Lots of poker players have been scammed out of a lot of $$ lately Steve. Expect a lot of skepticism. There is a lot that is fishy about this enterprise, even if it is all 100% above board. If you have the ear of the people in charge, I suggest that you convince them to get things in order ASAP.

... plus NVG isn't known for it's mature responses. But without the poker community, this is dead in the water.

P.S. Be careful not to let yourself get trolled on here BTW ... I advise you not to start arguing with folk in the thread. Utterly pointless.

All good points JA, we are most definitely on the case of getting the updated information onto the website and posted here, and of course I've sympathy with any player that has been scammed in the past, no matter what the sum of money.

Anyway, yeah I'm experienced enough not to get dragged into anything (I hope) but I just want people to know that I am 100% honest so need to people to see that I'm not ignoring the cheap shots either.

Cheers,
Stephen.

You should consider getting 888 to offer tourenments to satellite into with. Don t worry about the nagative comments, alot has gone in the poker world. Aswell, i suspect some of the posters have zero chance of making it there.

Seems Michael Mizrachi is putting his reputation on the line.
Last tweet:

I just want to announce I will be @ispt_poker official ambassador Will be one of the Biggest tournaments ever held May 31, 2013!

The grinder's research skills are suspect. Here he is bragging about attending a scam charity event:

Michael Mizrachi
At the Holiday Inn in Richmond, Virginia. Playing a charity event for U.C.A.R.E (United Cancer Alliance Reaching Every1) packed House!!#fb

Up'ing the #gettingserious quotient.

Very solid post. wp sir.

Totally agree. Take the bait in nvg and the sharks will have a feeding frenzy.

Nvg will want hard facts and tangible evidence backed up by sources or consider this thread to be a blowtorch.

If real detailed facts are still to be worked out, speculation will blow up the 2+2. Gbt already has cred issues here from the failed full tilt bid repayment plan.

There has been legitimate concerns raised here amongst the trolling. Real tangible links with casinos and satellite information would be a good start as this would be verifiable if it exists.

Logistics is also a common theme of concern. The general consensus seems to be that this is still to be worked through. You could open these questions to the commuity. Amongst the inevitable trolling, you might receive some useful suggestions.

This is going to need a substantial team to coordinate. How many people are working on it? Some details of how it is to be planned, resources and a rough planning timetable might help build credibilty. It comes across as though 2 people had this grand idea, and you are the first person hired to work out the very complex logistics. Surely the team already must be bigger, even at this stage.

Awesome to see some good, well thought out responses from NVG to Stephens post. JA24 and Capt36feet bang on imo.

Poker players are renowned for being skeptical, and with what's gone on in the poker world i'm probably in that camp too.

GL Stephen, i'm from the UK and would love to see this work out. Even if it's not exactly the easiest or most practical thing to pull off, i can see it being a success and very good for the game, if it's done well.
glglgl gogogogo

The key factors to ensure this will be a success are:

Good software for online bit
Good satellites both online and live.
The company doing this is new and there have been a lot of scandals in the poker world lately so some link to a company people trust would do wonders.

What will they do if it rains with the live games taking place on the pitch? How late will it go on? Wembley is quite a long way from most of London and not especially easy to get to other than on the jubilee line. The event needs to stop at about 11 at the latest to ensure everyone can get home.

This has epic failure written all over it.

Very strange event here. Seriously doubt there's already 2500 registered for an event this far away. Wembley donkfest is surreal and the logistics of this could prove a train wreck. Or a train smashing through a 30,000 strong herd of cattle.

The reason there is so much negativity is because of how outlandish a lot of the aspects of this seem. From the tourney structure allowing such a long rebuy period, to the direct buy, from 30,000 people bringing their laptops and playing in the stands, to the live part getting run by partouche. If I mentioned a single one of these aspects I would expect people to be sceptical, to have so many in one event. From my end I find it strange that I am not familiar with anyone involved, it is seemingly one of the most ambitious poker projects ever, and yet none of the real poker heavyweights are organising it.

I take great issue with you because you greatly inflate the reality of the numbers you're going to get, which I find horribly dishonest. You yourself admitted in that particular thread that that's what you were doing. People don't call me out in front of my boss/customers because I don't lie to achieve my aims - I work with integrity.

I'm not trolling and this isn't a forum witch-hunt, it's just everyone can see that this isn't going to work. There simply aren't 30,000 players that will travel to London to play a €600 event on a laptop - end of. Advertise here or don't, but people on here have very valid concerns as to the feasibility of this tournament and I don't think you get to dismiss those concerns as "witch-hunting".

I'm not saying I'm 100% convinced this is real and good for the game. I have worked with Stephen, a good guy, who clearly has arranged large events, not on this scale, but nothing has been on this scale before.

Madlondener, I live in Barcelona, so can't nip down to check, but hasn't Wembley got a retractable roof?

There's also been many events here that have had more than 30,000 attending, so don't think the logistics are something we need worry about.

I like the ambition, if it works it surely would be good for poker.

I might end up writing a series of posts on logistics. As a project manager, I have some idea of the scale of what might be required. I want to outline a small fraction of just how hard this is going to be. I might not have it a 100%, but it will give a sense of scale of just how much work is required.

First Topic.

Power supply

OK, so there is going to be a need for 30,000 power outlets.
That is a lot of amps. You need an electrical system cable of handling say 150,000amps (say 5A draw). You are going probably need a solution that taps into the Wembley main electrical system. A critical issue will be to see if it can even handle this load. You will probably need your own numerous subsystems and own power distribution units spread throughout. A few power boards daisy chained together isn't going to cut it.

Electrical Cabling will be an issue. You would really need millions of miles of cables, and you may have a number of workplace health and safety issues to overcome to protect for trip hazards. There would need to be a number of safety and surge protection requirements as well.

Lead in times. You might need 50 people just for electrics if your access time before the event is only a couple of days.

One way to overcome these issues, may be to have multiple semi trailers kitted out that can be tested externally, and rolled in so it can set up in some type of modular way with the need for potentially external generators. Think of it like when a TV crew turn up to do a stadium broadcast, there are trucks everywhere.

Ethernet
The same goes for Ethernet cabling. Millions of miles required with hundreds of hubs/routers required. If you go down the wireless route, interference will be a pretty big issue with many hundreds of wireless access points required. All would need multiple backbones to route traffic. Some type of multi fibre optic backbones feeding to a server rooms in semi-trailers might work. Again, this solution could be tested off site. Multiple very large data pipes would be required to connect to the outside world if the main servers will be hosted externally, presumably through Partouche.

The IT solution itself would be massive. It might be easier to set up 300 hubs and then spoke out to 100 players, to break each section to manageable chunks. I haven't even mentioned what might be required in the server rooms to route/switch data and firewalls, dns, etc. This kit is not cheap. The number of racks required would be massive, even just for patching. Virus/trojan detection/DOS attacks is an issue. IT security needs to be watertight when the public are sharing connections. You don't want people also downloading 20GB of their favourite tv series while playing, or watching x rated "Ray Bitar does Lobster in Dallas". You will need the appropriate websense/filtering.


The contingency planning would need to be extreme and redundancy a very serious consideration, with failover and 24 hour monitoring critical of all systems, and routing through multiple ISPs. Scalability going through the cloud might be a good option if demand is needed quickly in the back end. There will be multiple hardware failures when there is this much hardware being relied upon. Backup systems will be essential.

This isn't going in depth either. A hundred issues exist just for electrics and ethernet requirements. Significant staff will be required just to support these aspects.

Hardware/Systems Customer Service
An alert system would need to be established when someone presses the "Attendant" button or live customer service chat when a system/hardware fails.

All types of hardware are going to want to connect. Macs, Windows, Linux, Android, IOS devices. You will need minimum specs communicated. People are going to come needing IT help when their system doesn't connect for whatever wonderful configuration their own machine has, and spare hardware will need to be available.

Wembley doesn't have a roof. I mentioned the finishing late only because poker tournaments usually end late and do things such as stop when play goes down to a certain number. This couldn't happen with this so if it took longer than they envisaged to get through the numbers it would be problematic, especially when you consider how expensive it is to hire wembley.

If they discovered that they were only gonna get 6500 (still a big number and one
hard to achieve)) then the event would probably not be viable financially. Even if they got 16000 runners, which would be an astonishing achievement, I can't really see the benefit of having a few tables in the middle of the stadium with less than 100 people playing when the rent for wembley is something like 1million pounds a day. It is not as if anyone who loses is gonna go home and come back the next day to watch the action in the stands.

What is the estimated average height of the field?

6'1'' tops

It has a roof that can cover the seating, so we're both right in a way.

I understand your point with a late finish, I'm sure the structure will allow it to stop before the trains/underground do, logistically Wembley has held lots more people!

I agree though getting the runners for this will take some doing. I wish them luck though, If they do pull it off in some way it could be a groundbreaking event, and for that I applaud them for teying.

Well the roof over the stands is fine for those in the stands but not so great for those getting wet playing on the live tables.

The problem will be that the cost of the logistics are so incredibly high that if they haven't received a certain number of runners by some point they will be forced to cancel or risk losing millions.

Wembley has hosted many events before but these are sport or music concerts which it was designed for and which are relatively short events lasting only a few hours. This will take days and require massive set up costs to convert the stadium.

I'm sure they've thought about the rain issue, and doubt they'd go ahead without some tents in backup if it does rain, I'd be more worried about gusts of wind even if it didn't rain. remember the WSOP final they played outside, needed glass to stop the flop blowing away.

Agreed, the logistics will be a nightmare, but are not beyond some of the experienced tournament teams out there.

I like to be positive about these events, hope they can get the backing from online sites, although do not understand how they expect to make money out of this with no online site to drive players too, or have I missed that part somewhere. Would make sense if they had bought FTP, without that I just don't know where the profit will come from, either directly from the event or in the future with a new online poker site.

This is obviously more than a pipe dream - money is already being committed on promotion (eg 2 page spreads in poker mags) and logistics. I think players would take it more seriously if more of the details were worked out and disclosed when the event was announced. atm it just has a kinda amateur feel about it, like a charity event at a local pub, which contrasts with the huge imagination and ambition of the undertaking. However, hopefully the communications and logistics will come together over the next few months. It will could be a great addition to the poker calendar if it works well and I really hope it succeeds.

Some things that will help it succeed:

(1) Communication
It would be good if somebody would explain the vision and rationale. e.g. why is it being created?, who is going to run it?, what makes them believe they will get so many players?, why do it at a stadium rather than let people play the first stages at home and have the top 1,000 or w/e attend a live final? Its especially important to explain the unusual aspects (eg the option for players to buy in at a late stage for 6k). It would also be helpful if the organisers would open a direct communication channel with players (other than the UK agent responding itt, which is nevertheless appreciated).

(2) Side events
imo the success or otherwise will depend a lot on what other events are offered. The event isn't going to attract huge numbers on its own. With good PR etc you can probably get 1k-2k UK players. Most will have to come from overseas. London is great for accessibility but not many are going to trek over from Croatia, Russia, Brazil etc for a €600 rebuy. If there is a wide range of events (turbos, rebuys, PLO etc) and buyins (eg €300 - €100k) in a well coordinated programme then lots of peeps will make the trip. (But 30,000 won't).

(3) Television
Always helps if events are televised.

(4) Partners
This will be difficult to pull off without getting some of the big online and live operators involved to promote it and satellite players through.

(5) Logistics
Obv need good support all round for everything like systems, hotel packages, management, dealers etc.

(6) Test
Why not try this on a small scale a few months before the Wembly event to help iron out any creases? WSOP (who had "only" 6500 players for their biggest event) have practiced it all 40 times before, half a dozen in the same venue, and occasional problems still arise.

Unfortunately most players (other than sat winners) dont register for events more than a couple of weeks ahead by which time all the big spending items will have been committed. I can't see Wembly taking a cancellation at that stage for example!

I guess players would want some assurance that, if they win a sat or buy in direct, the corporate entity concerned won't declare bankruptcy at the last minute if revenues don't cover costs.

You think that it starts to drizzle and they will start popping up tents for 30 live tables or more? The rain and wind issue is an important one. There is a reason poker is held inside.

How many days have they booked wembley for? I wouldn't be surprised if it was moved to a different venue once there are less than 20 tables left unless they are banking on a wide range of side events.

Quality idea, that's what I love about reading forums like this, when you get one gem of an idea...I'm sure others members of the team had considered this already, but I will certainly bring it up with them now too.

Again an excellent point. Bernard Tapie has already stated publicly that the prize-pool has been escrowed....on top of that the license stipulations for organising this event are absolutely immense, there's no way (to my mind at this moment in time) that this event cannot go ahead without the stated €20 million prize-pool, so any promotion on my part is basically irrelevant as whether we get 300 (€20mil) or 30,000 (probably close to €40mil prize-pool) players that prize-pool will still be paid out in full.


Just quickly @capt36feet; I can see that you have a huge amount of expertise in the area of event management, and its probably a shame that you didn't get to quote for the contract on this particular gig, but again, all these issues are being dealt with by a large team of experts so the players can be assured that every possible detail will be covered well in advance.

Cheers,
Stephen.