I recently played one of the scheduled "8" day 1s of the £250,000 guaranteed, Westernmania, £333 buy in, anniversary tournament at the Western club in London. The amount of tournament entries has been woeful and the tournament is looking like being overlayed by around 50%. During the break I overheard a hushed conversation between two regulars with one asking the other if he was playing for “the club” or for “himself”. The gentleman asking the questions implied that he was one of many “playing for the club” and that he had already participated in multiple day 1s. I know in tournament play as the limits go up soft play and chip dumping is common place but I find the prospect of a club giving a team of skilled players effectively free rebuys in order to claim the prize pool for the club quite concerning. The first 3 day 1s have produced fields of between 40-60 with late registrations available for the first three hours of play with the floor as a result regularly selectively moving players from table to table. After 3 days of day 1s only 19 players so far have made it through to day 2 and I suspect any person “playing for themself” could be in seriously shark infested waters on day two! Am I being naive? Is this practice common place? Or am I right in concluding the whole situation is a disgrace? It is well documented also that the club has had a poor reputation in the past with a recent guaranteed 100k prize pool turning into an estimated prize pool only. I look forward to your opinions

Well I think the Int Club staff/people migrated to the Western club????

And they were doing this all the time.

The Int had many Guarantees and never ran any overlays as their staff entered again and again. I think in one of the comps all the cashes were staff members...

Interestingly the staff played better than usual - as they got such a small percent a min cash was useless - so they all played to win... yikes

I always thought it was a con (smoke and mirrors) - and it stopped people coming back as it left a sour taste in their mouths.

I think if they had a massive over lay - then word would spread and the games would have become popular - but as it was done it felt like a scam.

Not sure staff should be winning or cashing all the tournaments...

There were a few threads about Int Club and this issue (players saying it was a scam / con) - not sure if on here... Hendon Mob... or the Int Forum.

So your not the first to think this

Cheers for that pope! I reposted on Hendon Mob forum to see if anyone else can shed any light on the Western.

If it's anything like Wrestlemania then it's probably a scam

legit lold

I too LOL'd Speedlimiter.

Pokeritis has indeed posted about this on THMF i can confirm as a regular poster there, http://www.thehendonmob.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46048
But what id like to add here is that common sense has prevailed there and he has been well and truley flamed, and has also addmitted that he has played a final table unspotsmanly due to the fact his brother was on the table, so im thinking that maybe the guy just has sour grapes.

If im wrong about this PokerItis i will be first in the queue to buy you a beer and appologise but i think, these threads have to stop. im not sure if your a member of a rival club/casino but give the guys at the western a break, they are gonna have a big overlay for this and dont need people spreading he said she said rumours trying to scupper what is surely the value tourney of the year!

So just to confirm - unlike the International (who to make sure there was no overlay put all their dealers into the comps and the club itself won most the prize pool) - the Western isn't doing this????

Is that right?

And just out of interest when the Int closed - they seemed to move to the Western (or told everyone to go play there in the Int comps at the Western) - is there a management connection?

As the Int was a bit dodgy - but it would be unfair to tar another club with that brush, but at the moment in my mind I think that management/interests were connected. Is this the case?

As if not it seems I need to reboot my mind...

I dont know the answers to these questions im just playing devils advocate, AFAIK there was/is no management connections from the Int/western.

I dont know if the western are putting players into the tourney, and if they did does it really matter? the idea that they would have these players working as a team is just ludicrus. I have not seen one single post complaining that a Genting poker Sponsored player won Newcastle GPS after being put in again after they busted, and was allegedly on a 50/50 split with genting as pre the sponsorship deal. (i dont know this to be fact)

Yeah Im not a fan of it but their trying to make their potential loss as small as possible, (their game their rules). Putting the regs in is not the problem, assuming they have $$$ motivation to play for the win, this would be dependent on the terms of split if they were to cash on an individual basis. Problem would occur if all regs who are put into the comp are paid out at a communal rate or overall itm's, this would be to suspect for me.

The International/Gutshot used to put in regs and dealers when there was an overlay, it was not well recieved iirc

I played in the western regularly up until recently and they do put players in to the comps but always on a straight 50/50 split.

They don't even do make-up.

And if you knew the players we are talking about, the very mention of them even being capable of playing as a team is ludicrous. Anyone that plays in there that is a good capable player is putting themselves in because the place is just so much value.

And I have played in every card room in London and it's undoubtedly common practice for the clubs to have there own runners. I can't imagine why anyone would have a problem with it

there has been lots of bad publicity for this event

there facebook page confirmed this when they posted up a photo of there current lease on the building as there was talk of the club doing a runner. (seems to have been deleted but 100% seen it) so they posted it, to ease the mind of players

I hope they honor there guarantee and not screw the players over with some rubbish that there guarantee was removed or whatever by the council (which strangely happened a few weeks before there December event which didn't even get 40% of there required players for there "EXPECTED PRIZE POOL") that was then reinstated shortly after the event

seems confidence isn't high with "THE WESTERN" and appears that even £100,000+ of free money is still keeping London's key regular players away

(note big bluff had 800+ players in half as many days at xmas, so there is differently players out there who have a bankroll for this kind of event)

lets see what happens, time will tell

It's obvious that those who are playing for the clubs aren't great players as they would be playing for themselves, esp in the current situation for wrestlemania

shanachie sums it...

My final post on this thread written on the HendonMod forum:

replies for this thread on 2+2 indicate "if the information is correct" that the practice of venues putting players in their own fields on splits is common place.
"Quote"
"I played in the western regularly up until recently and they do put players in to the comps but always on a straight 50/50 split."

In the original thread I stated that soft play and chip dumping is common place in tournaments with reasonable prize pools, which any experienced player knows. What I wanted to know was if the practice of Venue/player splits was common place as I had undoubtedly heard evidence of such arrangements at the Western. I would like to state I never saw any "evidence of chip dumping or soft play" and I would like to apologise to "team Western" if I implied this was a probability. I also found the Western to be one of the friendliest rooms iv ever played in London. If you view such arrangements as player/venue splits as a "legitimate practice" then I would highly recommend the Western. I do not wish to have my £333 returned and please rest assured I will no longer be visiting the Western as I do not believe the practice of venue/player splits is ethical.

No more posts from me! Good luck in the Westernmania folks!

There was a slurr campaign saying that the westerns lease is up and that they will be running with the money, and yes they did post an image of their lease to ease peoples minds that this would not happen

its common knowledge that the local council put paid to their xmas GTE and after 5/6 weeks the western proved to said council that they could comply with their regulations they got the go ahead back to run GTE'd tourneys.

Yes Big Bluff got over 800 runners for their event but a what price? i dont know the ins and out as to why BB was closed down but, they have been and i can only assume that they did not comply to rules and regs of local council. (speculation on my part)

I think confidence is high about The Western but with the Apat weekend at DTD, PKR live at Aspers, a 2 day £15k event at luton G and many many similar tourneys across the country Easter weekend was always going to be a struggle, but fingers crossed the talk of HUGE overlay will bring the players flooding in this week.

Stowjon, in what capacity do you work for the Western?

Methinks it sounds like Earl Hebner is the TD

Hey is there a way of getting around the 48 hour membership thing or is it perhaps waived for this tournament?

Pretty sure all private member's clubs have to have that on their terms and conditions but it has never been followed any where I've played.

Heard rumours playing live tonight from someone who is fimiliar with the owner that its very unlikely he'll fork up what is likely to be a huge overlay.

I personally know nothing about the club or who runs it but it will be interesting to see what the outcome is and how large the overlay is.

well, the basic maths is this

£250,000 guarantee
requires 834 to beat the guarantee
260 players entered currently
2 days remaining with a cap of 200 runners (that might be seated without alternates)

so, based on them reaching the 200 cap tonight and tomorrow (again without alternates) they will overlay £51,900

so tonight is going to be key for the Western, if they can max capacity from the start, and get alternates in within there first 4 levels they MIGHT come close to their guarantee if the same happens friday

time will tell

watch this space

Hmmm, got this email back from them, surely if they're that worried about the overlay they'd offer a way around, like getting someone to sign me in.

"Hi, the 48 hour rule applies if you are.coming alone, however if you come with an existing member whom you know personally they can sign you in as a guest"

Anyone playing tomorrow who could sign me in? I'll give up 5% for the hassle

don't worry about that man, any random when you show up will accept you as his 'guest'. no need to freeroll anybody. they'll be happy if you get them a beer.

I'd worry much more about not being paid the guarantee though. If they have a big overlay I just very much doubt that these dodgy people will cough it up. Way more likely they find a way around it.

so 116 + the previous 260 puts them still well under half, so with the "expected" sellout they are going to be £50,000+ and probably closer to the £100,000 as its not certain they will sell out at 220 seats + alternates

now this overlay is huge, for such a small club! lets see what happens

What happened in the end?

Western confirmed dodgy for a number of years