The 4 biggest FAILS in recent poker history Part 1

When it comes to promotions and innovative ideas in the poker world they are usually so-so in terms of impact, most catching on as a niche format while others fade quietly into the night. On the other hand, every now and then an idea really catches on and is a game-changer, or possibly fails miserably and has an unintended consequence on the poker world -in Internet speak, a FAIL!

In this two-part series I’ll take a look at the four biggest FAILS in the poker industry in the past few years. I’m not going to talk about black eyes on the industry like the Super-User scandal or UIGEA legislation; instead I want to look at the ideas that were suppose to have a positive reaction or result but instead produced the exact opposite result.

Here are the four FAILS I’ve chosen as the biggest:

• 1. David Sklansky’s “Post you were waiting for”
• 2. The durrrr Challenge
• 3. Shaun Deeb in drag at the WSOP Ladies Tournament
• 4. The Professional Poker Tour

The Fourth Biggest FAIL in Recent Poker History: The Professional Poker Tour

The 2004-2005 Professional Poker Tour was supposed to be the next step in poker’s rise, creating a sponsorship driven poker tour, where the top players would be free-rolling each tournament. Unfortunately, with so many million dollar first prize tournaments taking place at the time, few players were lining up to play in the smaller PPT events with their $225,000 first-place prize-money, and only the top 5 finishers cashing, despite being a free-roll -this was also before poker sites were willing to fly sponsored players around the world to participate in tournaments, so travel was on a player’s own dime.

Having failed to produce a good long-term business model the tour was disbanded, with its events becoming stops on the World Poker Tour the following year. We are now in the midst of a revival of this concept with the Federated Sports +Gaming Professional poker League. It will be interesting to see if Annie Duke, Jeffrey Pollack and the Maloof family can take this utter failure and turn it into a winning concept.

The Third Biggest FAIL in Recent Poker History: Shaun Deeb in Drag

This one was a head-scratcher from the word go, and with about ten different stories coming out of the Rio in the aftermath of Shaun Deeb and a few other males entering the Ladies No Limit Holdem Championship at the WSOP the poker world was already choosing sides before the tournament even got underway.

Deeb first claimed his appearance in the tournament in drag was over a failed prop bet; which he later rescinded and claimed he was trying to make a statement about gender equality which basically nobody in their right mind believed.

Whatever Deeb’s reasoning was this will go down as one of the worst decisions in poker history, after setting off a firestorm that saw a rekindling of the Daniel Negreanu vs. Annie Duke saga.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series where I look at two FAILS that were even worse than these!