[Couga]

Just wanted to throw this out there for consideration. I am in a league that already does something like this. We sent a player to one of the smaller WSOP tournamets last year and are doing so again this year. We play a weekly tournament named "The Road to the World Series of Poker". The way it works is every week we play a $20+2 tournament. 15 minute rounds on pokerstars. The winner is generally paid around $300.00, 2nd gets $220 3rd $100 (ballpark figures). Each week the top 3 finishers send in $30, $20, and $10 to the event organizer for 1st 2nd and 3rd respectively. At the end of the season the top 9 players battle it out at a "Final Table". The Final Table buy in is $50+5 (to help cover expenses). The winner of the final table gets all the money (in the form of buy in chips) collected from the top 3 finishers each week during the regular season.

If the winner of the Final Table cashes anything less than $10K, he or she keeps the winnings. If it is over $10K than that player MUST parlay that into a seat in the ME. If the player again cashes in the ME they keep the $10K buy in and then keeps 50% of his winnings. The remaining 50% is split up between the other 8 players that made the final table.

It has it's faults but to me it seems to be the fairest way to determine who gets to go to the WSOP from a country and even world wide community.

There you go, that's it.

Take Care,
Couga