coyle, 27, of Mt Nelson and about six of his friends.
While the Launceston ladies bet for chips and the odd shopping coupon, the guys are out of pocket just $5 each for a night of entertainment.
"For a $5 game it's surprising how often the sheep stations come out," Mr Coyle laughed.
"The guys get pretty vocal and excited when they find themselves with big hands, and the betting ramps up.
"But it's often when things go quiet that the real competition is going on. Everyone's trying to get inside each other's heads and everyone is bluffing or acting like they're bluffing when they're sitting pretty. It's great stuff."
Just last month, an American university student from Minnesota proved young people are playing -- and playing hard -- when he won $1.4 million in a high-stakes Limit Hold'em poker tournament on a Caribbean cruise.
The competition lasted five to eight hours a day for eight days and, from behind mirror sunglasses and a baseball cap, the 22-year-old beat veteran players from all over the world.
"It's grown amazingly since they started showing Texas Hold 'Em tournaments on pay-TV on a regular basis," Mr Coyle said.
"I hadn't even thought about poker until I sat down to channel surf at a friend's place one day and ended up wasting half the day watching poker.
"The rules are easy to learn. I think everyone knows what beats what in poker, it's like knowing the times table."
Poker has also been thrown into the spotlight by Australian player Joseph Hachem winning the 2005 World Series of Poker and a record-breaking $US7.5 million ($A10 million).
The Melbourne man said of his win: "It changes everything. I can look after my family, my mum, my kids."
Relationships Australia recently tagged the re-emergence of poker, internet access and phone accounts for betting and the lure of casinos as risks for young people.
It warned that while there was no harm in kids playing for poker chips, they could be tempted to play for money.
Relationships Australia Tasmania says play-gambling products groom young people for real gambling the same way lolly cigarettes used to groom children for tobacco smoking.
"The problem is that these gambling games give young people a false sense of security about gambling, which is then reinforced by advertising of real gambling products which claim that gambling is just harmless entertainment," the counselling group's Nick Weetman said.
Wade Pearce, 27, of Kingston, who plays at Mr Coyle's poker nights, said money wasn't an issue in his group.
"You do get something out of it if you win but people won't go broke playing for it," he said.
"We started it because we wanted an easy-to-arrange and relatively cheap social activity between our mates."
When the stakes are small and the emphasis on social interaction rather than gambling, players agreed the risks were minimal.
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