New York, NY – Wow, big news out of the Big Apple this morning where it turns out last night’s World Series of Poker broadcast was a ratings smash (at least among all the players who made the final table). The Nielson ratings released on Monday reported that the WSOP registered a 5.6, which certainly sounds like it's good — unless it’s not. The broadcast was viewed mostly by men, and by ‘mostly’ we mean ‘entirely.’ However, among the players who actually made the final table the ratings were 9.2 – which is surely better because 9 is a larger number than 5. The final table itself had a bit of an interesting format, to say the least. Two different tournaments were played online, but then the final table of each of them was played live. The winners of those two final tables then played heads-up, and the winner of that was then sacrificed to Phil Hellmuth, who was declared the winner. Phil Hellmuth becomes only the third player to win 3 WSOP Main Events. The others are Johnny Moss who sorta won three in the 70’s and Stu Ungar, who won in 1980, ’81 and ’97. For his final win, Ungar was awarded $1,000,000 which was divided evenly between the Golden Nugget sportsbook and Stuey’s cocaine dealer.

Smiles all around

WSOP Director Jack Effel said he couldn’t have been happier with the results of the tournament and the ratings on ESPN.

I couldn’t have been happier with how this year’s tournament went and I think the ratings reflect that. The World Series of Poker and ESPN have a relationship that dates all the way back to the 80’s. Back when a check-raise meant the nuts, every player at the table smoked a pack a day, and Stu Ungar still had a nose. Yes, it was a different time. Will we ever go back to those days? I for one don’t think so. Because time travel is impossible. Believe me, I’ve tried. No, sadly that technology is still years away.

The WSOP is now on break until this summer when players will travel from all over the world to beautiful Las Vegas where they will then sit in their hotel rooms and play online.

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