Poker Idol

It's hard to believe but the WSOP is roughly two months away. I'm reminded of this because of the announcement this week of the return of the Tournament of Champions to the 2010 WSOP.

Many are decrying the latest TOC as a "popularity contest", because 20 of the 27 slots for this $1 million, invitation-only freeroll tournament will be chosen by an online voting process. But really what else should anyone expect?

Television executives are not often noted for being forward-thinking. In the same way that this year's NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship represented "poker in 1996", so will ESPN's the WSOP TOC put faces on TV that poker viewers have come to expect. Although the original concept of the TOC (as researched by Shamus) was an admirable one, it's not the way televised poker is consumed today. Poker today relies on marketable personalities -- players who are well known and "make good TV".

What ESPN Harrahs and the WSOP have ingeniously done is take the American Idol concept and bring it to poker. "Tell us who you want to watch!" they have asked the televised-poker-watching world. And apparently the televised-poker-watching world is responding with a list of the usual suspects. I wouldn't be surprised if ESPN is kicking into the prize pool as well. After all, why would Harrahs want to put up the whole prize pool on its own? What does it stand to gain?

Ten weeks until the madness begins. Lots of time to bitch until then.