^^^^ This pretty much nails it!

The problem with people knowing that if they late reg they get the same table can destroy the integrity of an entire event

Little over 1200, but last year we started the same day as WSOP. This year we started 5 days before them, so without all the extra players in town, or bustouts from their events, 944 is pretty good.

Tommy

Plus this year was Thurs/Fri and last year was Fri/Sat. I'd say the turnout this year was very good. A lot of players aren't in town yet since the first NL event at WSOP isn't until Monday.

I agree with Chainsaw about the best late reg procedure. I think ensuring randomness of table draws is more important than people being unhappy with having to be moved. If you don't do it the way he suggested (which is the procedure followed by the Bellagio), you end up with a lot of friends who showed up late together playing at the same table, which is what you should be trying to avoid. I got moved from the greatest table ever on Day 1 of the WPT Championship a few hours into the event last week, it happens, deal with it.

In general, avoiding any prodcure used by the Bellagio is going to be a good idea.

[sarcasm] hey lets follow the Bellagio and cash 10% of the field until 400 entrants and then cash 100 entrants! [/sarcasm]

Regarding the possibility of collusion or the frustration of playing against your buddies...late reg tables get broken first anyway, and if the event is growing at a pace that already needed new tables, that won't take long.

And yeah this nails it for sure!

Tommy, do you have a rough estimate of the amount awarded to player of the series? Very rough estimate would suffice. Thanks so much.

Agree that randomness of table draw is very important but don't think what chainsaw suggested was the way to go. I think another way would be to open a new table for late reggers but don't fill it esp. when there's a long line of reggers.. say fill it to 8 then open another one put a few there then put a couple back at the last one to fill it or something like that..

Last summer I believe 1st place received around $25,000 . Im going totally off memory and could be slightly off.

There is actually a 2+2 member who won it, maybe he will see this and post what he received.

Tommy

When we have a line of late players, we will open multiple tables with which to fill. For example, if we see 20-30 players in line, we may open 4-5 tables to start filling as we know there may be even more late players in line by the time we get the original 20-30 players into seats. Only if we have no seats available and 5 people in line will we open exactly 1 table.

This is the balancing act that we do everyday that is not an exact science. We make educated guesses and always try to keep things as random as possible. There are times, when those things are unavoidable, but we always do our best to limit those times. If one of those times occur, you can be rest assured that we will break that table first, which we have explained to late players many times. I have never encountered a late table of players who were upset that we broke them first because they were all seated together.

Tommy

That's pretty much how it should be done.. good job Venetian.

My buddy won in 2010 and got ~$28,000.

Do late reg. tables always get broke first?
Tommy, how is the table break order determined?