Pros Hate, Main Stream Media Loves Ryan Riess

While the majority of the poker community, spearheaded by the likes of Scott Seiver, Paul Volpe and Griffin Benger, criticize Ryan Riess and his game, the mainstream media seems to love both him and runner-up Jay Farber. Can the industry profit from the attention?

This year’s World Series of Poker Main Event was concluded with the victory of 23-year-old US player Ryan Riess, who bested Jay Farber in the heads-up for $8,361,570 in prize money. The new world champion fails to earn the respect and goodwill of the community, however, due to his earlier interviews and his game at the Final Table.

Most members of the community hate him for his claims of being the best player at a table where he was accompanied by the likes of David ‘Raptor’ Benefield, JC Tran and Amir Lehavot, and his attitude  towards money, or at least his way of relaying it did not help his popularity, either.

During and after the finale, his game also became subject to criticism, especially from Scott Seiver, Paul Volpe and Griffin Benger. A vast amount of his hands was analyzed and discarded as wrong play on Twitter and his over-passivity after moving over 50 million in stack size was also mentioned.

“If me and both of the players next to me had 100 big blinds, I would open every button. But considering Amir and Marc were short-stacked, I didn’t want to just give away two big blinds at a time because I assume that they would be shoving correctly based off of ICM... I kept getting like deuce-three, seven-deuce, nine-three. Complete rags. I like to fold to set up an interesting dynamic between those two and watch them battle a little bit. There's going to be people like Scott Seiver who say I suck. I obviously don't care,” Riess commented.

Still, some actually defend him as an interesting, colourful personality of poker. Consider 2012 champion Greg Merson, for example, whose knowledge is unquestionable but he has never become a real, mainstream star of the game. Riess has a much more ambiguous personality, which makes him all the more interesting. Professional poker author Rich Ryan, for instance, would compare him to a young Phil Hellmuth, who was only 2 years older when he won the Main Event and made similar statements. Poker needs such players, for they are able to reach out to the masses and make poker more interesting to recreational players, unlike better but quieter players.

This is supported by the fact that mainstream media has in the past days paid all the attention to the two top finishers. After Riess won the event wearing the jersey of Detroit Lions’ Calvin ‘Megatron’ Johnson, he even made it to the American Football programme of ESPN. Riess had previously admitted to be a die-hard Detroit Lions fan and to have attended several games in the season. He had purchased the jersey two years earlier and Merson, in fact, inspired him to wear it in the finale (last year’s champion wore the jersey of the Baltimore Orioles).

Riess’ 81 top belongs to wide receiver ‘Megatron’ Johnson, who was asked what he thought about Riess wearing the colours when he became champion. Johnson’s response can be watched below:

The Detroit Lions has since contacted Riess and invited him to one of their games, offering him a front row seat.

Runner-up Jay Farber was, meanwhile, interviewed by TMZ Sports right in front of fashionable Hollywood club Hooray Henry. He apparently enjoys fame a lot and is open about the ways he imagines spending his winnings; a Ferrari, an Aston Martin and a house are on his list.

While only a couple of days have passed since the end of the WSOP Main Event, Riess and Farber appear to be perfectly capable of and apparently willing to become media personalities interesting not only to the smaller community. This is definitely good news for poker as they might inspire new waves of players to take up the game.