How is this unclear? He thinks both the 3% and the $10 add on are not going to dealers as much as they should, if they do at all. Then since players have already tipped twice, they refuse to do so at the end. Since that final player tip actually goes to the dealers, he wants to get rid of the competing tips that they either don't see or don't get a fair cut of. When the 3% initially came in, that was the complaint. Random staff at the casino were getting part of it (even a large part) and many dealers were concerned they'd come out worse.

After Jimmy leaves will PTC still be in charge of some of the circuit events?

That is correct how do we know how much of the 3% is going to the dealers I haven't seen a spread sheet or anything from the casinos and if you ask how much the dealers are getting per down good luck getting an answer except from a dealer.

The point is Jimmy is taking a percent of that for HIMSELF, that should be going to the dealers. How hard is this to understand?

1. Why does Jimmy/PTC even exist, it doesn't even make sense why WSOP/Caesars it's allowing one of it's own employees to create an outside company and collect middle man fees from Harrahs AND the players in order to do something that WSOP/Caesars could do themselves

2. Why does he feel it is appropriate for him to suggest poker players skip the WSOP or WSOPc if they don't agree with their ever increasing fees. As a representative of the WSOP to suggest that people that do not agree with them or their response to issues does not seem appropriate.

3. Explain why the WSOP/Caesars feels the need to embrace placing an ever increasing percentage of the burden for dealer compensation while referencing the travel expenses involved with providing quality dealers/staff when the EPT and other superior tours with less events at more expensive locations compared to the WSOPc are able to sufficiently compensate their staff? Possibly Caesars would be able to pay their staff appropriately if they weren't taking on so much overhead contracting out the logistics of the WSOPc to an apparently extremely well paid 3rd party company?

Yeah, I brought it up a year ago too in mttc venetian deep stack thread and got no response to it. I no longer play tournaments due to the sheer greed of buyin fees by casinos. When I 1st started playing tournaments years ago, the fee was a standard 10% with no 3% taken out of pool for staff. Back then, even a $100 event was $100+$10. Now they are often $100+$25+$5 and 3% witheld. so sick.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=164

I'm fairly certain that the 70-30 split that bigtex claims is incorrect. I've heard this from reliable sources. The dealers do not receive 70% of the staff addon. They may receive 70% of the 3% witholding which is what you're referring to.

Has anyone from ptc stipulated exactly how the staff addon portion is split. I'm not counting bigtex as a ptc rep.

Allen I have been told this not only from dealers but also from Jimmy and Bill.

Ok let's hear this from at least one dealer or jimmy or bill then.

these events are always full of questions

So, let me give y'all my take. I used to follow around WPT stops in 04-05 for cash games. Found the internet. Don't think I played live again until Black Friday outside of rare ring game.

I spent 2 weeks in Vegas this summer at WSOP. Did OK. I've played events at the following WSOPC stops for 11-12 - Horseshoe Southern Indiana (Louisville), Horseshoe Hammond (Chicago), Imperial Palace Biloxi, and Caesar's Las Vegas. It's been rather eye-opening.

First, those $50 vouchers are, in my opinion, a scam. They were at Louisville and Biloxi. Top 27 get a $50 voucher that they try to make mandatory for use at the giant ripoff mega satellite rebuy for a main event seat. What ends up happening is the scroungers who follow the PTC circuit stops, who are all good friends with the td and upper staff of the tourney group, end up benefiting to detriment of healthy poker with integrity. This group shows up knowing most rec guys will not be able to play a satellite a week later or whatever. They typically offer $20 to $25 for every $50 voucher. It ends up an indirect payoff to the group that follows the circuit around and nut-hugs on Jimmy and PTC. When the mega actually takes place, this group will have 6 or 7 vouchers themselves that they bought for way cheap if they intend the play. They'll sometimes sell for $45 to $50 at the time of the tournament. If it's not a scam, it sure looks like one. It's a looting of the recreational guy to go to friends of the family. How the hell are these people allowed near the cash tables as the top 27 bubbles burst, anyway?

The added dealer tips seems to have been covered at length... sigh. Needs to stop.

Caesar's LV was the best stop by far.

Time to get poker out of the old. Integrity and transparency for the future.

There are other issues that are a bigger deal, such as the groups that back each other at some of these smaller stops and how aggressive they are (or aren't) against each other late in events. But, that's a much tougher nut to crack.

Simple stuff like making sure rake is 15% at most, there are no secret add-ons, and there are no deductions for silly vouchers looting the recreational player should be no-brainers at this point. The fact they haven't been embraced is sad. Instead of opportunities, many of these tournament directors are seeing threats. Right away, that should make anyone a skeptic of what the intentions of those people are.

more than hear it... let's see the books

you should see how confused the rec player is when the $50 voucher time hits. It doesn't create goodwill.

Seth really needs to answer this one too, this is just a massive scam with the explicit purpose of creating a rake trap. To my knowledge literally nowhere else in poker has this ever been done except by jimmy sommerfeld

It was done at the Southern Indiana stop and that is run in house by Jimmy Allen poker room manager

They all practice this, as long as the big guys have no compitition, they will find ways to screw you all, and you just TAKE IT, there going to bend you over, just bite a stick and get stitches after. Sorry guys, but what else are we going to do, Sit out a WSOP event and make sure no one else shows up?

It pleases me that more people are aware that theyre being scammed by these rakewhores out there and its just so depressing that someone like me who loves tournaments and loved playing online can now not even see myself looking forward to any live series anymore as its just such a disgusting money grab by these people who treat and pay there staffs averagely at best and give not one care to drying up the entire community with this 20-30%+ rake bull****. It WILL stop, either by the players waking up and the casinos realizing this and having to act, or by the whole tourney scene being shriveled up and dying a slow death and never having a chance to grow which would really be a shame.

These events are becoming more and more worthless. I've been grinding circuits in the midwest for years, including one 6-figure score. After the debacle that was Tunica, I'll be done with the WSOPC unless Charlie Ciresi is running it (like he did in Hammond last year). He's, imo, a top-notch TD.

I have a very close friend and former roommate who used to travel with Jimmy, doing the WSOP and some circuit stops. He stopped traveling with Jimmy because of what a shady jackass he is. I never questioned why he thought this way. I may have to ask him now.

plz do, come back and post when u find some stuff out.

I first started out playing poker it was playing in Tunica in 2003. What is Harrahs now used to be called The Grand. They had a weekly in-house tournaments that had dealer appreciation tokes for more chips back then (these dealer tokes are not new concepts).

Mississippi gaming made The Grand stop doing the dealer appreciation tokes for chips because players complained. I have no idea why Gaming lets them do it now, but someone must have done some lobbying.

FWIW MJ I'd rather have the $10 dealer appreciation toke for chips than any fracking percentage of the prize pool withheld. That's the real ripoff. That 3% doesn't show up on any fee sheet that I can recover but comes out of my damn pocket none the less.

Tournament directors keep your fracking hands off the prize pool. Fees are yours prize money is ours. How you charge those fees should be known ahead of time.

yep, first tourney i ever played was at the Grand and they wanted 5 or 10 bucks for another 1000 in chips. Believe you got 5k to stat and then could "tip" for another 1k or something. I still remember the beat I took to get knocked out. First of many.....fml

wait wait, was this the trip you and i took down there in '04 i believe it was? good lord it's been forever. i believe that was the tournament, i remember we played mostly at the grand. we ran around town with kelsey and his buddies i think... i might be getting my trips confused because i went down there 3-4 times over the years before i moved out to vegas.

if it was, then that was MY first live MTT too lol. i don't remember the addon though, but i'm sure you're right.

Why is it so hard to publish a buyin that says something like 1400 + x house fee plus x dealer/staff toke, and not take anything out of the prize pool.

just finished recording the show. Seth Palansky of the WSOP announced on the program that the practice of collecting 'staff appreciation add-on's' tableside will cease. He mentioned it may be too late to pull it for the Palm Beach Kennel Club events this coming week(coincidentally Sommerfeld's last event I believe) but that going forward all staff appreciation fees, if charged at all, will be done so at the cage and will be properly accounted for on the buy-in receipt.

He mentioned that the local casino creates a lot of the posters/flyers and other marketing materials themselves for their local events so policing that the 'staff appreciation add-on' gets mentioned in every promotional item is challenging.

Progress

1. Attempts will be made to make sure the 'staff appreciation fee' isn't hidden
2. Money will no longer be collected table-side to complete your starting stack
3. All fees will be collected at the cage at time of buy-in/included in online buy-ins
4. All fees will be accounted for on tournament seat assignments/receipts

Many other topics were discussed but I think some progress on the matter has been made. I forgot to bring up those damn $50 satellite coupons. Such an idiot.

1 point for the little guys.

Mike, aren't the buyins and chipstacks across wsopc events supposed to be consistent for the main events.

Are u saying some venues' buyins will be listed as $1600 on wsop.com and other venues will now be listed at $1620?

Sounds like the chipstacks will essentially be consistent(not sure if the staff add-on will remain 'optional'). As for buy-in amount, the prize pool portion will be consistent, but the final buy-in total will vary from $1600 to $1620 depending on whether the staff add-on is charged. Some stops may just stop charging it altogether. Time will tell, I guess.

Wasn't aware of any promise by the WSOP that the total buy-in, inclusive of fees would be identical for all WSOPc ME's. Where did you see that?