Including satellites pacific poker ran a 3million guarantee in 2008-2009 that probably had an overlay nearly as large. It had about 2200 entrants for 1k buyin buy regs were contacted and offered entry to $500 and the primary satellites were 1 cent rebuys that would have had only $5-10 prize pools if not for the guarantee

WTF at that payout structure? How many unique entries or did they not say? Paying probably 30+% of unique entries

legit lol'd at Dr. Evil.

you have to understand the market before you make a huge guarantee...last year everyone in las vegas was talking about the Hard Rock Event and it had alot of buzz. It was basically the only event in August and Hard Rock took advantage.

But this year WSOPC had an August event, etc etc.

So when you make a very high guarantee you have to be pretty sure you can beat it.

It is fairly complicated to understand the market. A 5k buyin is pretty high so its not of locals who play 1-2 or 2-5 are going to put up the money even with the overlay potential. You really need to get many people interested in traveling from far away to reach that guarantee.

Damn the chainsaw laying some truths and seeing them come true.

smaller misses have been reneged on in the past. theyll add an extra day and a bunch of vig free satellites and see if they can get it close enough to honor. some accounting group is figuring out a cost/benefit analysis how close they need to get now and saying, "the poker room? were gonna lose 2.5mil in the fuqqin poker room? do you mean baccarat? no?!!?!? the poker room???"

2 questions. 1 point.

Are guarantees legally enforceable in jurisdiction X?

How are overlays normally calculated? So if the prize pool is $5m and the entry fees total $4m, is that a 20 percent overlay or 25 percent overlay (i.e. do you calculate it off the bigger number or the smaller one?)

I play in a regular tournament (much smaller scale than this) where the capacity of the venue is such that if full, they equal the guarantee so it is almost impossible for them to do this and never do (theoretically they could exceed it with reentries). They keep running it because the local degens pour money into the slot machines and table games. Maybe these places aren't losing as much as you think.

In this case, the jurisdiction is the Seminole Indian tribe, a sovereign nation. Normal consumer protections or legal recourse do not apply.

Gavin, I'd like to know why you think that is a bad thing?

Over 1.4 Million for 1st and over a million for second is great IMO plus 300 ITM ensures a lot of those players especially the locals, satellite winners, and amateurs have an opportunity to share in the overlay.

I guess I should add that my opinion is biased because I not only love the expanded and flatter payout but also put the one they are using into place last year.

I'm not sure that's 100% accurate. Since the Seminoles advertised the guarantee in publications that are in interstate commerce outside of their sovereign nation, I suspect they're subject to the FTC act on false advertising.

I liked the payouts from last year. Glad they went with it again. Encourages people to play again and keeps money in poker community.

Glad the final payout number is posted as exactly $10m. No excuses. No takeout.

Classy move.

Some would calculate based on the smaller-- that is 1 mil added to 4 mil- 25% of 4 mil. In any case a mil added is a mil added.

Just for the record - we ended up sailing past the 477 entries needed today to cover the guarantee in the Playground Poker Montreal Festival Main Event. With late reg still open, there are 536 entries today. FYI Playground had a $1M Guarantee on a $1.1K buy-in with 3 Day 1s (next day re-entry).

We have had overlays in the past and of course there was never any question about paying or any delay in the release of the prize pool and payout schedule.

I'm not really in a position to get into a discussion about the finer points of guarantees in tournaments, I just wanted the info out there.

You could say player buy-ins garnered a $7.5M prize pool, forcing the casino to add another 33% in overlay to meet the advertised guarantee.

Or, you could say that the Seminoles kicked in 25% of the $10M guaranteed prize pool in overlay.

Or, you could say that all $450K of the tournament fees was returned to the prize pool, plus an additional 300%+ percent of that amount, or $1.55M, was added by the poker room as an overlay to meet the $10M guarantee.

Just depends on how you want to spin it.

Do your overlays pay out the exact guarantee at playground, or are there deductions taken out?

NO, I don't work for them or anyone in the poker industry...i am a finance guy... but what I meant by the post is that guarantees in general will always be there... it's a great marketing tool... the venues will just adjust, be more careful and lower the guarantees if necessary...not a big deal..

The Seminoles are a sovereign nation and therefore subject to no laws.

Play with them if you want.

Not me.

The guarantee represents the gross prize pool, and the 3% withholding for staff is applied to the gross prize pool. You can look at the payouts for the PokerStars Canada Cup last spring to see how this works out.

http://events.playgroundpoker.ca/pok...-payout-table/

So your guarantee is not the full amount. There are deductions.

In your example the $2m guarantee paid out $60k less.

At the commerce in l.a. matt savage has missed $1m guarantee a few times. The prizepool is exactly $1m on those.

Do uber nits have trouble sleeping at night. I'm thinking they must.

Not saying the topic at hand falls into that category. Probably some legitimate questions/discussions here.

But as a whole, the chainsaw seems like he's completely & utterly exhausting.

Not true. The compact has language regarding liability to potential civil suits and customer issues like the one you guys are discussing.

You jealous?

I think a 3% deduction for whatever reason is pretty trivial and doesn't really affect what the guarantee is accomplishing. As long as the reason for the deduction is legitimate I don't really see an issue here.

So the U.S. government could just shoot them all and say "Sorry bro, we're a sovereign nation" ?

I am interested in this as in Europe where I am from, nations get taken to court all the time.

I. Am. Not.

But I'm not hating, although I can understand how it may look like that.

What I'm wondering, and this goes out to all you hard core nits, are u constantly bothered by every little thing that u find unjust?

So when u call it a night, is ur mind still racing over every little thing that bothers you?

I am sincerely just curious, not trying to hate. Although I will admit it seems like an exhausting way to go through life.

And again, this is not towards the chainsaw specifically, I fully ack what a legend he is. Oh, and congrats on ur recent Foxwoods score btw.