Phil Hellmuth has announced that he no longer has the stamina to compete in the WSOP Main Event and will be skipping the tournament this year.
At the age of 60 — not that advanced compared to many players — Hellmuth says he just can’t cope with the long days and is calling for changes to be made as the current format “disproportionately affects older players.”
I am not playing the @WSOP Main Event. It has become an “Endurance contest.”
I truly believe that 80% of the players want changes made to the @WSOP Main Event. 12 hour days, or longer, for 6-7 days in row, is brutal and disproportionately affects older players pic.twitter.com/7K4OcJOZ56
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) February 18, 2025
Are Older Players Discriminated Against at the WSOP?
Having played in the WSOP Main Event every year since 1988, Hellmuth says his announcement video is one that he never wanted to have to make.
Playing noon till midnight every day for a week straight is a killer, according to the Poker Brat, and then there’s the days where players are kept at it until maybe three in the morning.
There’s no doubt that Hellmuth will take some stick for this, but fair play to him for giving it to us straight.
He adds that “four great players” have come to him in the past to explain how they blew a main event top result because of tiredness. It’s become an endurance test, Hellmuth says.
Interestingly, the top of the WSOP Main Event entrants leaderboard is all years since 2018, baring 2020 and 2021 which were hampered by the pandemic. 2006, the year that Jamie Gold won, is the only exception as that was a long-standing record only beaten in 2023 and 2024.
So, with the fields growing in recent years, there’s a clear reason for Phil Hellmuth’s concerns. The days are only going to get longer.
But maybe this begs another question: should stamina be a part of mind sports? In the chess world it is accepted that this is the case.
Long games of several hours can turn on a single move because of a careless slip when tiredness kicks in. Poker, though, has never really had that as a part of its makeup.
For that reason, maybe changes could be made to WSOP tournament scheduling. Poker is a social game, unlike chess, and given how difficult it can be to attract new players to the scene, maybe we should be looking at what we can do to retain the older generation that already play.
Is the $10,000 WSOP Main Event Buy-in Underpriced?
Some players have suggested that the $10,000 buy-in is no longer high enough for the supposed most prestigious event on the calendar. Should it be raised so the event once again has an air of exclusivity?
Of course there are plenty more events these days with $50,000 plus buy-ins, so many will say there is no need.
The WSOP Main Event has always had a $10,000 buy-in since its inception in 1972. That amount in today’s money would be $76,200. Quite an increase!
When this was actually discussed a couple of years ago following the breaking of the 2006 attendance record, both Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth rejected the idea of a buy-in change.
Phil Hellmuth himself said that he’d like to see 20,000 players.
And there is always the option to do some creative scheduling to insert a day off or two after the first three days have been completed.
So there’s plenty to discuss, and it probably all will be if Phil Hellmuth stays true to his word and skips the 2025 WSOP Main Event.
But when those first couple of Day 1 starting flights have been and gone, will Hellmuth fail to resist the urge to jump in and play anyway? And what about his flamboyant entrances? Those are a part of poker folklore now.
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