13 Jul 2016
Posted by admin 
By ADANAI staff
TThe World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event is just heating up and the WSOP will come to a close for the summer before you know it. Other than the high roller bracelet hunters (Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth to name a few), the vast majority of poker pros and amateur enthusiasts will go back to the World Poker Tour (WPT) after the WSOP concludes.So here is the Binary Battle: Which do you prefer – the World Series of Poker or the World Poker Tour?
Let’s take a look at it on two dimensions: prestige and tournament quality.
Prestige
Without a doubt, the Main Event is the king of all tournaments and the one that every poker player dreams of winning. The opportunity for a bracelet makes each WSOP event extra special but each major WPT event has their final table on television (and they are re-run all of the time so there is a pretty good chance that your grandma will get to check you out). On one hand, the WSOP bracelet is a super cool thing to have and you have it forever. On the other hand, being on TV a few times and showing some personality can help get you on televised cash games which can help your following and potentially lead to endorsements. While it is a total guess, most pros would probably want to win one WSOP bracelet and then use their run good to win a bunch of WPT events.
Tournament quality
It’s hard to beat the summer camp atmosphere of the WSOP. What’s better than tons of poker with the downside of going busto being extra free time in Las Vegas? The WSOP is more than a no-limit hold’em fest so there are games for those that enjoy other poker disciplines. WSOP events for the most part are no re-buy events, which purists think make them purer poker events as opposed to poker/bankroll management events (we have a bias against rebuy events here at ADANAI). The Rio isn’t the Bellagio but it is definitely better than many stops on the WPT tour. We won’t comment on tournament structure but if you are okay with no rebuys then the bias towards longer levels and a flatter structure at the WSOP makes for longer deep stack play, which is always good.
At the end of the day, real poker players will get a game going anywhere they can as they all live by Paul Newman’s motto in “The Color of Money”: Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.
