I awoke this morning with a hacking cough. Somehow, I must of left the television on all night. Anyways, blurry-eyed, I caught of glimpse of the billiard industry's modern-day Peter Pan - IPT Tour Founder Kevin Trudeau. Finally, things started to come together...

Currently in the pool and billiard world, a new tournament promotion company and tour created last year has been all the rage. Big prize money, slick televsion and advertising, all of the best players either 'chosen' or accepted by winning a tournament. The tour's pitchman and founder is world famous master con-man Kevin Trudeau [3].

The International Pool Tour [4] (IPT) is what everybody's talking about, even my favorite pool site, AZBillards.com, is lit up with it, even publishing a mini user forum made exclusively for its promotion. The tour offers the one thing that has been missing in pool for forever - reasonable prize money for winners. Because of this, people are just going nuts. In a sense, interest has been renewed I guess.

I've come to my own conclusion. I feel its a well-organized hustle. The tour is built on the premise of everyday pool players chasing big purses. To qualify for entrance, a player who doesn't already have an IPT 'card' must win or come runner-up in a qualifying tournament. Entry into these tournaments is either $750 or $1,500. The player chooses which fee he/she pays. One point: if they pay the lower fee, they are only entitled to half of the prize payouts during the 'championship'. While this is a steep entry fee for sure, it's easy to see how the IPT Qualification Tournament Entry System could atleast help offset some of IPTs large purse tournaments.

The way the tournaments are set up masks the fact that the qualifiers are simply a long shot for even an advanced player. But they also appear to be seeding the larger payouts as well. While many of their tournament qualifiers are attracting only 15-20 players, some of their bigger 'tour-card' qualifiers have attracted 75. For example, with 2006's 150 qualifying tournaments averaging 12 players @ $750, that's $1.35M. Still not a huge pot, but good seed money.

The point is that even with the seed money, the Tour is unsustainable long-term. In reading the IPT website, Trudeau does certainly make a great case for the tour, claiming that anyone who hasn't built a multi-billion dollar enterprise themselves shouldn't be critical. I especially liked his Q & A page [5]

A Google Search on Trudeau
The most clear and convincing look at Trudeau (and possibly the IPT) came from a simple Google search, and of course the July 05 Salon article, titled What Kevin Trudeau doesn't want you to know [6]. There's countless others in the mainstream media about this swindler, including ones in the New York Times. All give a straight-talk, no nonsense look at one of the best modern day hucksters.

All-in-all, the people Trudeau's hustling have never seen the money that he say's he committed to providing the tour. I'm certain they could care less; they just want to get paid. But it's a hustle in its grandest sense.

The Hustle
The billiard industry has struggled for decades to free itself from the image of dirty tricks and scoundrels. With a niche audience that the game attracts, I don't see this changing anytime soon. While Trudeau claims his tour will help free the sport from this very perception, I think his involvement may just reinforce it. Anybody even half literate would come to the same conclusion. That's where the hustle lies - atleast for now.

What will be interesting to see is how the IPT will shake out. There's already rumors of him 'selling' the tour. As of today, I don't recognize a lot of corporate sponsorship. I still can't see the model...

I'm sure he'll figure out how to scam or hustle somebody with the tour. I see it culminating in the same way as many of Trudeau's past scams: someone's going to foot the bill. And it won't be Kevin.