WSOP-November 9

[caddyman]

Not worth the wait...I hated the theater format. It was like the crowd was more important to the production than the players.

Head to head was a joke. Four hours of actual poker boiled down to two hands. Terrible. Not to mention USA Today lets the cat out of the bag today without warning on one of their pages. They put the winner's name in the headline.

[SheikYerbuti]

Not worth the wait...I hated the theater format. It was like the crowd was more important to the production than the players.

Head to head was a joke. Four hours of actual poker boiled down to two hands. Terrible. Not to mention USA Today lets the cat out of the bag today without warning on one of their pages. They put the winner's name in the headline.

 

 

The planning was so backward assed it was amazing. Wait 4 months to build suspense and then blurt out the winner in USA Today, rotoworld, the bottom ticker on ESPN. . . .everywhere before it aired on TV. Why did they bother delaying the final table at all? So friggin stupid.

 

Oh, and the coverage sucked. They waste so much airtime with filler it's embarrassing. I mean really. . .the "Let's Get Ready To Rumble" guy gets full coverage but we don't even get to see what hand Kelly Kim got knocked out with?? And after a full hour preview show with all the human interest bullcrap, they still clogged up the actual tournament with a 5 minute story about how Dennis Philips has a lucky friggin coin???

 

What a joke.

[TimC]

It was horrible. I paid for the PPV last year and that was awesome to watch without knowing the hole cards. Now I know there is no market for this except die-hard poker geeks like me, but having it audio only this year was unbearable. This isn't the 1930's. Set up a camera, get some halfway decent announcers (Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu), and try to keep the BS to a minimum. This year's announcers didn't even realize it was audio only. They constantly went "Look at this" and just said it "A-K versus pocket 8's" without saying who had which hand. It was horrible and third-rate. The thread over at 2+2 was more exciting than the live broadcast.

 

They cut alot of the exciting hands. Heads-up was nearly 100 hands IIRC and there were a few thrillers. Meh, it was like Yang and Tuan Le last year when they showed 2 hands after they played for an hour or two.

 

I know 14 hours of poker with 11 hands every hour and a break every 70 minutes (are these people union?) isn't ever going to be anyone's thing, but ESPN could at least have a few more hours of coverage to show real poker instead of just arrrrrrrr-in with A-K or just cut out the personal stories and bs.

Edited November 12, 2008 by TimC

[keggerz]

The planning was so backward assed it was amazing. Wait 4 months to build suspense and then blurt out the winner in USA Today, rotoworld, the bottom ticker on ESPN. . . .everywhere before it aired on TV. Why did they bother delaying the final table at all? So friggin stupid.

 

Oh, and the coverage sucked. They waste so much airtime with filler it's embarrassing. I mean really. . .the "Let's Get Ready To SHUFFLE" guy gets full coverage but we don't even get to see what hand Kelly Kim got knocked out with?? And after a full hour preview show with all the human interest bullcrap, they still clogged up the actual tournament with a 5 minute story about how Dennis Philips has a lucky friggin coin???

 

What a joke.

fixed

[SheikYerbuti]

fixed

 

Even gheyer.

[TimC]

If this isn't insane, I don't know what is. There is paying your fair share and then there is the government simply raping you.

 

 

 

The Real Winners at the World Series of Poker

 

This year's World Series of Poker concluded early this morning at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The winner of the main event won $9,152,416 but would he actually end up with all that money?

 

This year's winner was Peter Eastgate from Denmark. The United States and Denmark have a tax treaty. Because of the treaty Mr. Eastgate doesn't owe a penny to the IRS. That just leaves the Danish tax authorities.

 

Denmark's tax agency is called SKAT. Denmark, like the United States, does tax gambling winnings. For casino gambling (which is where I believe this will be classified) the tax rate is 45% on the first 4 million Danish Kroners; it's 75% on income above that. Today $1 is worth 5.88907 DKK; Mr. Eastgate won 53,899,250.70 DKK before taxes. Mr. Eastgate will owe about 39,224,438 DKK in tax ($6,660,545). Put another way Mr. Eastgate will keep 14,674,813 DKK ($2,491,871) of his winnings—just 27.23% of his prize. Yes, he faces an effective tax rate of 72.77%. Ouch.

 

Ivan Demidov of Moscow, Russia finished second and won $5,809,595. The United States and Russia also have a tax treaty and Mr. Demidov won't have any of his winnings withheld by the IRS. Russia has a 13% flat tax rate, so Mr. Demidov will owe about $755,247 to the State Taxation Service of Russia.

 

Third place went to an American, Dennis Phillips of Cottage Hills, Illinois. Mr. Phillips won $4,517,773 for his efforts. He's an amateur gambler so he won't owe self employment tax on his winnings. Still, he can expect to pay $1,568,950 to the IRS and $135,533 to the Illinois Department of Revenue.

 

Ylon Schwartz of Brooklyn, New York, finished in fourth place for $3,774,974. He is a professional gambler so he'll owe self-employment tax on his winnings. He'll also owe state and New York City income tax. His likely tax bite is $1,396,304 to the IRS and $387,966 to the New York Department of Tax & Finance.

 

Two Canadians finished in fifth and sixth place. Scott Montgomery of Perth, Ontario finished in fifth place for $3,096,768. The US-Canada tax treaty specifies that 30% of his win will be withheld to the IRS. Thus, $929,030 was withheld. Mr. Montgomery is a professional gambler so he will owe tax on his win to Revenue Canada. However, he will be able to take a credit on his Canadian tax return for the money withheld to the IRS. As Canada's tax rate is 29% he likely won't have to pay any additional funds to Revenue Canada. However, when provincial taxes are included the tax rate becomes 46.41%. Thus, Mr. Montgomery will owe tax in Canada: about $491,728 after the credit for the tax withheld to the IRS. [My thanks to the commenter who pointed out the impact of provincial taxes.]

 

The sixth place finisher was Darus Suharto of Toronto. Mr. Suharto is an accountant, so he won't owe tax to Revenue Canada on his won. However, of the $2,418,562 he won, $725,569 was withheld per the US-Canada tax treaty. He may be able to claim a credit on his Canadian tax return for years to come based on this withheld money and eventually get it back.

 

The Franchise Tax Board (FTB) was rooting for David Rheem or Kelly Kim to finish in first place. These two Californians finished in seventh and eighth place, earning $1,772,650 and $1,288,217 respectively. Mr. Rheem will owe about $651,262 to the IRS and $170,302 to the FTB; Mr. Kim will owe about $470,995 to the IRS and $121,074 to the FTB.

 

Craig Marquis of Arlington, Texas finished in ninth place. He is also a professional gambler, and of the $900,670 he won he'll have to fork over about $328,911 to the IRS.

[Puddy]

I'm just happy Hellmuth isn't the youngest any longer. I grew tired of hearing about that after the 1 millionth time.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Puddy

[SheikYerbuti]

If this isn't insane, I don't know what is. There is paying your fair share and then there is the government simply raping you.

 

It's extremely common (at least in my hood) that when a tournament gets down to 4 or 5 players and deals are discussed, tax liability plays a big role in the conversation. Usually the player who files as a professional poker player and has been having the worst year (and therefore the most lost buy-in's to write off against his winnings) will be declared the "winner" and get the paperwork for 1st place so there's more actual money for the players to divvy up.

 

I'm sure Demadov and Eastgate didn't discuss any kind of deals, but if they did it would have been VERY difficult to avoid this situation. First of all, people (god knows why) want the prestige of winning the WSOP main event, which is no longer in the top 10 of prestigious events. The only thing superlative about it is the size of the prize pool. Second of all, when the got heads up, the guy with the 13% tax liability had something like a 10-1 chip disadvantage. In order to have him collect 1st place money and give them an extra, what. . .3 million dollars to divide between them would have required a chip dumping unheralded in the history of the game. I just can't see how they could have done that and made it look good.

 

What should have happened was Eastgate should have found out that any winnings were going to be taxed at 72% and taken a long think about whether to play the event at all. I sure as sh!t wouldn't have.

[Big Country]

First of all, people (god knows why) want the prestige of winning the WSOP main event, which is no longer in the top 10 of prestigious events. The only thing superlative about it is the size of the prize pool.

 

I agree that there are several events now likely considered more prestigious, most notably the 50K HORSE.

 

But, the winner of the WSOP ME gets a lot more than the prize, there are some potentially lucrative sponsorships out there. Now, all of the final tablers already had deals in place with the poker sites, but there may well have been significant monetary compensation for the finish.