Wither Benny Binion? The WSOP Needs Help, Stat

In the unsteady and, more often than not, gloomy world of professional poker post-UIGEA, you would expect those in charge of the biggest event on the industry's calendar to approach their position with more than a little attention to detail and a modicum of common sense. Looking at the 2007 World Series of Poker after almost a week of play, it's becoming more and more apparent that that is not the case here.

The new WSOP playing cards are posing some problems

PokerListings.com has already told you about the hellacious lines that plagued the opening events of the Series. With event pre-registration not an option, players waited hours upon hours to get seats into tournaments that were delayed because of the gong shows outside the Amazon Room. The dealer tournament started more than two hours behind schedule, with casino employees still in line waiting for seats, while outside in the hallway some hopefuls for the $5,000 Mixed World Championship spent the night asleep on the floor to be sure they'd get entries.

The lines, thankfully, are gone, as are those ridiculous cards that barely lasted two hours before withering under the wrath of Matusow. In their place come stories of dealer errors and incompetent color-ups, with multiple players losing chips after handing their stacks to floor people for color-up at the end of their tournament days.

The mistakes made by tournament staff could simply be caused by fatigue - everyone else is certainly tired enough. Interpreting the WSOP schedule for 2007 is a daunting task, but ultimately, Mr. Pollack and, apparently, the Players Advisory Council have opted to jam the Series full of events without really showing any regard for the players.

Jeffrey Pollack

Consider this: last year's World Series of Poker featured 46 tournaments spread over 46 days. This included six $1,000 or $1,500 NLHE "consolation bracelet" events spread out during the Main Event. This year's WSOP features 55 events spread over 47 days, an increase of nine events over one extra day.

Those consolation events, however, are gone this year, meaning that where 2006 featured 37 pre-Main Event tournaments over 32 days, 2007 will feature 54 pre-Main Event tournaments over 35 days. That's seventeen extra events over three extra days. My math is sketchy at best, but needless to say that means a lot of multiple-event days with little time for rest.

In fact, most of this year's tournament days feature four, five, or even six tournaments, normally with two final tables. It's near impossible for one player to play every event (and only then if they are the uberdonk), but some are certainly willing to try - witness Kirk Morrison and Humberto Brenes busting out of final tables and immediately moving over to the $5,000 event across the room. Many players have already complained of exhaustion, and it can only get worse as the Series wears on.

Our Sentiments Exactly

The hectic schedule doesn't just create exhaustion - it creates crowds, too. This year, the WSOP made the head-scratching decision to move the Poker Kitchen (replete with $5 slices of pizza whose price points were deemed worthy of a press release at last year's Series) to a place indoors beside the Amazon Room. There, a succession of underpaid hotel employees will burn your hamburger any way you like it, setting off fire alarms and choking the hallways with smoke in the process.

Outside, where once stood the mighty Kitchen, is a fragile death-trap of a tent that houses the overflow from whatever tournaments cannot be fit into the Amazon Room. Why anyone thought it would be a good idea to force people to play poker in a collapsible tent in the middle of the desert in June is a mystery, but for the unfortunates who for their $2,000 buy-ins are forced into the Barn, the results are uncomfortable and sometimes frightening.

Beyond the fact that the Barn is incredibly hot during the day and stinks of the body odor of a couple hundred rounders, in windy conditions the place shakes and rattles like it's just seconds from collapse. Yesterday the hotel employed two security guards to simply hold onto the doors to ensure structural integrity, and last night some unlucky soul had his arm seriously slashed by a piece of falling metal inside the tent. So, that's a problem.

Andy Black in the Barn

It's not like Harrah's has any reason to let these problems arise, either. In the current environment, complacency will kill any weakling in the poker industry, and there are plenty of threats to the WSOP's golden status. For example, sites like PokerStars.com and Bodog.com, for years the supplier of a large portion of players to the WSOP, have been forced to pay their satellite winners in cash rather than in seats.

Left up to the individual player, who is going to come to pay $10,000 to suffer in a tent when the alternative is $12,000 in cold cash - or a seat at Bellagio? Both the Venetian and Bellagio are going on the offensive this summer, with the former offering a multitude of deep stack tournaments and the latter hosting the World Poker Tour's Bellagio Cup III in July. Both feature respected, high-stakes card rooms that will take business away from Harrah's unless there are changes made around here, and fast.

Event Final Table - Inaccessible

I wouldn't hold my breath, though. This is, after all, an organization that intentionally limits the amount of publicity its major event receives, and punishes those outlets who wish to provide it with coverage (imagine the Super Bowl doing that) by setting asinine regulations and indulging in double-speak the likes of which have more business coming out the wrong end of a cow than the right end of a human being.

It's an organization that gleefully sends out myriad press releases detailing the "official peanut of the WSOP," but plays a final table shrouded in a big black curtain so that nobody can observe the actual event. This is an organization that has players paying thousands of dollars to play poker in a flimsy tent in the desert in the middle of the summer. It's not, from all indications, an organization with anything in mind except the bottom line.

Come on, Harrah's - these are beyond teething difficulties. These are fundamental problems with your system, and in many cases, your basic philosophies. The World Series is at stake here - it's time to wake up.