I guess you could consider the World Series of Poker as being the "olympics" of the poker world but there is a vast difference between the WSOP and the olympics in only one way.

The WSOP is all about money! If you can afford the buyin you can enter, no matter how good (or bad) you are as a player.

With the olympics, it is all about skill, determination, training, diet, commitment and numerous other words I could use to describe an athlete. As a poker player, you must have many of the disciplines of an athlete i.e. skill, commitment, determination etc etc.

I wonder what the "field" of players would look like if everyone had to win their way to the "Poker Olympics". Would the top world poker professionals like Daniel Negreanu or Phil Ivey be present....I'm pretty sure that they would.and of course, there would be a lot of unknown players from all around the world seated around the tables.

In order to make it to the poker olympics, there would have to be a world leaderboard where say the top 50 poker players from every country that participates in the game, make it to the "final". Buyin could be a low 10c to participate in a set of olympic qualifiers and all money raised from all over the world could be the prize pool.

The huge tournament would be held every 4 years to commence at the end of the real olympics. Host countries, numerous charities and amazing TV coverage would just be a small part of what could potentionally be a huge and successful set of tournaments.

I can visualize a poker olympics and I could see it being very successful but who would be willing to take on such a monumental task to arrange such an event? I guess I will just have to dream on.....



Back to blueday's blog