It’s true that the number of entrants in the WPT have been down this year. Almost 25% fewer compared the previous year. However, the numbers don’t lie, poker is still an in demand commodity. Let’s just look at the WSOP events. Three events are already sold out from the first 9 events that passed. And it only signifies one thing; lots of poker players really want to join the events but the slots are only limited.

Look at how the competitors in the WSOP Main Event unfolds: 2003 started out with only 830 entries, this is also the time that Moneymaker made run to the finals and won. In 2004, the number of entries had gone on the roof with more than 3 times than the previous year with 2,576 entrants. In 2005, players that enter in the event was 5,619. And the highest would be in 2006 with 8,773 entries. While in 2007 and 2008 have gone low with 6, 358 and 6, 844 entrants.

The sudden decrease in number from 2006 can be simply blamed into the passage of the UIGEA which eventually earmark the withdrawal of vital poker sites from the US market. And this event causes the decrease of people who are enthusiastically playing online and also a decrease in satellite chances in order to get an opportunity to play in major competitions.

Though the government had made issues concerning online gambling and doubled their efforts in order to smashed this recreation, the numbers of entries following the UIGEA passage can’t lie. It means that a lot of people are really drawn to poker online that they can’t be stopped.

One testament would be the huge success of the $1,000 NLHE tournament, also called the “Stimulus Special” by the WSOP brass. This poker comp holds the largest stat in a non-Main Event history of WSOP with more than 6,000 entrants. But the large number of players did not stop poker pro Steve sung to bag the title and win his first ever WSOP bracelet.

It will be hard to say if the players this year can reach 6,000 because of all the hinders such as the recession, swine flu and more UIGEA forces. But as the number in the preliminaries are big, maybe the Main event this present year will turnout to be one of the largest so far.

Since there is a surge of population despite the UIGEA maybe it will be time for the government to legalize and legislate poker in the internet. Poker is a fun and entertaining game and I’m certain that there would be more happy faces when the UIGEA will be repelled.