Pollack speaks out on WSOP sellout

WSOP organizers were hit hard yesterday when over 3,000 players attempted to register for the last day of the Main Event and hundreds were sent away due to lack of capacity.

Poker pros and amateurs alike were frustrated by their inability to take part in the World's Biggest Poker Tournament. For many players it was their first chance to take part in the Main Event and instead they will have to wait another year.

It was a day that the people behind the WSOP brand are not soon to forget either.

"I'll say that it was the most difficult decision I've had to make in my four years with Harrah's," said WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack today.

When every last player was counted the 2009 Main Event field was made up of 6,494 entrants, which was down 300 players from last year's event.

Pollack said it was in the WSOP's best interest to have as many customers in the Main Event as possible.

"The last thing we want to do is deny people entry into our events," he said. "We simply hit our operational capacity. It was unfortunate, but it was a reality.

"People who think we would gladly turn away hundreds of players and potentially break last year's prize pool aren't giving us credit as businessmen."

According to Pollack, the WSOP is already looking at methods to avoid the situation that arose Monday.

"I'm not going to apologize for what we did," he said. "We had four start days with plenty room in all of them. Preregistration has been available since March. You've been able to register at the Rio since the last of March. Many of the players that got turned down had plenty of opportunity to register weeks ago."

Although there were several options for WSOP organizers to try and fit everyone in, including playing 10-handed, none were deemed fair to the rest of the field.

"We went through a wide range of very creative solutions, but couldn't find any that didn't affect fairness or integrity," Pollack said.

Management has already started to plan next year's WSOP and have promised to figure out a way that players won't be turned away from the Main Event again.

"We will do a number of things differently in terms of our messaging around registration," said Pollack. "We're already looking at having a bigger footprint in the Rio for more capacity and we're going to re-do some of our contingency planning.

"We need to anticipate these situations weeks in advance not just hours."

When asked if he thought players had learned their lesson, Pollack responded that it wasn't the WSOP's duty to teach players anything.

Pollack also quashed rumors that big-name players like Patrik Antonius were able to get into this year's Main Event while the average Joe was left out in the cold.

"Patrik Antonius, T.J. Cloutier, Captain Tom and many other notable players were left out," said Pollack. "Has there been a system of VIP customer management at the WSOP? Absolutely. Did somebody get in after we announced a sellout yesterday? Not to my knowledge."

Finally Pollack mentioned that despite the fallout from the Main Event sellout, he still thought the 2009 WSOP was the best that he'd been a part of.

"I think people are going to remember the 2009 WSOP for having more entrants than ever before," said Pollack. "Every member of the November Nine will walk away with at least $1 million and we had some great bracelet stories this year with Phil Ivey winning two and Jeffrey Lisandro winning three.

"Demand for the Main Event was so high that we had to sell out. That isn't a bad thing because it says that poker is alive and well."