The twelfth installment of my Zimba blog discusses the Federated Sports and Gaming's announcement of the first 218 eligible poker players to participate in the FSG poker league that begins in August. How it was decided and how it could be improved to become more marketable.

Zimba Blog:

Federated Sports and Gaming finally released the list of the first 218 poker pros who are eligible to play their FSG poker league that will commence in August and culminate in February 2012. The goal, according to Commissioner Annie Duke, was to reward players who have shown extraordinary performance in the game with an elite poker league that would reward them with exclusive televised value-added tournaments. The rake free events will offer $400k in guaranteed prize pool overlay for each of the four Main Events and a $1 million freeroll championship prize.

The FSG eligible list requires players have won over $1.25 million in live tournament earnings with their biggest win capped. Consideration was given both to their long term impact in the game and an emphasis on results in the last three years. More details on the selection process can be found HERE

Players who were close to meeting the qualifying standards, will have another chance for consideration come August 1st. Duke indicated that it was FSG's goal to have roughly 25 five year, 40 three year, and the rest be two year cards owners in the league.

Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollack shared that they had extensive discussions concerning the qualifiers. Since they are claiming that this group represents most if not all of the best live tournament players in the world, according to their formulation, the general public and greater poker community should be adequately aware of their abilities and accomplishments. As such, they will be prioritizing marketing and informational releases regarding the eligible players participating in the league.

First, let me say that it is no easy task to come up with one qualifying set of standards for an invitation only poker league like FSG has established. To try to incorporate live vs online accomplishments, historical vs. recent accomplishments, varying field sizes, capped results etc is a gargantuan task. That said, if their goal is to be popular with poker fans and garner significant television ratings, it seems some more tweaking could have been done to the eligibility process to include notable players. It is a fine line to balance credibility derived from some objective and transparent formula rating the best players with their previous or future marketability, but I'm concerned that the balance is presently skewed to include too many unrecognizable or lesser recognizable players that will hurt it's ultimate viability.

I've worked in the poker world over the last five years. While my focus has been more on online play than live tournaments, the last year I have been focused on creating poker content that focused on poker news, tournament reporting, doing notable player profiles and generally keeping a finger on the pulse of the poker world and I'm baffled by some of the names included.

No offense to any of these players or their results, but have you ever heard of...

Chris Bjorin
Salvatore Bonavena
David Daneshgar
Quin Do
Mike Ellis
Dmitry Gromov
Roger Hairabedian
Sirous Jamshidi
John Kabbaj
Hafiz Khan
Moritz Kranich
Andreas Krause
Valdemar Kwaysser
Antony Lellouche
Mihai Manole
Thang Pham
Claudio Rinaldi
Farzad Rouhani
Nichlas Saarisilta
Soheil Shamseddin
Mike Wattel

Can you construct a viable poker league when 10% of your list isn't even known to poker regulars? Can FSG really bring proper attention to these lesser known or marketed players that will compel fans and viewers to tune in?

There is another Poker players that I know of by name but have made little impact recently or seem to have little public awareness or draw:

Josh Arieh
Mike Binger
Dutch Boyd
Steve Brecher
John Cernuto
Andrew Chen
Jason DeWitt
Dean Hamrick
Rob Hollink
Alex Jacob
Ted Lawson
Jason Lester
Jeff Madsen
Chris Moore
Jean-Paul Pasqualini
Mark Teltscher
Julian Thew
Ryan Young

I could list another 40 players who have very little or no name recognition with the general public or casual poker player. I must admit that some of the unfamiliarity may be due to a significant non-American contingent as part of the list. Certainly poker is growing and more popular, some would say, in Europe, but as there has never even been a repeat winner in seven seasons on the European Poker Tour, the big name recognition is going to be more limited. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the FSG poker league going to be televised to an American audience or are their international broadcasting plans?

Is there not a way to include some highly marketable young stars from the online and live world?

Phil Galfond
Ashton Griffin
Viktor Blom
Brian Hastings
Matt Hawrilenko
Dan Cates
Ilari Sahamies
Liv Boeree

What about consideration for well recognized and historically significant players?

Eli Elezra
Mike Sexton
Phil Gordon
David Oppenheim
Dewey Tomko
T.J. Cloutier
John Hennigan
Billy Baxter
Phil Laak

How about Main Event winners left out?

Jonathan Duhamel
Joe Cada
Jerry Yang
Jamie Gold
Robert Varkonyi
Chris Moneymaker
Dan Harrington
Tom McEvoy

Could there be a handful of exceptions granted to highly visible celebrity poker players?

Let me be clear, I'm not saying that the 218 poker pros listed today aren't good or deserving players. I'm not saying all my additional suggested players belong in the league, or that there aren't other even more deserving names. I'm only suggesting that FSG consider the overall marketability of the group. I don't pretend to know the perfect formula or frankly what FSG's ultimate goal is. They may have some pure intention that forsakes making money on the venture, but I feel the formula needs to be tweaked some to make the overall group more appealing to the casual poker fan and general public so they will embrace it and watch the televised versions that will ultimately decide FSG's fate, in my humble opinion.

The full FSG list of 218 eligible players can be found HERE

First Zimba Blog: I Want That Feeling, One Time!
Second Zimba Blog: Sunday Poker Diatribe
Third Zimba Blog: Thoughts and Experiences with Cheating in Poker
Fourth Zimba Blog: The Myth of Money Won in Poker
Fifth Zimba Blog: Poker Super Powers - The Cloak of Invincibility
Sixth Zimba Blog: The Good News About The Portuguese Prodigy
Seventh Zimba Blog: Finding Your Place In Poker
Eighth Zimba Blog: Poker Empathy
Ninth Zimba Blog: Poker - A Global Game
Tenth Zimba Blog: 10 Things I Learned From My First Week Not Playing Poker
Eleventh Zimba Blog: The Blame Game

Zimba Blog: Commentary on FSG 218 Eligible Poker Pros List