Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
I want to be clear about my position on this.
I don't blame the players for attempting this in order to presumably split $1m. It's easy to say you wouldn't do it yourself when you're not the one looking to give up $500k.
I actually wouldn't have done it personally, for various reasons, but I definitely wouldn't fault those who did.
I believe the WSOP should definitely pay out the money as they would have normally, while ClubWPT can decide for themselves what to do (either decision is ok from them, honestly).
However, I feel strongly that a bracelet should NOT be awarded. Why? Because a bracelet is a title more than a piece of jewelry. There was no actual title match played (the heads up portion), because it was very clearly intentionally thrown. Thus, there is no actual "champion" of this event, and nobody should be awarded a championship title for it.
They should simply not award a bracelet for this one, but pay everyone normally. I assume ClubWPT is going to pay the million, because they seem to be happy and lighthearted about the whole thing in their subsequent postings today. It is likely they are enjoying watching WSOP (a competitor) look bad, and they're presumably happy they disrupted things. This also bought them a lot of extra publicity.
Therefore, if the players walk away with the money they intended to get, yet no false title was awarded, that would be the best outcome.
Would you actually consider Yaginuma to be a "4-time bracelet winner" now? Of course not.
And for those in the snarky "bracelets don't matter" camp, they should especially agree with me, as withholding the bracelet should be trivial if it really "doesn't matter".
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