Gene Bromberg
Monday, July 6, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
World Series of Poker Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and other Harrah’s executives just concluded a meeting with around 150 players who hoped to play in the Main Event today but were turned away because the field was capped. The players were told that because of operational issues no additional players would be admitted to the Main Event.
“We are sorry, and I am sorry,” Pollack said in his opening statement. “The last thing that we ever want to do is deny people entry into our event.” But, he went on to say, “as was the case with ten other events at this year’s WSOP, we simply reached capacity today.”
As you might expect the players weren’t satisfied with Pollack’s statement and peppered him with questions. The biggest points of contention were why Harrah’s website says their Main Event capacity is 3,000 when they capped the field at around 2,700, and what specific “operational issues” prevented Harrah’s from putting more players in the field. Pollack said introducing alternates into play today wouldn’t be fair to those players, and that playing ten-handed today wouldn’t be fair after the first three days were played nine-handed. He also said that if they re-opened registration for a “Day 1E” then perhaps a thousand people might show up to play, which could have repercussions as the Main Event plays down from there.
“You have my word and my promise that this is going to be topic one as we plan for 2010. I have pledged every year that we will do better than the year before, and I think we’ve lived up to that promise,” Pollack said. “This is probably the single biggest challenge that we have faced in the past four years, and I promise that we will look at this and find the solution so this isn’t repeated next year.”
But the players weren’t especially interested in plans for next year–some of them have traveled thousands of miles to play in the Main Event, one said that playing in this tournament was a life-long dream and now he was being turned away. Another player brought up the fact that in just about every other tournament late registration was allowed, “In all the other events that started at noon you could sign up at two o’clock, and then today at ten o’clock they were shutting people out?”
A number of people also asked Pollack about reports that a number of well-known players who tried to register after the field was capped got in anyway–Pollack said that so far as he knew every player in the field had registered on time and that a number of famous players (Ted Forrest, Minh Ly and Tom Franklin among them) were not able to get in the field.
Pollack conceded that this is the first time that players have been turned away from the Main Event under his watch (and perhaps the first time that’s happened in Main Event history). “Just to be clear, we are not doing this happily,” Pollack said. “We’re not in the business of turning people away.” To which one player replied, “What part of $3 million don’t you like, bro?”
It was an unhappy outcome for all concerned. This is one of those situations where everyone had good intentions and everyone got screwed. It’s one thing to say that the players should’ve registered early, that they should’ve played on one of the earlier days…but the fields were smaller than last year (when no players were turned away) and there was no notification on Harrah’s part (until last night) that Day 1D might sell out. And if you’re flying from New York, or Oslo, or Buenos Aires on Sunday to play on Monday it’s impossible to change your plans at the last second. For many of the players in the room, this was their first time to the World Series and they might not have had an idea of the sheer size and scope of the event. They thought (quite reasonably) that they could show up at noon, plunk down $10,000, and take a seat. Because that’s they way it’s always been.
But today, the World Series of Poker was a victim of it’s own success. There were 150 people in that room desperate to give Harrah’s $10,000…and Harrah’s had to say, “I’m sorry, we can’t take it”. The WSOP is so popular that today the players strained it beyond it’s ability to cope. There are only so many tables, so many dealers, so many floorpersons available to work the tournament. If another 500 players sat down at 5pm to play in a makeshift Day 1E it might’ve caused gridlock as the Main Event tried to get through the Day 2s and Day 3 and into the money.
After the meeting was over a number of disgruntled players crowded around Tom Franklin, who acted as a spokesperson for the players. He told them to calm down, that the decision was made and it was final. One player said he couldn’t believe he was going to miss the Main Event and Franklin said, “I’ve played 30 in a row and I can’t believe I’m going to miss this one.”
About an hour after the meeting Jeffrey Pollack came up to Media Row to say that he’d be willing to discuss what happened today further during the press conference that’s scheduled for Thursday. And while he was here he said, again, “We’re going to fix this, THAT I know”. It’s unfortunate that no one, not the players nor Harrah’s, saw soon enough that something was going to break today.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Main Event, main event shut out, main event sold out, players turned away main event, world series of poker, WSOP, wsop sold out
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Monday, July 6, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
The big story today isn’t that there are over 2,700 people playing in the Main Event–it’s the 500 (or more) who WANTED to play in the Main Event today and weren’t able to because Day 1D sold out. There were rumblings last night that the tournament would fill up but it seems like no one anticipated that there would be such an influx of entrants at the last second. And those who aren’t able to play (and in many cases traveled a long way to Vegas) were not happy about it. An hour after play began there were still hundreds of angry people in the hallways, many of whom were talking to Mike Sexton. According to a report by Bluff Magazine Sexton acted as a spokesperson for the shut-out players and was talking to tournament director Jack Effel about their grievances.
I talked to a couple of players in the hall who were livid about not getting to play. One who flew in from New York last night said, “They advertise 3,000 seats per day on their website, and they you get here and they cap it at 2,700.” Although there was talk here last night that Day 1D sold out, the shut-out players didn’t know that was a possibility. “They need to have on the website in big blinking lights ‘YOU MAY GET LOCKED OUT’,” the New Yorker said.
There are rumors, and at the moment that’s all they are, that Harrah’s is trying to find a way to accommodate these players. There’s talk of starting a “Day 1E” tonight at 5pm using tables that free up during play today and then having those players play four levels They would then play tomorrow on Day 2A with the much-smaller fields that played the first two days of the Main Event. Like I said, these are just things we’re hearing second-hand from usually-reputable sources, but nothing’s written in stone. (I’m also hearing now they may start a Day 1E to run concurrently with Day 2A tomorrow).
It’s a condundrum for Harrah’s, which makes FOUR days available for players to start their Main Event and then is faced with a mob crashing the gates on one specific day. There’s only so much physical space and dealers and staff available at a single point in time. But if 500 players come away from the Rio with $10,000 in their pockets and a bad-beat story it’s going to be a major black eye for Harrah’s. The WSOP staff has run things extremely well the past two years–this is perhaps the biggest on-the-fly challenge they’ve faced. It should be an interesting afternoon.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, world series of poker, WSOP
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Monday, July 6, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Today is gonna be nuts.
It’s Day 1D of the World Series of Poker Main Event and to be honest it’s already been nuts. The seats for today’s flight are sold out–if you haven’t already bought into the Main Event, you ain’t playing in it this year. There was a mini-riot by the registration room as players prepared to pony up ten grand were told their money wasn’t good. And they weren’t too happy about it. So there are scores of unhappy poker players out in the hall mingling with about 2,800 anxious poker players who are about to file into the Amazon, Brasilia and Miranda rooms (they’ll be using Miranda today for sure). Add the fact that a sewer line or something backed up and it stinks in here, I mean it STINKS, and that just about everyone on Media Row is coughing and sneezing (the cold that flattened Annie Duke yesterday is a Rio-wide pandemic)…like I said, today is gonna be nuts.
Tags: 2009 main event, 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, world series of poker main event, WSOP, wsop main event
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Monday, July 6, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
And now the post I hoped I’d never have to write–Liv Boeree has been eliminated from the Main Event. She lost a big chunk of her stack earlier in the day when an opponent turned a wheel against her, and she was eliminated when she got all her money in with pocket Aces against a player who flopped an open-ended straight draw on the J-10-10 board. Her opponent made his straight on the turn and left Liv needing an Ace or a ten to stay alive. But the river was the 7c and that meant Liv’s Main Event was over much, much too soon. It’s probably best I didn’t take a picture of the…”person” who knocked her out, as there’s a good chance he would’ve been torn to shreds by the mob that would tracked him down like a dog. And that would be a bad thing. I think.
Liv cashed twice during the 2009 World Series and improved her amateur boxing record to 1-0 when she defeated PokerNews’ Melissa Castello in the “Rumble Nowhere Near the Rio”. Brains and brawn, Liv proved during the Series that she has them both.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Liv Boeree, world series of poker, WSOP
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Monday, July 6, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
You’ve probably heard someone say something like this–”Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded”. It’s much the same with finding good spots to watch the feature tables here in the Amazon Room–I was walking around and passed two gentlemen fighting their way through the crowd. “Where are we going?” the one asked.
“Phil Hellmuth is playing over there,” the other asked, gesturing to the jam-packed rail along the secondary feature table. The two wandering down the rail, looking in vain for an open spot, and finding none the first guy said, “Ahh, forget it. Who wants to stand here and see nothin’?”
Well, turns out quite a few people are quite willing to stand there and see nothin’…or at least stand there and wedge their way to the front to get a good look at the bright lights and cameras. I had to contort myself under the ropes and risk violent ejection by an ESPN producer (OK, she saw my media badge and gave a quick nod of benediction) to get this shot:
After I squirmed my way back to the floor I tried to get close for a shot of Phil. Tried, and failed. The folks watching the action had calcified into an impenatrable structure not unlike coral–every time I tried to wiggle through I got nowhere fast and came away with cuts and scrapes on my exposed surfaces. I backed off and took a shot of the folks watch Phil from above and below.
Chip counts are hard to come by on that table–Phil was up to 40K at one point, tweeted that he’d won a couple of nice pots, then somehow managed to avoid disaster when he flopped trips and his opponent flopped a full house. But with an hour to go before we stop play for the night he’s still in the Main Event, still in his seat, still dodging bullets.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Phil Hellmuth, world series of poker, WSOP
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Monday, July 6, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
The end of the World Series came early for Brandon Cantu as well, as he was eliminated just before the last break of the evening. Cantu made a move against a player who’d flopped a set of Jacks on an A-J-6, and after the call Brandon was drawing at a mircle with Ks-8s. A Queen fell on the turn, giving Brandon a gutshot draw, and as he screamed “Ten! Ten!!” the dealer placed an Ace on the river that gave the 50,000-chip pot to his opponent. And not long after the period was placed at the end of Cantu’s World Series when he was all in on the flop against a player who turned the nut flush.
But his disappointment at being eliminated today should be tempered by the fact that he had a fantastic Series. He finished second in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold-Em event, losing out on his second bracelet in cruel fashion when he was heads-up with Ray Foley. But he rebounded from that bitter defeat a few days later by racing out to a huge chip lead in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/8 tournament and then coming from behind to defeat Lee Watkinson to finally capture his second bracelet. A shot of that earlier, happier time:
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Brandon Cantu, Main Event, world series of poker, world series of poker main event, WSOP, wsop main event
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Monday, July 6, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
The World Series of Poker lasts nearly seven weeks, to the point where you think it’ll never end. But when the Main Event rolls around that means your Series can conclude with the cruel turn of a card. It sneaks up on you, the end can come so quickly that it takes some time to comprehend that it’s Over. There’s no new tournament tomorrow, no more opportunities to win a bracelet. Your World Series is done.
That’s the fate that befell Annie Duke, who was eliminated before the dinner break on Day 1C. Annie twittered that she’d woken up with a cold and a sore throat and hoped to gut it out today so she’d have two days to recover before her Day 2. But it wasn’t meant to be. She lost two big hands early on (both to players who held K-6 against her) and then lost the last of her chips when her Ace-King lost a race to pocket nines. And that was that, Annie’s Main Event and Series came to an end.
Annie cashed twice at this year’s World Series (she’s now cashed in 35 WSOP events, which is the same number as Phil Ivey and one more than Doyle Brunson) and made the final table at the $10,000 Omaha/8 World Championship. And she also helmed yet another massive Ante Up for Africa charity tournament. So there’s a lot of success to point to…though that probably comes as small consolation the night you’re eliminated from the Main Event.
Tags: 2009 wsop, Annie Duke, world series of poker, WSOP
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Sunday, July 5, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Day1C of the Main Event is a bit early to be picking potential champions out of the field. But since irresponsible speculation is the best part of being a blogger I would like to nominate Patrick Karst as my pick to be the next World Champion. If you’re not sure who Patrick is, then you didn’t watch the Best Damn Poker Show 2. And if that’s the case, then shame on you.
But Patrick outplayed 24 other contestants to win the Best Damn title, and that was actually the “easy” part–to qualify for his spot on the show he won four satellites on UltimateBet, beating out nearly 16,000 other players to win his seat. After surviving those two ordeals outlasting the Main Event field should be a piece of cake. right? Damn right.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, best damn poker show 2, patrick karst, world series of poker, WSOP
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Sunday, July 5, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
There’s a legend that when Julius Caesar was at the pinnacle of his power and popularity someone told him, “Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal”. It was a reminder to guard against hubris, because we all die in the end, no matter how exalted we are during our time on Earth. I know that’s some heavy stuff to lay on you but when you’re at the World Series of Poker you’re constantly reminded of how brief life can be, especially when you flop set under set. And I couldn’t help but think of Imperial times this afternoon as I watched Phil Hellmuth make his majestic entrance to the Main Event.
Perhaps only one poker player could actually pull off dressing as Julius Caesar and striding into the Rio escorted by 11 female gladiators and 100 Muses, and that’s Phil Hellmuth. That’s what he did today, as he eschewed his normal limosuine for human-powered transport to the Rio:
Carried along in a sedan chair Phil alighted onto the blazing-hot asphalt to the delight of his devotees:
And then it was time for Emperor Phil to make his way to the Amazon Room, escorted by 111 young women and a trumpetor to announce his arrival. Rose petals were cast at his feet as he walked, hundreds of admirers strained to catch a glimpse of his noble form. Fairly low-key stuff.
The walk down the hall to the Amazon Room reminded me of something from Roman times, a vast unruly mob shoving and jostling in tight quarters trying to follow Phil. I punched a few people in the face and kicked out someone’s crutches to get a few shots of the procession:
And then Phil reached the Amazon Room and it was time to alight from his exalted perch and take his seat with we mere mortals. Of course only after favoring the masses with a dignified wave:
Quite a few people remarked today that Caesar ended up being assassinated by his colleagues in the Senate. And in a manner of speaking (I hope not literally) that’s exactly what the eight players at Phil table will try to do today–whack Phil and send him out of the Main Event. That may be easier said that done–today isn’t the Ides of March, I didn’t see anyone at the secondary Feature Table brandishing swords, and I haven’t seen a Brutus or Cassius listed in the chip counts. Still, today will be filled with treachery and conspiracy–all that remains to be seen is if Caesar…I mean Phil Hellmuth…is able to outmaneuver his enemies.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, hellmuth caesar, hellmuth main event entrance, hellmuth wsop entrance, Phil Hellmuth, phil hellmuth caesar, phil hellmuth entrance, phil hellmuth wsop entrance, world series of poker, WSOP
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Saturday, July 4, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
We just got the numbers on Day 1B–873 players took to the felt in the Main Event today. That’s a substantial decrease from Day 1A, when there were 1,116 players in the field. Add the two together and that’s 1,989 players so far in the Main Event, which is also substantially lower than the 2,455 who played on the first two days of the Main Event last year.
What with the economy it was fair to assume that Main Event participation would see a dip this year, but the numbers held pretty good during the preliminary events and there was reason to believe that the size of the ME would remain about the same. And there still is reason to believe that 2009 will see approximately the same number of players as last year, as pre-registration for Day 1C and 1D is supposedly quite robust and there are still satellites running all day. The field for the first two days is about 19% smaller than it was at this point last year–a 19% overall decrease would mean a Main Event field of around 5,544. Which would still be a massive poker tournament with a staggering prize pool.
But let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. There’s no saying how many players will line up tomorrow and Monday to plunk down their $10,000 and lock up their seat. You’d think that if any outside force could cause the Main Event to downsize by a fifth, “global economic meltdown” would rank just slightly below “asteroid strikes Las Vegas”. But, again, let’s wait until the size of the field is established in 48 hours’ time.
Tags: 2009 main event, 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Main Event, size of 2009 main event, size of 2009 wsop main event, world series of poker, WSOP
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