David Williams walked into the lion's den after he busted the Main Event. The 2004 Main Event runner-up joked that the WSOP Main Event should allow one rebuy per Day 1 flight.
"Hot take: The @WSOP Main Event needs re entry," he wrote. "Not unlimited, just 1 entry per starting day. No more debate on which day to start, play em all! Can you imagine the prize pool if people could spend 60k on entries! Re entry is part of tournament poker now, WPTs have it…"
In case anyone was unsure if he was joking, he added an additional tweet in-line reading: "And I’m totally not just saying this because I’m out. I promise."
Unfortunately, people don't come to Twitter to read threads, and the second tweet went largely unnoticed by the mob that rapidly formed.
Williams acknowledged the unwitting chaos he'd caused himself in a subsequent tweet.
"Man, I was just fucking around and dgaf," Williams wrote. "But wow I triggered some people. A+ troll levels here."
At least he didn't make a joke about the ultra-late registration on Day 2 or the new lammer policy. There's only so much accidental trolling the poker world can take.
More rebuys, more problems
The increasing prevalence of rebuys in live events is one of the simmering gripes of the poker world in the past few years. Rebuys favor professionals, the wealthy, and whoever collects the rake. For this reason, they are often viewed as unfair.
The anti-rebuy acrimony peaks around the World Series where the prestige of the events is a large part of the games' draw. Rebuys are often seen as hurting the competitive seriousness of the game.
As one of Williams's "critics" put it "Need to extend this to other world championships too! Lose an NFL playoff game? Re-enter up to the 3rd round! Crash your car in the Indy 500? Reenter up to lap 300! [...] But charge $ so only the richest competitors can do it!"
Even pros like Kitty Kuo, who used to be pro-rebuy, have changed their tune on this issue.
"I was questioning this freeze out @WSOP main event?" Kuo wrote. "The reason is if u get unlucky, then u have no chance to reentry! But I start thinking maybe freeze out is more fair, otherwise always pro wins ~I finally agree this in 2021."
Many players object even to the relatively modest single rebuy events that were more or less the standard in the 2021 WSOP non-ME schedule. The WSOP has suffered some brand image problems in the last few years. The rebuy issue is just one more nail.
Featured image source: Haley Hintze
