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Originally Posted by DogFace
Aria did a pretty poor job of publicizing it. I was there last week and there was no advertising or signage anywhere that I noticed. I was there on Thursday and Friday (I think the first tourney started Friday) and I didn't see anything about satellites. They didn't seem to be running any in the main poker room. I believe these Masters tournaments are held in PokerGo Studios, which seem to be locked and off limits to the public.
All in all, if they're trying to entice casuals to drop $500 or $1k on a satellite then they need to try harder. Their turnout could be a lot better if they put any effort into it. That doesn't seem to be the purpose of this series though. It seems to be about small fields with a high concentration of big names. Good for viewers, but lower -EV for players than something like the WSOP which will attract a lot of shot takers to dilute the fields.
I don't believe they ran satellites. I think Aria didn't feel the need to advertise since they really weren't looking for the dilution. It was kind of if you know, you know thing. This year a lot of the high roller community knew, but for some reason just didn't want to attend.
Overall the turnout has probably been better this year than last year but the quality of player took a step down. If they wanted to go pure mashers and just attract larger fields they could just embrace that route but I don't think that was the vision of whoever created the masters series.
I'm just trying to find out why the higher players never made it out this year. Guys were so excited last year. Fedor made that daily vlog which was very entertaining. Negreanu vlogged. Polk vlogged. They broadcasted more than just the final tables. It was just overall much better last year imo. Not to mention I learned a lot watching those guys.