#646 – Engulfed by Biloxi #16 – Running a Tournament is Hard, Part II

Thursday portion -

[I wrote this on Thursday night, during a back-breakingly long Day 2 of the WPT Southern Poker Championship at the Beau Rivage. I didn't know it at the time I wrote it, but Allen Kessler lasted late into the night in the Main Event, busting just before the money. They played until 4:05 AM on Friday - over 16 hours after the noon starting time.]

Kessler ended up busting early in the HORSE in a way that would seem like torture to a lesser player. After losing several Stud hands with big pocket pairs to smaller pairs, he was particularly annoyed to lose with aces in the hole to a player with kings in the hole. Especially because another king was exposed, he was going on about “one-outer! You caught a one-outer against me! Well played, sir.”

Then a floorperson told him he was being moved because the tables were uneven. Of course, he knew the break order of tables and said, “This isn’t the next table to break so you’re not supposed to take from this table.”

They said he was moving regardless. He dug in his heels. “No, I’m not moving. I want to play against guys who chase one-outers. You get someone higher up and tell them I’m not moving.”

Lo and behold, Allen won this one! The floorperson came back a couple minutes later admitting he had been mistaken.

Then Kessler went on to bust in twenty minutes, in a series of hands where he was cold-decked, his opponent got lucky, or both.

Allen’s revenge is that he’s doing well in the Main Event. (I think he won his way in on a satellite, so he started with a discount.) He’s been above the chip average for the entire tournament and could be readying for a deep run.

The issue on Day 1 (yesterday) involved the matter of the dinner break, or lack thereof. The tournament rules apparently said that if there were at least 300 players, they would play six levels, with a dinner break after four. With fewer than 300 players, they would play five levels without a dinner break (which would cause play to end at the very early time of 9 PM).

It was obvious after the first three levels that the schedule was wrong. Few players had busted and, with a Day 2 closing goal of 27 players (the number being paid), it seemed obvious that Day 2 would have to be incredibly long.

Deduct one point from the tournament operators. They should have figured this out. I’m not an expert on the math here but experts can work out such things – number of chips in play, size of blinds and antes, average stack size when getting into the money, etc.

Just as I was talking about this with another member of the media, poker room manager Johnny Grooms stepped forward and tried to fix the situation. Score two points for the tournamnet operators: they messed up, they realized it, they’re fixing it.

Grooms explained the situation exactly right and said they were going to change the schedule, put in a dinner break, and play an extra level. With over 200 players in the room, there were a few scattered groans.

Johnny then asked for a show of hands of who objected to the change. There were scattered hands raised – definitely a minority and a pretty small one.

He then explained that it needed to be unanimous to change the rules. Because it wasn’t, the schedule would remain the same.

Here’s how I score it: give the tournament operators one point for trying to accommodate the objecting players, but deduct three points. It’s wrong to undo a smart attempt to correct a prior error. It’s wrong to declare the change unilaterally and then put it to a vote. And it’s just wrong to arrange the schedule so you play until 9 PM on Day 1 and then until 3 or 4 AM on Day 2.

I hope my point-system analysis illustrates not just that the tournament got it wrong, but how easy it can be to get it wrong. It’s not like these guys don’t have tournament experience. It’s not like they weren’t trying to satisfy the players. There was no motive I could see to have one day end way too early and the next end way too late.

Here’s what I think tournament operators need to do:

(1) Arrange player input, but organized input and before the event. You can’t anticipate every wrinkle but this allows you both an opportunity to correct things that aren’t right or are debatable. And it also gives you the cover to be strong when people complain.

Granted, this particular tournament may not have the same cache as the WSOP to cadge a dozen or two top players into attending meetings, debating changes, etc. But a large number of these tournaments are run by MGM Mirage properties; they could establish such a group. Or the WPT could, and ask those players to review procedures for preliminary events even though they aren’t “WPT events.” Maybe this means having to pay the players a little something for the time and effort involved, but I really think it would cost zero or close to zero. Top players generally can find when something’s not right and most of them would rather have it worked out in advance than have to fight it out in the middle of an ongoing event.

(2) Steal shamelessly. Plenty of mistakes don’t become apparent until after it’s too late. It would be easy to find a lot of things the WSOP changed over the last 2 or 3 years because they did something that didn’t work and the experience both motivated a change and suggested the type of change that would make things better.

That stuff is not patented. If the WSOP has a good structure for HORSE, use it. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel. And it’s not like these tournaments run concurrently with the WSOP and they are in competition to come up with something different. Heck, they can even credit the WSOP if they want. It’s not like people will play the WSOP INSTEAD OF the Southern Poker Championship because Beau Rivage uses an identical structure. If anything, players will appreciate that you are using a system developed through (someone else’s) trial and error.

This tournamenet staff is composed of nice people, plenty of experienced hands, and is generally motivated to do things the right way. Even so, it’s easy to make mistakes. I’m in favor of complaining AND giving some lattitude because these things are inevitable. But tournament organizers are shooting themselves in the foot if they don’t get some smart players on board in advance to review things, or if they don’t take advantage of all the mistakes Harrah’s has made and corrected in running 50+ WSOP events per year.

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