This post violates the first 3 bullet points in the "Please Read Before Posting" sticky at the top of this forum. Might be worth a few moments to review the sticky at the top of this forum.

For new posters in this thread, please refrain from taking the covid ragebait and let's work together to keep this thread on topic.

New posters have about 20+ pages worth of covid/wsop poker protocol debate to review ITT.

If you don't like the rules the WSOP decides to implement in 2021, then don't show up. It's really that simple.

My advice to anyone who encounters with the obsessive compulsive covid19 ragebaiters...

[x] do NOT respond to personal attacks
[x] do NOT respond to covid ragebait
[x] report rule violations to the mods

This ensures that this thread stays on topic.

Thanks so much! I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

You're the one who started this totally unnecessary derail with talk about "ragebait". Not sure why you felt the need to do that. It was equally unnecessary for others to engage you.

The thread has been very much on topic, thanks to people like parisron who post about every new development that might be relevant to the 2021 WSOP. Need for moderation has been relatively minimal so far. Would be cool if we can keep it that way. Thank you.

While true that some time would need to be allowed for a changeover, I wouldn't be surprised to see a huge effort to cut the time down as much as possible. There will be a lot of delayed conventions and events that LV will be trying to fit in as quickly as possible, if the organizers are willing.

What’s your guess on how long it would take?

Oh hell, I've got no idea, and hope I didn't come off sounding like I did. I'm just taking an optimistic view that once LV starts welcoming back conventions, there may be almost a glut of them for a little while as ones that were postponed all start fighting for dates, and if that comes to pass I expect it will be all hands on deck to reduce useless downtime. My completely non-expert opinion is that I'd be surprised if they need 2-3 weeks - I'd have thought it could be done in less than a week.

And of course, it could go much differently. Organizers of many events might be concerned about low attendance meaning losses, and just wait until next year. I've long since given up on being certain about any pandemic-time predictions.

I'm not sure which way it goes either. There could be a surge of pent up demand for conventions or the organizers could decide to be more cautious and delay/postpone. I suspect much will come down to the political views of the organizers and how much they view Covid as a problem.

The other factor that is relevant to both conventions and the WSOP is the fact that a significant amount of notice needs to be given to attendees/participants to enable them to plan. It's not as if a convention/WSOP can just say 'right we are good to go now so we will hold our convention in 4 weeks time.' For the WSOP there are significant logistical challenges in terms of staffing, equipment, vendors etc, particularly at a different time of year to normal. This is in addition to allowing players enough notice of the time frame to plan vacation time, travel, accommodation etc.

To allow for this, I would think that it is unlikely to see the WSOP actually start within 4-5 months of being announced, and in the current environment 4-5 months in the future is a long way ahead to plan for and plenty of time for things to change.

Actually you have multiple times directly misstated what efficacy and those %s mean. You once said at 75% it means a25% chance of contracting it. It does not. You said one vaccinated person sitting with ten unvaccinated has a high chance of contracting it. They actually have a tiny chance. The vaccines work and are highly effective. Especially effective at preventing serious cases and deaths.

You also claimed vaccines are not about individual immunity. And they were funded to achieve herd immunity. While the govt goal may be herd immunity the vaccines were developed to provide individual immunity. That is indisputable. It is the only way they can work.

The herd has no immune system. It is a collection of individuals with individual immune systems. So the only way to achieve herd immunity is to achieve individual immunity in enough of the herd.

Again the vaccines work. They are highly effective and near perfect at preventing COVID deaths and severe cases. The protection appears likely to be long lived. They are only able to claim months at this point. But that is because the vaccines have only been in people for months. But based on immunity seen in SARS-1 and MERS there is good chance at long lived immunity.

That is not known yet. It is a possibility that those vaccinated can spread it. It evidence is mounting that while possible such spreading is not likely or likely to be minimal.

I am vaccinated but I still wear masks because it is asked and expected. But honestly mask never were much protection. When the penetration of vaccine improves the mandates will ease and masks will largely goaway

While that may be a factor for some, I think it will be a financial (and logistical) decision for most. Of course, that financial decision will rely at least partially on the political views of the potential participants and how much they view Covid as a problem.

It's easy to forget that WSOP delayed their decision to postpone last year until about 5 weeks before the event was scheduled to start. Now of course announcing when an event is going to be requires more planning and notice than a postponement, but I don't think 4-5 months is necessarily required - especially when it's an event everyone is aware of and simply awaiting the announcement of. But that said, the more notice they can give, the better for everyone of course.

I am not disputing that the vaccines work and are very effective or more importantly, particularly effective at preventing serious illness or death, although 'near perfect' is likely an exaggeration. High risk individuals will continue to have a higher risk than low risk individuals even if that risk is massively lower than without the vaccine - but that is to be expected.

Maybe my wording was clumsy, but the 75% that I talked about was hypothetical and meant to illustrate the point that if you are the only vaccinated person at a table of 10 you still have a much higher chance of catching the virus than if all 10 at the table were vaccinated. That is indisputable. In a high risk environment you have a greater chance of catching the virus than in a low risk environment - with or without the vaccine.

The vaccine does work on an individual basis to give an individual protection, but that protection is increased exponentially if herd immunity is achieved, turning all high risk environments into low risk. That is undoubtedly the purpose of the vaccine program and the 'big' picture rather than giving each individual protection. Maybe it is semantics, but govt funding has been provided to create protection for the public in general rather than to provide protection to individuals. Vaccines exist for many diseases, typhus, yellow fever, ebola, that are not provided freely or widely as there is no need for herd immunity to be developed, only for individuals facing exposure to these viruses to be immunised. With Covid the desire exists to create herd immunity, increasing the protection afforded by the vaccine, both to the individual and to society and healthcare systems as a whole.

They could have delayed their decision to postpone even later but by the time they made their announcement it had already become obvious that it was not going to happen.

As you say, much more planning and notice is required to schedule an event rather than cancel it. This is especially pertinent when the event is going to be scheduled at a different time of year, and maybe a different location. Not only are there the logistical challenges of arranging staffing, vendors & infrastructure but you need to give the players enough time to arrange time off work, travel, accommodation, persuade their partners etc. Whilst travel and accommodation can be quickly arranged, many employers require significant notice of vacation time requests.

Without sufficient notice there is the risk that the majority of players are 'pros' who can just drop everything and head to Vegas, whilst the recreational players who need time to arrange their vacations decide to give it a miss this year. For an event the size and scale of the WSOP, trying to run in an unusual time slot, I think 4-5 months sounds about right - certainly the more notice they give, the better the turnout will be.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I never went to WSOP. When I go I want it to be classic WSOP not one with plexiglass and masks and hand sanitiser.

Interesting, What if WSOP had split field tournaments, since they have so many different rooms at WSOP?

The vaccinated field and the non vaccinated field. Each plays down to the final table never mixing with the other side. Then when it gets to 9 or 10 players, they make a final table and extra precautions are taken.

The main issue is if there was a much larger % on one of the sides or other, then the play down wouldn't really be fair.

Arizona announced that they will open vaccinations to all adults starting tomorrow March 24th. An appointment will still be needed. I've already gotten my two Moderna shots. It won't be long for everyone to get vaccinated who wants to be vaccinated. If you are unwilling, that's on you. Live WSOP here I come ... this Fall. Location and schedule TBD.

Unless I'm missing something, the only reason to keep the two groups separate is because you can relax distancing precautions on the vaccinated group. So maybe 9 handed tournaments would require vaccines, short handed with staggered breaks could be open to all. Not sure it's feasible but it could be done.

It defeats the purpose of requiring a vaccine to participate. By requiring vaccination in order to participate, entities reduce their risk of liability or of an outbreak which would be bad for PR. They also boost confidence in their product or service to the vaccinated, which are going to be the majority of the population.

'Mixing the streams' is a bad idea - better to just hold a separate tournament in a separate location if you really want to cater to the minority that will refuse the vaccine. I doubt that it will happen though - just as there aren't 'Smoking' & 'Non-Smoking' tournaments.

I don’t know about specific numbers for Arizona. Missouri recently announced they will make the vaccine available for everyone soonish (no later than 04/09). Unfortunately, increased supply isn’t the only reason. Apparently only 60% of adults are interested in getting vaccinated. Now I want to think that those are mostly people from rural areas who wouldn’t travel to the WSOP anyway but it’s probably still not a good thing regarding mass events?

Re separate fields for vaccinated and non vaccinated players: Won’t people claim they aren’t vaccinated to get into the presumably way softer non-vaccinated fields?

Illinois announced yesterday that vaccinated people do not count toward capacity limits. This seems like one possible approach...a business that is not very crowded can accept everyone, but once it reaches a certain capacity, it can only accept vaccinated people.

It's not like the police are going to show up when you are over capacity and ask all patrons if they are vaccinated and what time they entered the business. Great way to open up a bit more without catching **** from people who are ignoring the fact that cases and deaths are down over 70%.

Just because Illinois is doing it doesn't mean other states are likely to follow. If Illinoisans are lucky this could be desperation from state government after the last 40 years saw population growth 75% lower than the national avg, job growth 50% lower than the national avg, IL's GDP grew 50% slower than the rest of the US and despite state taxes being doubled during this time the state gov't is in far worse shape.

Well, you only count as vaccinated for this purpose if you are carrying your vaccine card. The time doesn't matter. Presumably, if a business is over capacity with unvaccinated people they could be penalized regardless of when those people entered.

They might be 70% down from the peak of the pandemic in January, but we're still at similar levels to last summer. It's a very common fallacy to think that, because we're on a downtrend, it's safe now and numbers will magically continue to fall... so we can open up to normal levels of activity.

Only way they'll continue to fall is with more vaccines and continued precautions (masks + distancing).

Over/under on how many hazmat suits we'll see at the tables?

When you said "a business that is not very crowded can accept everyone, but once it reaches a certain capacity, it can only accept vaccinated people." made me believe that if capacity was 500 they could have 500 unvaccinated come in + 500 vaccinated as long as the vaccinated all came in after the 500 unvaccinated.

There is a bar in my city that has been letting in as many people that can physically fit into the bar as possible for months despite laws saying 50% capacity and the bar owner just pays the fines every week. I haven't gone to it since covid started and not saying this is the right thing to do, but I understand why he/she does it.

I agree that by being down 70% brings us to where we were last summer. I'm not sure you can consider looking at a trend line a fallacy. I'm not saying we can stop using masks or nobody else needs to get the vaccine - just pointing out that what we are doing is working.

I think the whole discussion comes back to what is the threshold of deaths/month where we should open the economy fully or at least more than it is today.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you thought this way. Was trying to speak very generally. Earlier on in the pandemic, a lot of states seemed to have the mindset that once there's any downturn in # of cases, it's a good idea to open things back up.