I assume all the other events have a $10-20 addon as well. The $125 going to $135, 97+38?

Mike, did you count all the nightly side events that money was taken out for staff appreciation in your calculation for the undocumented fees? $10 staff appreciation for a tourney that is less than $200 is so disgusting especially when 30% is going towards the "staff".

The nightly tournaments look absolutely dreadful for rake at PTC events. What's funny is it looks like the non PTC events have much better nightly structures for $10 less rake.

dude, come on, give it up. terrible analogies and you're defending a guy who has the shadiest of business practices. gtfo.

Harrahs Tunica nightly events -

5PM 150 + 25 + (10) - 2k chips + 1k chips for addon, 30 minutes levels, level 1 25/50, level 6 200/400 50 ante, level 10 600/1200 200 ante. Top 18 receive $50 voucher

7PM 100 + 25 + (10) - Same amount of chips and structure except with 20 minutes levels. Top 9 receive $50 voucher

Both have 3% taken out of prize pool for dealers and staff

Harrahs AC Nightly events -

5PM(satellite) 165 + 25 - 8k chips, 25 minute levels, level 1 25/50, level 6 150/300 ante 25, level 10 500/1000 100 ante

7PM(cash) 165 + 25 - Exact same structure and levels as 5 PM tourney.

Both have 3% taken out of prize pool for dealers and staff.

Maybe some of the other events are different but just comparing those two it's pretty hilarious to see how much better non PTC structures are for the nightly's. Add in the extra rake and the vouchers and it's nowhere close to being equal.

This is the 2012 Chip Leader of FAIL. This post cannot be real.

Haven't come across a burger joint that tells me I don't get a patty unless I tip.

I expect this kind of nonsense from some NVG troll. For someone who travels the circuit a bit and "should" have a clue about things; you sure do come off pretty damn clueless a lot of the time. I mean i realize you and Jimmy are boys so you are sticking up for him; but this post is just ridiculous and if you can't realize that then you prob shouldn't be cluttering up this thread.

Just stop trying to defend him! you are the only person left trying to do so and only because you are personal friends. this community is several standard deviations smarter than the majority of the poker world and your terrible attempts at defending this scam just serve to embarrass you and derail this discussion. Jimmy Sommerfeld is a liar and a bad one at that and anyone trying to defend these scams at this point is either too stupid to process basic logic or willfully ignorant of the facts at hand.

That's 71% toward prize pool and 29% to fees assuming those $50 vouchers aren't given at these low buy-ins? If they are then just sick.

What buy-in do those $50 vouchers kick in at?

Seth Palansky on the Quadjacks Pokercast said "nobody is holding a gun to your head making you pay these fees" which as we've already pointed out is an outright lie unless you consider that a literal statement referring to WSOP staff having loaded weapons. Jack Effel considers this case closed apparently

They had 9 of them in the nightly $135s last year; doubt that's changed.

seth palansky's twitter is @WSOPRGUY please tell him how absurd his statement and treating of the players/this issue is!

You had me going until this post, then you tipped your hand. Nice trolling run though.

No, nobody is holding a gun, but when you're a recreational player who works 50-60 hours a week and has other life commitments outside of work and no access to internet poker, you like to think that a brand like the WSOP is giving you a great opportunity to play in the only live poker series in a 300 mile radius. These events are being greedy and not thinking long-term. That's okay, I'll pay these fees now but when internet poker is back up, or when the WPT is in the area, I'll be loyal elsewhere.

This whole issue reminds of those infomercials that always quote a low price for their product in large font, but add "plus shipping and handling" in small font. That handing can turn out to be as large or larger than the quoted price.

My opinion is that there should be a buy-in listed and a tournament fee listed and nothing else - no extra 3% or whatever for staff, no add on for $20 etc. Staff tips etc should be included in the tournament fee. Thus, the customer will know how much money is in the prize pool and exactly how much they are paying for the service of running the tournament.

How they divide up the tournament fee is not the players' concern. Tipping the dealer after a big score should be completely voluntary and there should be no social pressure to do so. If the dealers don't make enough that is an issue to be resolved between the tournament operator and the dealers.

gonna call bull**** here. if you think the floor will give dealers a fair shakedown, you're wrong. if we don't call them out for stealing from the dealers, the floor will continue to do so. and if dealers aren't compensated properly, we get issues. support your dealers and tip them as often as you feel proper, but don't line jimmy sommerfeld's pockets. i REFUSE to tip any floorman (outside of say matt savage or anyone else i highly respect) because i do not know where the money goes, nor do i know if they'll actually give it to the dealers.

most tournaments take enough out of the pool that you don't even need to really worry about tipping extra, and i wouldn't recommend it unless the staff/dealers really go out of their way for you and the rest of the players. don't let me suggest they NEVER deserve a tip, but let me suggest that with the money taken out, it should require great service for you to consider doing so.

another reason i feel that these extra fees are a scam is because NO ONE has done a thing to warrant a tip at the beginning of the tournament. to me, this is akin to tipping your server at a restaurant well before your food arrives. in no way does that make ANY sense.

and yes, i would fully recommend tipping dealers if you win, but doing so outside of standard protocol and just tipping the individual dealers you see and can remember dealing to you through the tournament. don't let them go without your appreciation, just don't do it at the start of the tournament, and for god's sake, don't give it to a floorman unless you REALLY, REALLY trust them.

Palansky completely contradicted himself on quadjacks.

Palansky said he wants transparency with the fees for the players. Charging a $10 fee in cash with no receipt at the last second when the player is given no choice but to pay it (players won't start with 30% shorter stack and it's way too late to choose not play in the event at all) is not transparency.

Palansky said on quadjacks that he wants consistency from stop to stop on the WSOPc. Charging last second add-ons to complete your starting stack at certain stops and not charging it at other stops is not consistent.

No one is saying the WSOPc can't charge whatever fees they want, just do it at the time of buy-in like Venetian does, put it on the damn receipt, put it in the flyers and promotional material(not just the structure sheet) and don't claim that each circuit stop is consistent from others when it obviously isn't. People will decide whether the fees are too high with their entries.

A year ago everyone made fun of me for pointing out the absurd fees/rake of the WSOPc events, most arguments going like this: "ZOMG but the structure is superior and rewards skilled players!"

Seth just doesn't get the poker world, I wasted an hour of my life last year trying to argue my side of why 30 min hole card delay of the main event was the most drastic change in how poker had been played since its invention, he just responded with stock talking points the whole time, that was the first time he told me if I didn't like it i should just not play the main event. He's a cookie cutter PR guy, he doesn't really need to understand poker and honestly can't process the logic behind why what jimmy's doing is such a tremendous outrage to many people, you can't really target him for the message that he's being given from above and told to disseminate.

However, you can argue that seth is an extremely poor steward of the WSOP brand in it's social networking capacity. Last year during the discussion he "broke the third wall" so to say and began tweeting from @WSOP in an aggressive manner similar to the one he has been exhibiting recently from his new account @WSOPRGUY, which given that it does not include a disclaimer his tweets could be considered to be official views of the WSOP and Caesars Entertainment

Last summer Gobbo, Ike Haxton, Charder, Myself and others offered to provide the WSOP and WSOPc with free consulting on everything from scheduling, buyins, structures etc and after meeting with us once and giving us a copy of the WSOPc schedule with no big buyins and the silly 2 flights in 1 day concept that we naturally objected to they never consulted us again. Obviously if any one of us had seen a structure sheet from those events we would have raised hell at the time. I wish they would understand the value of this community but time and time again we're marginalized and laughed off as insignificant and stupid kids who need to grow up.

Everyone here should be fully aware that anytime you move from one tournament series to the next, there will probably be a different split of the money that goes to the pool, the house, and the staff. For this reason, I always take the 2 minutes to track down and read a structure sheet before traveling for a tournament. If I can't find structure sheets or the ones I find don't detail that info, then I look for a 2P2 post in MTTc-Live to see if anyone else has discussed the particular series. As noted by the 2010 posts linked by Kevmath, many players have known about the $10 extra it costs at some WSOP-C stops and they're far from being the only series doing it, so it doesn't bother me one bit when it comes up. I like the fact that it gets the dealer tip out of the way up front, even if it ends up being a little heavier, %-wise, than I would normally pay. It's usually only $10 FFS. And I can appreciate the motive behind it. The house is trying to make sure the dealers are taken care of. Apparently they don't do it with wages, so it's widely understood that dealers need that 3% to 5% tip to get by, especially when it's a traveling series like WSOP-C.

Just because you don't take the time to track down the WSOP-C structure sheets (which can be found in 20 seconds on WSOP.com), please don't blindly accuse Jimmy of running a "scam". If anyone out there has actual proof of Jimmy or other staff members skimming off of that pool, or if you know that it's going to the house rather than the dealers (as I was told once for the Venetian's bonus), then by all means bring that evidence out and we'll hold them accountable.

But if your complaint is "I didn't know about it", then guess what... Now you know about it. Please move on, there's nothing else to see here. If you were going to play a $555 tourney then I'm guessing you'd still play a $565 tourney. If you're worried about the slight change to the overall rake, then keep in mind that the site rake hasn't changed, you just don't have to worry about tipping at the end now. Treat the $10 as part of the pool that's automatically going to the dealers. And if you were going to stiff the dealers at the end... then you won't get much sympathy from many of us here.

FWIW, although it's a side topic and unrelated to the accusations ITT, I agree with the post above that said that the house should fully compensate the dealers, and that this shouldn't have to be handled in a separate tip component regardless of the format. When nothing is set aside for the dealers and I am called upon the pick a figure at the end, it's often tough to do, since we've had numerous dealers throughout the tourney. Some may have been awful and others great. Do I punish the good ones or reward the bad ones? Tips make sense in cash games where you're directly tipping a single dealer, but not in tournaments (unless you're tipping the TD). In the end I just average it out and tip the usual 3 to 5%, which is why the house should've handled it all in the first place. But the current situation is that dealers aren't fully compensated by the house, so that's why we continue to help them out with a tip, mandatory or not.

I'll acknowledge that leaving the $10 staff bonus off the posters is a mistake. I doubt that it's intentionally deceptive. They probably just thought it would clutter it up too much. They should've added an asterisk for each buy-in, explaining the bonus at the bottom of the sheet.

And to be clear, I know that all of you guys mean well. You're looking out for your fellow players, but NVG has a reputation of being quick to accuse yet slow to truly understand a situation. Is it possible that having a separate tip pool may be done to avoid having that money raked twice by the local tax board? I don't recall if this was ever addressed in those old posts, so this may just be wild speculation, but I could imagine some states/counties trying to take a slice of that money twice, both when it's "revenue" for the house, and again when it's income for the dealers, even if the money goes straight to dealers and staff. If those rules vary from state-to-state then that would explain why the $10 fees are collected at the tables in some places, but incorporated into the buy-in at others (such as Nevada).
Or it could all be a scam. (just wanted to see if anyone was still reading).

A few years ago at the EPT Copenhagen, the dealers who dealt cash game refused to deal another hand if they didn't got tipped. They could also complain u didn't tip enough. In a pot William Thorsson ( i think it was him) he said at the table "if i winn next hand im gonna tip 1000kr, about $150. He stacked a guy, tipped the dealer 1000kr and dealer complained over the bad tip. The croupiers refused to spin the ball unless they got tipped in advance. Some debacle in Swedish and Danish poker media about this. I think they still have EPT at the same casino. Sry for my bad English

Farmer Ted,

1) What do you think the reasoning is for collecting the $10/$20 add-on at the table at the last minute. Why not just collect it at the time of original buy-in.

2) Why do you think they feel it is not necessary to provide any receipt or accounting for the $10/$20 add-on when a receipt is provided for everything but.

Mike,
1) The only theory I have is the one I included above. That in some tax jurisdictions the money will get nailed twice if they include it in the buy-in paid to the venue, so the idea is to avoid that path for this small chunk of change and put it directly into a staff pool. Presumably the staff bonus pools are treated exactly the same as tips and are only taxed once (assuming they report it...)
Admittedly, though, it's just a theory. My point is that there may be a legitimate reason and that no one in this thread knows it. I see that Jimmy chimed in, but I'm guessing he's simply over it so his silence doesn't necessarily imply guilt of some sort. If there's no sound reason behind it, he may be guilty of coming up with a bad idea, but it doesn't mean it was some sinister plan to deceive to players.

2) Are receipts provided for tips at a cash table? Do you get a receipt when you leave a cash tip for a waiter or bartender? I've heard that Jimmy or someone else on the staff will provide a receipt if asked. I saw the one post by someone who said that he had trouble getting a receipt, and that's unfortunate, but honestly I don't really get what the big deal is. $10 won't have a huge impact on your taxes (or even $200 or so over a year), and there's nothing stopping you from telling the IRS that you paid it but didn't get a receipt. Or if you're worried about it and need that extra deduction, just go pick up a $100 losing ticket off the floor in the sports book and that covers your next 10 staff bonuses.