Another boom for tournament poker

A 21 year old wins his 2nd WSOP Tournament in Five Days

This is a great feat for the young man, congratulations.

I also see this as possibly another boom for poker tournaments. The first was Chris Moneymaker. His win in the WSOP got many people thinking they could do it too. Another boom (although probably much smaller) may be started by this 21 year old winner. He could be the reason that many other young kids get into the game seriously. This is good news for poker tournament pros, but probably bad news for the new young kids and possibly the country.

I'm not going to say I'm against anyone playing poker, but often it is sad to see young men and women playing cards when they could be doing other useful things to further their life, especially if they clearly don't have the talent or the mental make-up to make it for a living. If these young players are playing for fun and in a recreational way, then that's great. Poker and poker tournaments are fun. However, I think some will take it too far. Out of this big group that can enjoy it on a recreational level, a handful will make it big and possibly make a career out of it. Most pros did just that and started young. However, the majority will fall flat on their face. If they spend two years playing poker, they might not have the time to take school seriously. They are taking the prime time of their lives to advance by getting a college degree and using it on a possible dead end job. If they are skipping their studies in college or even high school, then that will be a big waste. Unfortunately the number of failures will greatly outnumber the number the successes.

So I think in the short run - meaning the next 3 years or so - this is good news for poker players in general. But in the long run, it will hurt many young kids more than help them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to stop them - they can make their decisions for themselves. I just think there will be more failures and those failures will rarely make it to the media reports as opposed to the successes. I wonder how many 21 year olds there are that played in the WSOP that did't place in the money. I don't think that number will be reported.