In the blondepoker thread, Simon Tomsett wrote:

As I wrote above, this is not correct. The £300 fee was advertised on the website. The 4% deduction was not. And there were % deductions advertised for other events in the series, from which one could reasonably conclude that there was no % deduction for the ME in addition to the £300 fee.

Any news, Matt?

Ty

You also get taxed in the US.

This was WPT LONDON

yello matt savage

small question of tournement: if a player throws it is 2 cards face cache in the direction of the dealer are it considerdead or not? thank you for your view poin !!!

When I cashed out at the tournament one of the casino staff said something like "don't forget the dealers". I responded that they were already looked after as a big deduction had been made from the prize pool for staff (as I had heard one of the other players complaining that this hadn't been disclosed beforehand). The reply was "they're probably not going to see any of that".

The reason for mentioning this is that when players are told there is a deduction for tournament staff it is reasonable for us to assume that it is being distributed among those staff. I would expect that a floor manager would see more than a dealer but that there is a distribution on a reasonable basis. The same is true if a player leaves a tip: we assume that it will be distributed reasonably among those that operated the tournament.

I think there are therefore 3 basic issues here:

(1) Players were not informed about the 4% in advance
(2) The total vig of £200+£300 was high for this buy-in
(3) The £200 may not have reached the people it was supposed to (who therefore resorted to asking for even more from the players).

imo WPT should definitely be concerned about this. Apart from its responsibility to maintain an accurate website, it needs to ensure fair treatment of players if it is to thrive long term. WPT is the key brand we are responding to in attending these tourneys, not the casino brand.

I suspect that the reason Matt Savage has gone quiet on the WPT London issue is that he has investigated it and found out that something pretty dodgy has probably gone on. And he can't say anything right now because it is possible that legal proceedings will be forthcoming. The thread on blondepoker.com gives more details about this. It is also noticeable that the manager of the Palm Beach Casino has stopped posting in that thread. Probably there is a lot going on behind the scenes, and someone is in a lot of trouble, but no-one is prepared to tell us anything. Obviously though this should all be made public at some point rather than just hushed up. The whole thing smells really, really fishy.

Matt

any idea for Festa Al Lago ME how long we play per day? (mainly for 1 and 2)

Also is there any type of tournament rate for the hotel?

Day 1 is expected to be five 90-minute levels, players can buy in until level 8.

Matt,

I have heard reliably that you intend to bring a WPT event to Ireland. Do you have any further details?

Always 5 levels without a dinner break at the Bellagio. Call the Bellagio and ask for the poker office to book a room at the tournament rate.

any more wpts in canada possibly vancouver???

With the schedule as packed as it is and we are constantly getting fielding new partner requests that it becomes necessary for them to seek us out rather than us chasing them. If they are interested they only need to pick up the phone and give us a call because we are interested in a Canadian stop.

I believe this to be the case once again and think this was a great start to the end of the 14 hour playing days.

I have not heard of this development as of yet

The Bellagio Poker room # is 702-693-7111 and don't forget to tell them who the F you are!

Matt,

When is the WPT final table that Phil Ivey made right after WSOP 2010 going to air?

Blake

FSN will start showing WPT broadcasts of the new season in January.

Any change to have a reply pleeease?

*chance*

Matt:

I haven't been there yet, but Foxwoods apparently has moved its tournament area into an unenclosed space which is surrounded by smoking areas. In this thread from post 62 on a few people have complained about smoke in the tournament area (while others have said it's not an issue):

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/65...82/index2.html

Playing in a smoke-free environment is a necessity for tournament players. Could you look into this issue?

Thanks.

Will there ever be a smoking only wpt? Id really like to smoke during play

Also I'm interested in wpt Amnevulle, what kind of shuttle bus system is in place to/
from the luxembourg hotel?

I have to be honest here Todd and tell you that this may be a little out of my scope. Please send an email to Jeffrey Toth about this and I am sure he will reply.

From Angela Nyman of the WPT International

I hope you are well. I have attached some information which you might find useful regarding the WPT Amneville. Please feel free to distribute to players.

Please note that the shuttle is so far only scheduled to go from 2 hotels in Luxembourg as that's where the majority of the players will stay.


Transport Provided by WPT

There has been transport provided for you from your Luxembourg hotel to the WPT Tournament in Amneville and back again.

12pm Luxembourg to Amneville

5pm Luxembourg to Amneville

6pm Amneville to Luxembourg

Last Hand Amneville to Luxembourg

I am a little surprised that WPT Amneville does not have it's own thread but I have additional information that I have sent to "The Kevmath"

I agree making payouts standard should be discussed. I used a simple log based formula based on field size to come up with standard payouts. It can be easily adjusted up or down to increase or decrease the amount paid to 1st.
The other payouts are then curve fitted from there to have consistent pay jumps.

I would suggest paying 1/9th the field in all events. This is 11.11%. Round to nearest whole number.

Finally, make min. payout exactly double the buyin.

Below are two suggestions for what the Borgota $3300+$200 final event in Sept. 2010 could look like. It had 1042 players.

Some might think 1st takes a big hit. But the truth is poker tournaments have historically been too top heavy. Especially in large event fields.
Other large field sporting events pay WAY less to 1st than do poker events.

For example, while the 1st suggestion below pays $587k to 1st vs $733k actual, this is still 80% of the old value.

On a pro-rated basis, the Indy500 would have only paid 11% of the $733k or about 80k to the winner. In the Pro Bowlers Assoc. world championship, 1st would have paid only about $125k. In golf, at the US Open, 1st would have only paid about $242k, and in tennis, Wimbledon would have paid $315k.
So the $587k suggest below is still WAY higher than what other sports would pay.

Note only 12 places would pay less and 104 would pay more. (including 16 more making min. cash of $6600)


Actual Suggested Difference
1 $733,802 $587,065 -$146,737
2 $440,945 $412,544 -$28,401
3 $266,835 $293,617 $26,782
4 $223,475 $211,686 -$11,789
5 $183,449 $154,623 -$28,826
6 $148,427 $114,446 -$33,981
7 $118,408 $85,853 -$32,555
8 $90,057 $65,284 -$24,773
9 $61,706 $50,332 -$11,374
10-12 $40,025 $39,351 -$674
13-15 $28,351 $31,204 $2,853
16-18 $18,345 $25,103 $6,758
19-27 $15,009 $20,491 $5,482
28-36 $13,008 $16,975 $3,967
37-45 $11,674 $14,276 $2,602
46-54 $10,340 $12,190 $1,850
55-63 $9,339 $10,572 $1,233
64-72 $8,339 $9,314 $975
73-81 $7,672 $8,337 $665
82-90 $7,004 $7,586 $582
91-99 $6,671 $7,017 $346
100 $6671 $6600 -$71
101-116 $0 $6,600 $6,600
% to 1st 22.00% 17.60%
% Final 9 67.97% 59.23%
% Paid 9.60% 11.13%
Paid More: 104
Paid Fewer: 12


This one below is even flatter. While many will find this totally unacceptable, I think it is mainly due to players expecting top heavy payouts as that is all they have ever seen.

If you just look at the suggestion by itself, and do not compare it to the actual pay, the suggestion seems to have very reasonable pay jumps while still offering a very nice 444k payday for a $3.3k investment. Note that over 51% of the pool still goes to only 9 players out of 1042. This is still a large chunk of the prize pool when you stop to think about it.

Actual Suggested Difference
1 $733,802 $444,602 -$289,200
2 $440,945 $335,310 -$105,635
3 $266,835 $254,852 -$11,983
4 $223,475 $195,219 -$28,256
5 $183,449 $150,722 -$32,727
6 $148,427 $117,294 -$31,133
7 $118,408 $92,013 -$26,395
8 $90,057 $72,765 -$17,292
9 $61,706 $58,014 -$3,692
10-12 $40,025 $46,633 $6,608
13-15 $28,351 $37,797 $9,446
16-18 $18,345 $30,891 $12,546
19-27 $15,009 $25,459 $10,450
28-36 $13,008 $21,162 $8,154
37-45 $11,674 $17,740 $6,066
46-54 $10,340 $15,001 $4,661
55-63 $9,339 $12,795 $3,456
64-72 $8,339 $11,010 $2,671
73-81 $7,672 $9,558 $1,886
82-90 $7,004 $8,372 $1,368
91-99 $6,671 $7,400 $729
100 $6,671 $6,600 -$71
101-116 $0 $6,600 $6,600
% to 1st 22.00% 13.33%
% Final 9 67.97% 51.59%
% Paid 9.60% 11.13%
Paid More: 106
Paid Fewer: 10