Though I’m sure plenty will disagree with the above analysis, I’ll take the upward Super Bowl trend for Nevada sports books as a win.

Meanwhile, semi-related but not really, Delaware is looking into how the new DOJ Wire Act interpretation (heralded by online poker types) could actually help the state offer more-better sports betting options to the masses via the internet.

Oh yeah, and now Donald Trump wants in on online poker … should the Feds re-legalize it anytime soon. He’s apparently partnered with New York hedge fund manager Marc Lasry with the intent of entering into the online gambling space as soon as the US opens the hatch.

Not a surprise. Trump got in, then out, of poker early in the boom (remember the US Poker Championships in Atlantic City?). That was a few years before Joan Rivers beat Annie Duke heads-up on Celebrity Apprentice. Trump’s 29-year-old daughter, Ivanka, explains the partnership as Trump Entertainment contributing the gambling licenses, Lasry putting up the capital, and The Donald offering his name and likeness to recruit future players.

“In terms of the Internet, brand is essential toward attracting players,” Ivanka told Business Week. “The Trump brand would be the most powerful one in this space.”

(h/t @TheWookieWay. NOTE: DonaldPoker.com is available should anyone wanna gamble $8 that such a URL might become the most powerful domain in poker.)

Check out the lineup for G2E ’11 here.

Just got the press release about what AGA/G2E chief Frank Fahrenkopf plans to speak on in his media address: (Yay. Looking forward to it.)

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE CASINO INDUSTRY, ONLINE POKER TO BE
KEY TOPICS AT FAHRENKOPF’S ANNUAL G2E MEDIA BRIEFING
Preliminary Topline Results of Major Economic Impact Study to be Unveiled

Also got word that this year G2E has very clear “no audio or video recording” rules for their extra-informative sessions. (Crap, there go Pokerati’s plans for recording as many as possible and sharing them with you and others who didn’t pay to attend.)

Either that wasn’t policy last year or I mighta missed the memo. (Oops?)

From Pokerati’s vast archive of yet-to-be-seen-or-heard content … have a listen to Fahrenkop’s 2010 G2E media pow-wow. And hear, now with the benefit of hindsight, what the AGA leader had to say about how some wanted to work with (or against) online poker sites such as Full Tilt and PokerStars … and what the vision was (and presumably still is) for a combination of state and federal regulations being the future path for legalized online gambling in the US.

AGA’s “new reality” (circa 2010): 1. Doing the Macau-rena; 2. “Hey Harry, pull my finger!”; 3. Poker (only) face.

MEDIA BRIEFING: Frank Fahrenkopf at 2010 G2E
40:22

* * * * *

G2E: Fahrenkopf Says Don’t Bet on 2267
But combo state+federal regs a new possibility?

Pokerati: Unpublished, 28 Sep 2010

Frank Fahrenkopf, CEO of the American Gaming Association, voice of America’s biggest casino interests in Washington DC, briefed media at last week’s G2E convention on the state of the gaming industry, the overall economy, and online gambling’s future in the USA.

Prior to cutting the ribbon to kick off the 10th annual Global Gaming Expo, Fahrenkopf briefed the media on the AGA’s recent findings that suggest the casino industry seems well on its way to recovery (fingers crossed the US economy holds) …and in some regions has done well all along. He also spelled out the second biggest issue online gambling.

Specifically, he said, that while HR 2267 is all but dead, “poker only” legislation was the gaming industry’s most likely entree into legalized online gambling and associated money transfers; that a combination of state and federal regulation is possible; the industry would by no means cannibalize itself with online play; and absolutely it would lead to jobs, with the right legislation. He also addressed the spectrum of relevant opinions on “rogue” operators — which the folks at PokerStars, Full Tilt and the like prefer to call “incumbent” operators.

FF QUOTES
>>>
But what do you do with the bad guys, the rogues, position of the justice department. if it became legalized, would those people be eligible for licensing. on one extreme — that they wouldn’t be allowed to operate, or even profit off of it by selling their software to a licensee. others say limit them 3 or 4 years.

>>>
it’s clearly seen that poker is different. the public perception is that it’s different, game of skill and chance. viewed differently than other games. what’s doable in congress — you’ve got a better chance of passing a poker-only bill. poker doesn’t have the stigma that exists on the other side of gaming. poker only or poker+casino, everyone is happy with poker.

>>>
leadership in the house is gonna change,the future of the barney frank legislation is clearly in doubt. the lame duck session, not going to hold a hearing in ways and means comm on internet gaming legislation i can assure you.

>>>
i don’t see the barney frank legislation moving in the lame duck session. i don’t see the barney frank legislation moving. whether or not something will happen, i don’t know. there’s a lot of scuttlebutt. i can tell you i dont know. and i don’t know anyone who does. if anyone tells you they know, trust but verify. Reid conceivably could get behind poker-only.

NOTE: The “quotes” above are just notes about quotes, and not necessarily fully transcribed, which probably has something to do with why no one ever pressed publish, semi-coincidentally, one year ago today.

@TexDolly
No main event for me.maybe the DOJ will stake me.
1:10 AM Jul 4th via Twitter for iPhone

Less than a half hour earlier Brunson tweeted:

@TexDolly
Busted… Total nightmare… Goodbye WSOP
12:42 AM Jul 4th via Twitter for iPhone

… which seems about as long as it might take to come up with such a jab at the DOJ.

UPDATE: He changed his mind.

Still looking to get confirmation on how many main events Brunson has missed before. Many seem to recall his sitting out for a few years in the ’80s — as do I — but have yet to find any definitive source on where he stands in the record books for total number of WSOP main events, consecutive or otherwise.

Brunson joins a growing list of prominent big-money pros who have publicly declared their intent to sit out the 2011 WSOP, along with big-money Full Tilters who have gone silent amid severe legal and financial difficulties and thus are expected to be no-shows.

Doyle Brunson
Phil Ivey
Tony G
Howard Lederer
Chris Ferguson

Am I missing anyone? I mean other than Russ Hamilton …

A lot of things have changed in the poker world since the Zynga PokerCon ended here in Las Vegas last Saturday. Partnerships have been approved (Caesars/888), announced (PokerStars/Wynn) and speculated upon (Full Tilt/Station Casinos). Legislation surrounding the legalization of online poker has been introduced and debated in various jurisdictions around the country and, I’m pretty sure that Erik Seidel won another high-stakes tournament somewhere in the world.

In short, it’s been a pretty busy week. And yet, with everything going on – or perhaps, because of it – I still find myself puzzling over Zynga’s potential role as a player in the post-regulation poker economy.

For those of you still unfamiliar with Zynga, they bill themselves as the largest online poker room in the world with a database of approximately 38 million players who compete for chips and tokens that have value only within the confines of Zynga’s proprietary system. In other words, Zynga is a play money site in the truest definition of the word. And yet, they came to Las Vegas last weekend to hold a live event for their fans and players.

Zynga has something every major real money site is looking for: players who have yet to make an initial deposit online. Would Zynga really stay out of real money gaming if someone came along with a partnership offer they couldn’t refuse? I don’t think so.

Populated by attendees who either won or bought their way into the event through Zynga’s site, the two-day conference was an interesting mix of Zynga players and industry insiders who were looking for information on this most mysterious of potential competitors or, perhaps, partners. I can’t speak for anyone else at the conference, but I have to admit that I walked away from the event with no clear answers.

As a fan event, I have to say the PokerCon was a success. For the cost of a $125 entry, Zynga’s players received professional instruction from Annie Duke and a plethora of other name pros, the chance to meet legends like Doyle Brunson and Mike Sexton, free food and drink at a Zynga-sponsored party, and a seat in a $100K tournament with a guaranteed payout of $26,000 to the winner. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.

As a “coming out party” for Zynga Poker, however, I can’t say I was as impressed.

In all honesty, Day 1 felt more like an Annie Duke poker school sponsored by Zynga Poker, rather than a Zynga event. Sure, they had branding scattered around the room and some very attractive women walking around in branded T-shirts, but other than that, there was no real sense that Zynga was announcing itself as any kind of player in the online poker game. That lack of conviction was compounded by the poker room’s General Manager, Lo Toney, who gave two very brief speeches (2-3 minutes each) thanking everyone for turning out, but lacking in any kind of detail about what the future might hold for his brand.

When asked directly about plans to enter the real-money market, Toney made it clear that Zynga is a social gaming company that is very happy with its current business plan of selling virtual goods to its millions of players. And, on the surface, that’s not a surprising answer, considering that game plan has earned them billions in revenue in just a few short years. Still, companies exist to make money and everybody in the poker world knows there can be huge value in pulling off a well-timed bluff.

Does that mean I think Toney is lying about the company’s intentions? Not necessarily. Do I think he’s playing his cards close to the vest? Without a doubt.

The fact is, Zynga Poker has something that every major real money site is looking for – tons of players who have yet to make an initial deposit online. That’s a whole lot of new fish for more established players to feast on and hundreds of millions in extra rake for the sites to add to their bottom lines. So, would Zynga really stay out of real money gaming if someone came along with a partnership offer they couldn’t refuse? I don’t think so.

With the increasing amount of legal and strategic maneuvering going on in the poker world these days, it seems unlikely to me that Zynga will remain happy to sit on the sidelines while all of the other players pick teammates for the big games that are yet to come. I guess only time will tell. Until then, can someone please send me a virtual drink on FaceBook?

click to enlarge

The Gold Coast poker room is apparently no longer … The flat-screens were dark, and tables had been replaced by video-poker and slot machines. And according to the sign they intend to turn the previously post-boom-downsized poker room into a slots and video poker tournament area. Not that anyone misses one of the least raucous, nittiest $2/$4 limit games in town … and I don’t think you can say much about this being a trend of poker continuing to recede or anything like that, but it may say something about smaller rooms being unable to justify their existence when small-stakes players gravitate to the bigger rooms in town.

As the sign says, all Gold Coast player(s) are being shipped over to The Orleans, which seems to be re-emerging as the big-little off-Strip room that locals like for the sake of convenient parking if nothing else. (Their Friday-night tourney continues to set field-size records, consistently drawing 100+.)

I recently set off a minor controversy when I mentioned to @Pokerati that a Red Rock Casino poker dealer complained that new Heartland Poker champion Rob Perelman (@veerob) didn’t leave a dealer tip at the conclusion of the tournament.

First, I do not know Rob at all and was not making an accusation against him. I merely passed along the information because I knew @Pokerati had been covering the tournament. Second, as with any tournament cash of any size, Rob is free to spend or not spend his money any way he pleases. (He later tweeted that he tipped $2,000 on his $158,755 cash. The confusion being that he left the tip the next day after most of the dealers were gone and not directly after the tournament.)

Still, I believe the practice of tipping is an aspect of poker that merits discussion. Certainly, there is no standard for tipping in cash games or tournaments, and a lot is left to chance when the casino and other players alike rely on winners to pick up the check.

You may not agree with me to tip 10% of winnings of more than $10,000 in a poker tournament, but you can certainly agree that .00025% is extremely low!

Mike Caro makes a number of salient points when it comes to tipping in both cash games and tournaments in his article from 2006 here. How one player tips in poker is probably no different than how the same player tips at a restaurant or when getting a haircut.

Some players think that the part of a poker tournament buy-in withheld from the prize pool should cover everything. I have heard that of the house cut for the HPT main event (a $1000+100 tournament), $50 went to Red Rock Casino and $50 to the Heartland Poker Tour. I find it a little incredulous that a Las Vegas casino would split the house cut 50/50, but it’s possible.

When you think about the house cut, it is much like getting a meal in a restaurant. If you pay $50 for a nice meal it’s not because the food you ate cost $50. That $50 covers food costs, the server, the cook, the utilities and rent and leaves a profit for the restaurant owner. The server gets paid whether you leave a tip or not. The difference is that if you don’t leave a tip, that person is making $2.13 an hour. If you leave a tip of 15% to 20%, that same server can make a living wage.

Some players think that house cut is a huge profit center for the casinos. That house cut does afford some profit for the casinos, but that money has to pay a lot of people. At the WSOP, the house cut has to cover the labor costs for hundreds of dealers, floor people, servers and tournament staff.

At smaller casinos, where a tournament can literally use up every available table and dealer, this house cut is what the casino earns off its tables since there is no rake during a tournament. I manage a 40-person tournament in a four-table poker room. The tournament typically takes three hours. Until the tournament gets down to 30 people or less, every table is full and there is no place to host a cash game. The house cut makes up a percentage of what is lost in cash-game rake. This obviously doesn’t apply in a bigger casino that can afford to have a separate tournament room from its regular poker room.

As a poker dealer, I have been asked about tipping and how poker dealers are paid. Most poker dealers sign up for the Internal Revenue Service tip compliance program through their home casino or in any casino in which they are dealing a tournament. The formal part of tip compliance is: Under the Gaming Industry Tip Compliance Agreement Program (GITCA), a gaming industry employer and the Internal Revenue Service work together to reach a GITCA that establishes minimum tip rates for tipped employees in specified occupational categories, prescribes a threshold level of participation by the employer’s employees, and reduces compliance burdens for the employer and enforcement burdens for the Service.

Essentially, poker dealers (and other casino employees) are taxed a certain amount per hour for every hour they work. The rate of tip compliance is higher in bigger and busier poker rooms, less in smaller and less frequented rooms. What is consistent is if you are working eight straight hours at Aria on a Saturday night, you are taxed a certain amount per hour your rate of pay (i.e. minimum wage). If you are “dead spreading” at Excalibur at 8 AM on a Monday and don’t get a game for the first two hours, you are still taxed at your tip compliance rate.

The upside is that poker dealers in the tip compliance program keep all of their own tips. They are not reported to the IRS. They are not taxed. They are not shared. These tips are what make up the majority of a poker dealer’s wages. For a full-time Las Vegas poker dealer you can expect that your bi-weekly paycheck, after taxes and insurance, won’t buy you more than a bag or two of groceries. Your tips, however, can afford you a car and a home.

I know many a dealer who would rather be pitching cards in a four-table casino in the suburbs than in a high-stakes game on the Strip.

As I have been on the felt as both a tournament casher and a tournament dealer, I have seen both sides of this dance.

In a typical situation where the top 20 players of a tournament are getting paid, the tipping breakdown generally goes like this – 16 through 20 make a very small profit but they are willing to throw a few bucks of their profit to the dealers because they are happy to have survived the bubble. Finishers 15 through 5 are happy they cashed, but upset they didn’t cash big. They generally tip small or not at all because they have the mentality that tipping the dealers is the top finishers’ problem, not theirs. This is not true for all players, but I see it happen more often than not.

The top cashing players usually all tip based on what they think is fair – from 1 percent to 10 percent, but usually in the 3-5 percent range.

Here is where human nature really kicks in. If I buy in to a $120 tournament and win $3,000, I think I generous tip is in order. I would tip $300. However, most players I have run across do not think about the $2,880 profit they just made, but instead, think about the $300 they are about to give away. And that seems like a lot of money.

The same source of the @veerob tip told me that the second-place finisher was a local Red Rock 2-4 limit grinder who tipped $7,000 on his $79,059 cash. A 2-4 limit player is lucky to make enough just to stay ahead of the rake. Generally, that player would look at a $79,000 cash like hitting the bad beat and tip accordingly. Again, this tip is unconfirmed.

Every poker dealer has heard the tipping horror stories. My friend and fellow dealer @scarletlv told me of a player who tipped a half eaten candy bar. I have dealt in a casino where quarters are raked and players would tip 25 cents on a $45 pot. At a major downtown casino last summer, a player profited more than $2,000 in a tourney, but was so angry about the bad beat that knocked him out of the tournament that he slapped two quarters on the counter for the dealers and stormed out of the room. You may not agree with me to tip 10% of winnings of more than $10,000 in a poker tournament, but you can certainly agree that .00025% is extremely low!

I have dealt a number of poker tournaments in various casinos and have many friends who are dealers in Las Vegas and in other places. No matter the size of the tournament, the number of entrants or the location, the same number comes up time and time again with poker dealers — $10 per down. That is what most tournament downs (30 minute dealing sessions) average. That means that most poker dealers make $20 per hour for dealing a poker tournament (before taxes). That may seem like a lot of money, and certainly it is above the poverty line, but look at it this way:

And that’s for full-time dealers. With the supply of dealers being vastly higher than the current demand, most dealers are not full-time employees. They are extra board personnel and temp hires who take jobs where they can get them.

Locals and low-limit players are typically great tippers. They make sure they push you $1 or more after every single hand they win. Generally, bigger game players and tourists are terrible tippers. I know many a dealer who would rather be pitching cards in a four-table casino in the suburbs than in a high-stakes game on the Strip.

In the end, poker dealers are no different than servers, bartenders, valets and a whole litany of service industry jobs in Las Vegas. We do what we do because we like it and it affords us a living.

But the next time you hit that beautiful river card and take in a huge pot, take a beat and think about the hard-working person in the box making the game go smoothly.

We’re a month into 2011 and already, the poker season has revved itself into high gear. Since January 1, we’ve seen major multi-tournament events in the Bahamas, Melbourne, and now LA. If that’s not enough poker for you, then head to Vegas where you can play in a couple of smaller, but still notable, tournament series; the Caesars Winter Classic (running now) and Venetian’s venerable Deep Stack series, starting on the 28th.

And while I’m as big a fan of a good tournament – or tournament series – as the next guy, I have to ask has poker gone too far?

For a moment, let’s forget about all the money it would cost an average player to follow the circuit around the world and just look at sheer number of events that a tourney player has to choose from. I mean, if you want to become a professional hobo, there are probably worse ways to see the world than by joining the poker circus. Los Angeles, Vegas, Atlantic City, Biloxi, Paradise Island, Prague, Sao Paulo, Melbourne, London…. The world’s your oyster if you can pay the freight and handle the jet lag and inevitable food poisoning you’ll pick up somewhere along the way.

There’s too much poker to be played in too many places. All of these tournament options are slowly cannibalizing each other by stretching the player base – and the players’ bankrolls – too thin.

The fact is, there’s barely a week left on the calendar where there’s not some kind of tournament begging to be played. Even if you just confine yourself to the continental US, you can easily go months without ever sleeping in your own bed or seeing the family you used to have. Decide to play internationally and you could easily find yourself classified as a missing person unless you can regularly Skype with your loved ones to prove that you’re still alive.

Unlike real sports that have clearly defined off seasons, poker is now a year-round pursuit. You don’t get weather delays or rain outs and no one cares if it’s 10 degrees or 110 degrees outside, so long as the poker room is a comfortable 72 and the structure is good. Throw it and they will come.

So, you might ask, what’s the problem?

To put it simply, there’s just too much poker to be played in too many places and all of these tournament options are slowly cannibalizing each other by stretching the player base – and the players’ bankrolls – too thin.

Let’s look at the LAPC and the Aussie Millions, for example. Right now, many of the world’s best – and best known – pros are soaking up the summer sun down under in Australia while they compete for the Aussie Millions title. It’s a premier event and there’s no reason not to play if you can afford the time and tournament entries.

At the same time, however, another premier has just kicked off at the Commerce Casino in LA. And while the LAPC certainly won’t be lacking players, it also won’t have anywhere near the star power (at least in the poker sense) that it should have. Sure, you’ll see plenty of Hollywood celebrities at the Commerce over the coming weeks, but don’t hold your breath looking for poker luminaries like Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan or Patrik Antonius. The commute from Melbourne is just too far.

As a second-tier player, the absence of the game’s best players from tournaments like the LAPC is surely welcome. Who wants to play against tougher competition when there are hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line? But for the casual players – and for the tournament officials – the absence of these players is sorely missed.

To run a successful series, you need to attract players. And while the promise of big money is always a fine lure, the fact is, being able to advertise that you can share a table with the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Annie Duke or Howard Lederer is as much – if not more – of a draw than the money is.

Craziness, you say? No. The fact is, most casual players are never going to make a big score in a major tournament no matter how often they play. The fields are too big and the competition is too tough for them to have anything approaching a real chance to make a final table or pose for the winner’s photo. But, if they have $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000, they can easily find themselves sharing a table and playing pots with the likes of Dan Harrington or Barry Greenstein. And for most players, that opportunity – and the potential stories it can provide – is worth the money they dump into the prize pools.

Speaking of money, let’s look at what it costs to play in the biggest live tournaments these days. If you want to play a Main Event at any kind of “name” tournament series, you have to count on having an extra $10,000 burning a hole in your pocket. Barring that, you can always try to satellite into the big tourney for anywhere between $500 and $2,000 per shot. Assuming you don’t win your seat on the first try, multiple buy ins can quickly run into big money as well.

Of course, today’s big tournament series all feature plenty of side events with buy ins ranging from $500 to $5,000 for the player on a budget. Like their more expensive counterparts, these events offer some amazing ROI, provided you can work your way through the huge fields without making any catastrophic mistakes.

Now, let’s say you’re an average player who decides to take a few shots at some of these side events. Assuming you play three tourneys with an average buy-in of $1,000 each, you’ll have to finish somewhere in the top 20 of at least one event in order to break even on your investment.

Oh, and that’s without counting all of the money you’ll have to spend on travel, hotels, food, liquor, strippers and the like. Unless you can make the money on a regular basis – or have an unlimited trust fund – be prepared to watch your bankroll melt away faster than an Antarctic iceberg.

I know, I know. It looks like I’m really down on the whole tournament circuit, but the fact is, I’m really not. Like I said earlier, I like tournaments and well run tournament series. But in moderation.

Before we can even talk about black card, there were two other changes to Full Tilt’s system that are worth mentioning. One is the change to how points are gained within Full Tilt. Before, you’d get 7 FTPs per $1 of tournament rake and 1 FTP per $1 of cash rake. Now, the value has been increased from anywhere to 10-500% depending on how you play. You now get 10 FTPs (up 43%) per $1 of tourney rake, and anywhere from 1.1 in Full Ring, through 1.5 for 6-max, all the way up to 5 HU FTPs per $1. This increase makes it obviously easier to gain Black Card status or the Iron Man status of old, and there certainly isn’t a problem here.

Where things start getting murky is how FTP has changed rakeback. In the past, you basically could have played like an uber-nit and let the fish give you 27% for every dumb hand they played in the dealt system. Now, they have moved to the “weighted contribution” system, which essentially means you only get rakeback for the rake you put in the hand. Much anger has been spewed on 2p2 over this, but in reality this system is technically the most fair of them all.

Think about it: rakeback pros no longer get a percentage of your rake for all-in hands you take with fish, and conversely if you fold pre-flop with 72o you shouldn’t feel entitled to rakeback if things get crazy at the table. That said, the fact the rake percentage hasn’t changed is a little problematic, as people will in general be potentially getting less than usual, which is going to hit at the nerves of many players. They are still shelling out the same amount of money, just now its only for the people that deserve it, and for some that still isn’t fair.

So more FTPs but a rakeback system that may or may not give you more money, how does this fit into Black Card?

Black Card, in essence, is Full Tilt’s answer to Pokerstars Supernova. In order to get and maintain this new VIP level, you have to have a 500 FTP point average across 100 days of play. Once you get on Black Card, and you fall under, you do have 50 days to work your average back up, so its not like the second you hit 499.9 per day you are done. The grabs are that you get 2x the FTPs, and you get additional bonuses that do not hit MGR as hard as they would in the regular FTP store. You get hit rakeback-wise for actually clearing the bonus, but you wont get double-charged for spending the points as well. They have other things too, such as 3D TVs and luxury cars, but realistically if you want to get the most value you’re only going to go for the cash bonuses anyway. Iron Man Plus is a casualty of this new system (no sense in giving extra medals when you have an entire new system built for those people), but it seems like they at least replaced it with something decent.

So the big questions are: is this a viable SN/SNE alternative, and what does Pokerstars have to say about all this?

Well with regards to the first question…no, it’s not. At least not if you are already a supernova on Stars. If you have any change of getting Supernova this year, its also not for you. The rakeback equivalent with 27% RB + Iron Man + Black Card varies depending on who you ask and what mood that player is, but the range is anywhere from 0-44% (yea, that 0% isn’t a typo). The problem with the Black Card system is that they simultaneously changed the rakeback to a system that doesn’t favor tight play, and if anything encourages people to play more so they can get rakeback (the paradox of the rakeback pro playing hands is noted). Supernova is still just plain better. If you AREN’T supernova though, and have no expectation of getting it, and you are a regular Gold Star or Platinum Star, and you can get rakeback, then Black Card may be for you. The rakeback equivalent for those players is generally the same as what you get in plain rakeback + Iron Man from Full Tilt, and if you tick up the volume just a little bit the likelihood of hitting black card is high.

So, what is Stars doing with all of this? Well, they increased the VPP generation at their microstakes tables, which is nice…I guess. But also they made all cash bonuses purchased on the site instant as opposed to having to clear them. This would be better news…if it wasn’t already pretty well assumed you were going to clear the bonus anyway if you were SN/SNE. I suppose it helps out the lower tier players more than the Supernovas, and if you are trying to avoid attrition amongst your Gold and Platinum level players this is a good place to start. Just as well, these don’t seem like colossal changes, and it may be part because Stars overhauled their program at the beginning of the year, and part because they might not feel threatened by Full Tilt’s changes.

I find it really hard to say that Black Card is a good deal. Its too early to tell, but the changes to the rakeback system and the fact that you still have to take rakeback hits for clearing BC bonuses make it a tough sell, and in some cases the last straw for Full Tilt players (warning: hyperbole galore in the preceding link). In the coming months as Full Tilt tweaks its new system, it might become better value, but if you were on Stars before you are still on Stars now, and rakeback warriors might  be making the transition to Stars as well. In the end, its hard to say that Full Tilt came out ahead here. At least you get a fancy black card for getting in the program, which totally blows Pokerstars out of the water…right?

But arguably the biggest and most immediate threats they’re facing are from neighboring states that have expanded gambling — with new tables, poker and otherwise, rapidly opening. Though it’s just a single anecdote and hardly statistical evidence of anything, I got this text message from a Pokerati player about new games in his home state of Delaware:

I’m back in DE. Playing @ DE Park right now. Casinos 15 mins from my house. 20 tables, separate tourney room, pretty nice. haven’t gone to AC since I’ve been here.

Yikes, if not indicative of likely continued economic woes for New Jersey, it seems to at least suggest something about the redistribution of gambling wealth currently going on in the Northeast corner of the United States.

I’ll hold some of that for another post, lest we sully the winner’s accomplishment with analysis of the obstacles certain Indian casinos face in 2010 moving forward. But be sure, as evident in the fifth running of this tournament at WinStar, the paradigms have shifted … particularly for what constitutes a major minor-league event capable of profiting from a national player base.

The River’s $2.5 million guaranteed main event, with three Day 1s, drew 1,440 players … a much better result for Winstar than last year when they had to cover a $580k overlay on $3 million guaranteed. It coulda been even bigger had the casino not put itself in a position of pissing off players who trekked out to the Oklahoma hinterlands only to be turned away … but regardless, with a $2,100 buy-in and several months of satellites, first prize came to a relatively whopping $647,690.

To put that in perspective, that’s better than 10th-place money in the WSOP main event. So would it be a stretch to contend winning The River is just a notch below making the November Nine?

Of the 57 WSOP bracelet events so far this year, only eight — the Main, $50k mixed, $5k NLH, $5k NLH-6h, $1.5k NLH, $25k NLH-6h, $10k PLO, and $2.5k NLH — offered 1st-place payouts bigger than what was at stake yesterday in Thackerville, OK. Only seven when you factor in The River’s $70k overlay (in the form of a Porsche Cayenne) for the overall points winner … which also happened to go to main event winner, Khoueng Souvoravong, even though he had 0 points going into the finale.

FWIW, Souvoravong went into Day 3 as the chip leader among the final 20 … with Raymer on his tail in third. Quite the fending off of attacks, you’d think. Interesting to see the final table apparently outfitted with hole-card cams, too …

Mr. Sou may have been a total unknown to the Hendon Mob and others prior to his massive Labor Day db-debut. But you could tell from WinStar’s Facebook page that he was hardly a nobody to many who woulda loved to have been able to follow his win from start to finish.

Kenny Siripanyo
THATS MY GRANDPA!!!@#!@#!@
6 people like this.

Bee Vannasinh Pakdimounivong
Looks like he won with 3-4 off suit! He’s definitely putting the Asians on the map!!! gamble gamble
1 person likes this

Pauline Siripanyo
Congratulations Daddy!!!
3 people like this.

Deborah Ngamvilay
Goo Grandpa

For 99.99987 percent of the players in this year’s events, the 2010 WSOP has come to a close. Some were winners and many more were losers. And, for nine lucky combatants, there’s still one more long day of poker left to play before someone claims the game’s most prestigious title and poker’s second-largest payday ever.

As tonight’s television coverage of the Main Event (ESPN 9p ET) moves past the massive Day 1 fields and more and more players see their WSOPs come to an end, I just have to wonder: Where did they all come from?

After a slow start, the 2010 WSOP finished strong, enticing 72,966 players total to Las Vegas to play in 57 separate events — a 20 percent increase over 2009′s record-setting figure of 60,875. And it wasn’t just the smaller events that benefitted. After hitting a high-water mark in 2006 with 8,773 entrants and a prize pool worth more than $82.5 million, the Main Event contracted over the next three years, attracting no more than 6,844 players for the big dance. Until this year, that is.

The best guess is that live satellites account for about 15 percent of the Main Event field. Combined with the online qualifiers, that means roughly 40 percent paid something less than $10k to play in the tournament, which seems about right. Still, that means that about 60 percent (roughly 4,400) of the players coughed up $10K each for their seats at the WSOP tables.

According to the WSOP’s official figures, 7,319 players took part in this year’s $10,000 Main Event. That’s 825 more people than who played in 2009, or an increase of nearly 9 percent. Now I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty impressive, especially in today’s economy where nearly 10 percent of the general public in the US is out of work and Europe is struggling to keep countries like Greece and Ireland from going completely bankrupt under the weight of huge budget deficits.

All of which, again, begs the question, where on Earth did all these players come from?

The first and most obvious answers is, of course, satellites. But here’s the thing — according to the folks at Harrah’s, the number of players sent from online sites was actually down a little over previous years. For example, PokerStars only qualified 1,018 players for this year’s Main Event, which is about half of the qualifiers they’ve had over the previous few years. And, of those players who earned entries, only 839 actually bought into the tournament. Full Tilt Poker, which has traditionally sent fewer players to the Main than Stars, qualified approximately 600 players for this year’s tournament. Though we don’t have an exact figure on how many of those qualifiers actually played, it’s safe to assume the majority of the qualifiers showed up in Vegas. Smaller sites, like UB, Party Poker, Everest, Winimax and the like all qualified between 100 and 150 players each.

For the sake of the math, we’ll assume that, in total, the online sites qualified about 2,250 players combined and that 1,750 of them actually showed up at the Rio. That means about 25 percent of this year’s field qualified online.

Fuzzy Math
The numbers get a little fuzzier when we start talking about players who earned their seats through live satellites at either the Rio or one of Harrah’s participating casinos around the world. Officials at the WSOP don’t track the number of players who earned lammers in the round-the-clock satellites that run throughout the WSOP and, because these lammers can be used for any event on the schedule, it’s impossible to tell how many players earned their Main Event entries (or a portion of their entries) at the satellite tables.

After talking with folks such as Nolan Dalla and Ty Stewart, the best guess is that live satellites account for about 15 percent of the Main Event field. Combined with the online qualifiers, that means roughly 40 percent paid something less than $10k to play in the tournament, which seems about right. Still, that means that about 60 percent (roughly 4,400) of the players coughed up $10k each.

Of those players, about 10 percent are true professionals (Lederer, Ferguson, Negreanu, etc.) with bankrolls sufficient enough to easily cover the cost of a $10k buy in. And let’s be generous and say another 10 percent are “known” professionals (either live or online) who are being staked in the event as part of someone’s stable or as part of a deal with one of the online poker sites. That covers the buy ins for another 880 players, leaving us about half the field who bought in on their own dime.

Of this remaining group, let’s say another 10 percent of the field is made up of players who ran deep in one of the preliminary events or in one of the other big poker series around town over the summer and that another 15 percent is comprised of people with enough disposable income (professional gamblers, Wall Streeters, Hollywood folk, tech millionaires, trust-fund types, etc.) who don’t have to think twice about dropping $10 grand on poker tournament. Suddenly, we’re left with just about 25 percent of the field unaccounted for. And it’s this 25 percent I find the most interesting because these are the players that aren’t easily categorizable.

Coming of Age
After talking with veteran WSOP reporters/commentators and Harrah’s staff, three theories have developed to explain where these remaining players came from. The first is that at least part of the group is made up of online players who have cleared out their online accounts because of fears about being able to move money on and off of their favorite sites. With a sudden cash windfall in their pockets, the theory goes, why not take a shot and play at the WSOP? That seems reasonable enough.

As does the second working theory, which states that many of the additional players in the field are newly minted 21-year olds who are taking their first shots at the WSOP. As Nolan Dalla commented, “There’s a new crop of young players every year… it only makes sense that a bunch of them will head to Vegas for the summer.” And, looking at the average age of this year’s November Nine, Dalla seems to be on to something.

The Darvin Moon Effect?
The final theory is, for lack of a better term, being referred to as the Darvin Moon effect. Just like the Moneymaker effect that followed his unlikely win in 2003, some grizzled WSOP vets speculate that Moon’s improbable second-place finish in 2009 was enough to spark a new wave of low-stakes players to take a shot at the big prize in these tough economic times. And, while I agree there’s some merit to this argument, the question I have is where did these people get $10K for a buy-in?

Did the mortgage their houses? Sell their cars? Form a syndicate of un/underemployed friends like the groups of factory workers who occasionally hit big scores in the Mega-Millions lotteries around the country?

No one really knows and, maybe, that’s for the best. If it wasn’t for folks like Moneymaker, Moon, Steve Dannenman and Jerry Yang, the WSOP certainly wouldn’t have grown as big as it has as quickly as it has in the past seven years. These players, rising from the ranks of the great unknown, continually show that poker is that most egalitarian of games where a social worker, accountant or logger can sit down with professional players and still come out ahead. Try doing that on the baseball diamond or the golf course. It’s just not gonna happen.

And in the end, it’s this aspect of the World Series that makes questioning where all of these Main Event players came from a moot point because, the answer is “Who cares just so long as they keep on coming.”

Brand names serve an important purpose in our society. For consumers, they offer a simple shorthand that let’s you know about a product’s quality – or lack thereof – while at the same time providing a quick way to flaunt your status or hipness to the unwashed masses in our burgeoning consumer culture.

For businesses, brand names are just as important. Let your quality slip or make your product too ubiquitous and your value – both real and perceived – begins to slip. Make your product trendy or limit its availability and you’ll have customers clamoring at your door to get their hands on it.

With 57 events on the calendar, the WSOP is hardly as elitist as it was in the past, but that’s OK with the folks at Harrah’s because when it comes to poker, there is no substitute for a gold bracelet. Win an event and you join a still exclusive club that includes some of the greatest players in the world. Play your cards right, and the WSOP is a golden ticket to the top of the poker food chain. Bust out before the final table and you’ll still leave town with a great story for your friends.

For $1,500 you can play one WSOP tournament and take your chances against a single field of 3,000, or for the same money you can play five Venetian Deep Stack events against a combined field of about 2,400.

And that’s what makes the WSOP the brand when it comes to tournament poker. Win or lose, playing a WSOP event carries with it an inherent coolness that other poker players innately understand and respect. But if you’re a serious low-stakes player looking for a big summertime score in Vegas, there are actually much better options to consider outside the Rio.

Just take a look at some of the other popular tournaments currently running in Las Vegas. The Venetian’s Deep Stack, Binon’s Poker Classic, and Caesars Mega-Stack series all coincide with the WSOP, offering daily no-limit events, with $100 to $550 buy-ins. The Golden Nugget’s Grand Series is a solid option for those looking for lower-limit Stud, Omaha and HORSE.

None of the tournaments will make you a millionaire. Hell, you won’t even see anything approaching a six-figure payday. But that’s OK, because they still provide what every lower-stakes tournament player is looking for (or at least should be):

Value.

Look at this way, this year’s first $1,000 No-Limit Hold ‘em tourney drew 4,345 players, with the top 10 percent getting paid and the winner taking home more than $652,000. Not bad for three days works, granted. But, let’s take a closer look at what this really means. While Aadam Daya certainly doesn’t have to worry about where is next meal is coming from for a while, Linyang Song, who finished 441st, walked away with just $1,877. After paying for his trip to town, his hotel and food, it’s likely that Song’s min-cash actually cost him money. What’s more, there were 3,904 other players who each put up $1,000 and walked away from the tournament with nothing more than a $10 food comp.

The story wasn’t much different in the year’s first $1,500 donkament, where 2,092 players entered and 216 got paid. Winner Praz Bansi walked away from the table with more than $515k while the 216th finisher min-cashed for just $2,880. The following events weren’t much different, with the next two $1K events drawing fields of 3,042 and 3,289 respectively and the $1,500 tournaments attracting an average field of 2,432 players.

For a player on a budget, that’s an awful lot of run-good necessary to make a sizable score.

Now, look at the Venetian’s Deep Stack series, which is easily the most popular non-WSOP event in town. With most daily tournaments featuring buy ins between $330 and $550, these events are certainly easier on the wallet. And, with average fields of 600 players each day, first place money is usually worth somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000. To put it another way — for $1,500 you can play one WSOP tournament and take your chances against a single field of 3,000 other players or, for the same money, you can play five Venetian events against a combined field of about 2,400.

The same holds true at Caesars, the Nugget, and Binion’s — where $1,500 goes much, much further, and your odds of cashing against smaller fields become much stronger.

Does this mean you shouldn’t play in a WSOP event? Of course not. Huge fields notwithstanding, the WSOP is the big dog of the poker world for a reason and, if your goal is to play the tournament for the experience, there’s nothing else that can compete. But, if you’re looking to come to Vegas in order to try and build a bankroll, there are better opportunities all over town.

Sure, winning a Venetian Deep Stack may not be as prestigious or lucrative as winning a WSOP event, but honestly, what good is a gold bracelet that you’re probably never going to wear anyway? And wouldn’t winning one of those be better than min-cashing in a $1,500 tournament?

For my money, I’ll take the smaller payout and the better odds any day of the week. And, if I happen to do well at the Venetian, the Rio is just a mile up the road.

For most of us, $50,000 is a whole lot of money. It’s a year’s salary. A new car. A down payment on a new house. Our savings.

For others, however, $50K is pocket money — a single pot in a $200/$400 game or a roll of the dice on the craps table. It’s also the cost of entry into the first marquee event of the 2010 WSOP, the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.

Over its short life, this tournament has undergone a variety of changes as it tries to cement its identity in the poker world. Starting out as the $50,000 HORSE event in 2006, the tournament quickly gained a reputation as the true players championship because of its hefty buy-in and mixed-game format. In that first year, 143 players ponied up $50K each for a shot at the title and the chance to play mixed games on ESPN.

The poker economy isn’t what it used to be. Players who wouldn’t have thought twice about dropping $50K two years ago are now looking at the cost of entry the same way many of us look at $1,500, $2,500 or $5,000 events.

Poor ratings forced a format change in 2007 and 2008, however, when ESPN agreed to broadcast the event only if the final tables were all No-Limit Hold ‘em — a game that’s much easier for the general viewing audience to follow. The change didn’t do much to affect the number of entrants, as 148 players registered for the tournament in both 2007 and 2008.

ESPN dropped the $50K HORSE event completely in 2009 and, it can be argued that the lack of potential TV time, combined with the beginning of the economic crisis, had a significant impact on the field as just 95 players competed in the event last year. Now, however, the $50K HORSE event is back on the air – renamed as the the $50,000 Player’s Championship and featuring an eight-game mix along with a TV-friendly NLH-only final table. Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi took down the $1.5 million bracelet last night in what had to be good-for-TV fashion – with his brother and other well-known pros falling by the wayside before he ended up mano-y-mano against an interesting Russian high-roller.

While this event is certainly popular with a small – albeit influential – subset of players, real questions after five years are, is it successful and will it be back again in 2011. According to the WSOP’s PR Director, Seth Palansky, the answers are yes. Speaking recently on the new Wicked Chops podcast, Palansky said WSOP officials set the over/under on the number of players in this year’s event at 100, and were very pleased with the fact that 116 players registered for the tournament.

And, while 116 players is nothing to sneeze at, that number is significantly smaller than the one being bandied about on press row before the start of the event, when usually well informed sources said WSOP officials were expecting at least 130 players — still nearly 20 players shy of the tournament’s high water mark.

Is Palansky just trying to put the best face on a disappointing turnout? And, if so, does it matter?

What does seem clear is that the poker economy — like the overall US and world economies — isn’t what it used to be. Before the start of the WSOP, I had a chance to speak with a couple of well known and well respected pros whom you would expect to be playing in this year’s Player’s Championship. They certainly have the bankrolls to afford the game and the skills to be competitive. Yet, they decided to pass — all for similar reasons.

In each case, the players said that with the tourney’s high price point and loaded field, they just don’t see enough value to justify parting with $50,000, as nearly 90 percent of the entries are sure to do. Think about that for a second. With 116 entrants, the tournament is paying out 16 places, with a min-cash paying out just over $98,000. Eighth spot, which is the first to bust from the final TV table, earns a little more than $182,000 along with whatever bonus money is being offered by the player’s sponsor site — usually between five and six figures for players from sites like PokerStars and FTP. First place pays more than $1.5 million, plus bonuses.

It’s not that these players think the tournament, in and of itself, is too expensive or that the field is too tough. Instead, it’s a matter of simple bankroll management and the fact they believe that playing this event, in the greater scheme of the overall WSOP, doesn’t make financial sense. Players who wouldn’t have thought twice about dropping $50K two years ago are now looking at the cost of entry the same way many of us look at $1,500, $2,500 or $5,000 events.

Is this event worth the price? Is there better value somewhere else for less money?

When even the richest and most successful poker pros in the world are asking such questions before entering “big” tournaments, what does that mean for the casual players for whom a trip to the WSOP is a significant financial commitment? Will they show up? If so, will they play as many events as last year? Will they play events outside of the Rio? Will the overall number of players at this year’s WSOP drop for the first time in post-Moneymaker, Harrah’s-driven history?

For Palansky and Harrah’s executives, these are burning questions for the 2010 WSOP. Even though you won’t hear them say any specific number or benchmark really matters, they do. Field sizes, and the dollars associated with them, have to factor into any profit-minded corporation’s assessment of an event’s success, and how they consider the vibrance of an overall market.

So while 116 or any other number may not alter how things run this year, it has a lot to do with what kind of poker we’ll see in future WSOPs.

The study comes from the UK-based H2 Gambling Capital. And though The Hill hardly notes any pressure from the looming UIGEA drop-dead enforcement-enforcement deadline, it does give lawmakers something to work with as they look to keep any bills they’re pushing forward in line what will obviously be a key Democratic talking point as we move toward November.

Interestingly, though we knew this all along, the study also attaches a quantifiable number that online gambling would add to the economy beyond the straight tax revenues. $94 billion in new economic activity. Wow, we an use that. Perhaps they see a Galctic Series of Poker in the future?

The seller is Plano Pawn Shop (“specializing in fine jewelry and firearms”), who has a 100 percent positive feedback rating after 314 eBay sales. Plano, of course, is the suburb next door to TJ’s home in Richardson … and on the way to the Choctaw Casino in Oklahoma, not to mention some of the bigger private games in the Dallas area.

UPDATE: His bracelet from the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge IV is also up for sale.

Via Bluff Magazine.

Check it out … they’re all good reads:

INVESTOR PSYCHOLOGY
How Poker Can Make You a Better Investor
Learn to avoid emotional traps by playing a little Texas hold ’em.

STOCKS & BONDS
How Texas Hold ‘Em Simulates Investing
Both are based on incomplete and unfolding information.

STOCKS & BONDS
How Deepak Chopra Helped Me Play Poker Better
A device featuring the wellness guru taught me to keep my emotions under control.

And then, to top it all off, in yet another article in the January issue, they quote Barry Greenstein about investment risk:

Barry Greenstein, for instance, is a poker player by profession, so you might think he’d be prone to gambling with his portfolio. Instead, Greenstein buys utility stocks and municipal bonds, and says he follows his father’s advice: “You can play poker, but don’t trade commodities.”

So in conclusion, if I am surmising this right, the key to personal financial success in 2010 is play more poker. OK, got it.

(This, btw, is probably a good-for-poker message to go out to Kiplinger’s subscribers.)

Though attendance is down, and charity poker tournament coordinators are constantly looking for creative ways to stimulate participation, poker players continue to be extremely charitable. Many who have experienced success over the years have often donated even more. It balances out the ones who are less able.

Back in the day, you know, like 2007, rooms like these — with amazing views, foosball, and a bidet — were reserved for people willing to pay a few thousand a night or gamble with 10s of thousands. Now, as 2009 comes to a (bittersweet?) close, such suites are being given away for free to semi-famous YouTube bloggers who know a guy who knows a guy who once worked at Best Buy and sold stereo equipment to a previous high-roller with leftover comp points.

Economy prediction: Bargain luxe + favors will be hot in 2010, too.

But then, upon meeting Pliska a few minutes later …

Hmm … White House, WPT House, WPTE House … Party Politics … workshop … but still, there might be something there.

Click below to read the corporate bio of a guy who stands to be rather influential in shaping poker’s future. But first, here’s another pic (taken at the actual White House) of the new WPT president, who was in town to talk about plans for what he believes will be a major poker stimulus:

ADAM PLISKA
PRESIDENT, WORLD POKER TOUR

Mr. Pliska served as the General Counsel and Secretary to the Board of the public and predecessor entity, WPT Enterprises, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: WPTE) until November 2009, when a new company by the same name was established from the acquisition of the assets of the World Poker Tour by Peerless Media, Plc a subsidiary of PartyGaming, Plc. In his former role, Mr. Pliska oversaw the legal process that resulted in the former company’s initial public offering in August of 2004 and primary deal making throughout the United States, Europe and Asia throughout his tenure.

Prior to his experience at WPTE, Mr. Pliska served as the Vice-President of Legal and Business Affairs and eventually General Counsel for a multi-media company headed by the world renowned futurist, Alvin Toffler and financed by Carlos Slim Helu (See Forbes #3) and the Telmex Corporation. In addition, Mr. Pliska was an associate at the law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal in Los Angeles where he worked on various litigation and intellectual property matters.

Before his legal career, Mr. Pliska worked as a television producer in connection with noted industry veteran Al Burton including work at Universal Television and Castle Rock Entertainment where he produced and developed numerous television properties. He contributed and worked on various programs including The New Lassie, Baywatch, Out of the Blue, and shares an Emmy Award for his contributions for the Development of the television program Win Ben Stein’s Money.

Mr. Pliska is an alumnus of USC Film School and UC Berkeley’s law school, Boalt Hall. While at Boalt he worked as a research assistant to Professor John Yoo preparing amicus curia briefs for the California and U.S. Supreme Court. Additionally, he served at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Alex Kozinski and at the Governor’s Office of Legal Affairs in the state of California for then Governor Pete Wilson.

Mr. Pliska also serves in the capacity of Chief Legal Counsel to the Company.

Mr. Pliska was born and currently resides in Newport Beach, CA.