This is the problem with poker ainec. Those payjumps are terrible for any hobbyist and they exist at every level.

I agree the payouts for this event were pretty crazy

1) AC is horrible (although Borgata is a good spot)

2) Partial conflict with Monte Carlo

3) V few online sats

4) This is the most important one imo: This is not a poker series. Compare WPT stops with 1 main event, and maybe a couple of very tiny side events that are spaced out way too far away from eachother, with a standard EPT or WSOP. It's just not that appealing for most people to travel halfway around the country, or world, when its not that great of a poker trip.

1. WPT brand sucks.
2. 15k is a lot of money for Rec players and big pros are not traveling to Ac for one event. Atlantic city does fine with big field smaller buy in events because a ton of people can drive there for a day but it's not a great spot for a 15k event.

Put it in Florida and turnout would be fine had nothing to do with payout structures. Flat payout structures are not beatable.

id have to disagree that the WPT brand sucks. Having played a bunch of them recently I think a lot of the amateurs really like playing or interacting with Mike and Vince. A lot of them really like the Royal Flush Girls too, forming a relationship with them from stop to stop.

The $3500 main events are attracting huge turnouts in FLA and are expecting a potential record breaking field in Choctaw in late July.

well, it certainly ain't growing.

is it a ridiculous idea that the WPT have their championship event in August or September? yes, not at the end of the season. tailwind off the post wsop excitement/pre-november nine anticipation? also, can still swim in the ocean then. not defending AC but does Vegas have boardwalk, beaches, and the ocean?

on the championship stream would have been great to see interviews with Asher's drunken rail instead of the same WPT promotional stuff on breaks

Dani hit the nail on the head with his #4. WPT's are not series which has to really hurt participation ---- travel for one tourney, no way.

If Borgata is your AC destination, it's a top-notch experience. If you go elsewhere in AC, not so much.

Back to the original question: Poker has lost much of its appeal to the public. Fewer people with lots of disposable income are interested in playing.

One thing to realize about the payout structure is 10th in a 270 player field is way way different than 10th in a 1k man field.

Poker has lost a little bit of customer base, but it's decline specifically in the last or two has been negligible. Whereas as the customer base for Atlantic City in general over the same time span has fallen off a cliff.

The issue isn't Borgata its the WPT brand. Borgata puts out huge numbers for the events leading up to it but the WPT Championship doesn't seem like anything anybody really cares about. WPT brand its not what it use to be heck i don't even know what channel they are on anymore.

Super top heavy payouts and too big a buyin for a tournament catering to local east coast players. Commerce hard rock florida or bellagio would draw way more at same buyin and no reentry.

Have you been to Borgata?

Although your criticisms are reasonable, their was a $2700 with reasonable rake of $200 for the house and $75 for staff running directly preceding the $15K and a 1 Million guarantee and $2500 on Day 3 of the 15k as well. Also a 1k 6max two days before the 15k. While this pales in comparison to the # and variety of events at an EPT it is actually substantially better than most USA WPT stops as far as being a full series. I am no even mentioning the sub 1k events that will not hold much interest to most of the 15k field. Borgata does have the benefit of much more reasonable rake/time for the very good cash game action as well compared to anywhere in Europe. I am pretty sure #11 in the world Joe Kuether according the GPI rankings was more than satisfied with the side events cashing for >100K USD in them.

The EPT has wiped the floor really in terms of attracting the top players. A solid structure of events over the course of a few weeks, good cash games, decent payouts, re-entries means that more people go home happy, can justify spending a lot to get to the events, and there's more media coverage and stories from the series to make it last long in the memory of players both new and old.

You can't seriously be idiotic enough to think this is meaningful in any way?

Did you ever learn the definition of 'choke'?

Man I'd never take time and go out of my way to go to AC to play a $15k WPT event when the WSOP starts in a month.

This +1. why spend 15k at this event in AC when you can save the 10k for the main plus some other events and have fun in vegas.

Yeah basically this is the only reason. Borgata does a great job of attracting rec players who drive up for a few days. Not many of these guys play 15ks or 1500 sattys for that matter. When poker was newer there were a lot more rich guys willing to shot take.

So the best solution is moving the event somewhere else like LA, Vegas, or Florida or possibly make it the only 10k on the wsop schedule. (Make every other tourney 3500).

Here is what paying 15% of field would look like:



There is a science to payout structures. One rule is the ratio between payout breaks should decline from top to bottom. However, WPT breaks this rule as shown in the red cells in the ratio column.

This flatter payout suggestion is equal to the main event of WSOP with 6500 players paying about $5.2 million for 1st vs current about $8.1 million. The huge jump from 1st to 2nd* in the WPT is even worse than the high jump in WSOP events! The flatter payout makes it much more reasonable.

For this WPT suggestion, the flatter payout has a 2x min cash payoff and 28 spots pay more (green cells) and only 8 pay less. (red cells)

*jump from 2nd to 3rd is bad too in WPT
RedOak

Can you do a better payout with paying just the number they paid? Obviously 10th should get more than $45k?

Here is even flatter...

Can you do one paying 27?