is the main event now a donk-fest?

[melioris]

Disclaimer: I am certainly not qualified to make this statement, but I won’t let that stop me.

Following the ME mostly on the , I am struck on how fast this tournament is playing. I think they're almost two days ahead of schedule right now and it seems like the prevalent strategy is to get into as many preflop allin coinflips as possible. One obvious theory is that because the ME is now dominated by internet players (hell, 1/6 of the field were pokerstars qualifiers) that the donkament pandemic has infected the ME. Maybe a more knowledge person can comment if it has always been like this or if this is something new. Certainly is seems much more like a lottery, but it seems it isn’t just the massive numbers playing that make it a donkament, but the silly style of play.

First, am I way off base with this assessment? Second, what do others make of this year’s ME? And finally, if you agree that there is something amiss with the ME, how do you suggest fixing it?

[Penguinfan]

I have heard several others, including people who played that it has become, at least much more, of an all-in pre-flop fest.

My opinion, which will be met with harsh disagreement I'm sure, would be to make the main event Pot Limit, this would force people to learn how to play after the flop, a skill lacking by a majority of the field.

[Boobie Lover]

I think you can just replace "the main event" with "every NLHE tournament".

[Robbie Robb]

Wil Wheaton sort of commented on this in his most recent article of the PS Blog. He figured that, because the avg chip stack is now (at the time of his writing) 850,000 and the blinds were still relatively low, that we'd see some good deep stack poker where the better players would slowly but surely rise to the top. I think he's probably right except for the fact that most of the better players have already been consumed by the all-in donk fest...

[Aequitas58]

Wil Wheaton dazzles us with:
Because the avg chip stack is now 850,000 and the blinds were still relatively low, that we'd see some good deep stack poker...

I hope that one day a few of us are as sharp as he is.

[melioris]

I am not sure to whom your comment is directed, but in the first 2 hrs of play today 20% of the field was eliminated. This suggests that Wil Wheaton was a little optimistic in his conclusion.