We'll see what they come up with. But if the money bubble pushes towards day 3 in some of these 1/1.5 K events, their appeal will be greatly diminished in my eyes, no matter how good their structure is. TDs should be looking for ways to maintain reasonable playability while making tournaments shorter, not the other way around.

The poll in nvg had 56 for reduce and 58 for non reduce at the end of tournaments. Wynn in their tourneys, when the final table hits 4 players reduce the big blind ante to the small blind which is reduced to elimination of the big blind ante at 2 players.

Its a glaring problem at any level. i can't tell you as to how many times my table gone to 5 or 6 players in which case we would be putting in the big blind ante every 6 hands as apposed, to on the whole, the rest of the tournament tables are at 9. The tournament directors can't move fast enough to balance the tables appropriately .

The only venue that can possibly equalize this method is online . The Wynn changes at 4 players but too little too late and they can't give enough chips to equilibrate a built in seizure of chips by the system. This unfair and inferior system adds criticality at all levels and is well hidden from the player.

Not only is the individual player putting in a small and big blind per round but places in a big blind ante which is only fair if the table is full (9 players) . Every lost player at the table increases one's risk and loss of chips to the system, not related to an individual's ability whatever that may be.


This type of comprehension is best understood in the dynamic, or movement, and not just assume things will be ok by adding more chips to start. Its poor thinking, or in other words sits in someone's head but not connected to the reality in movement. Its Zeno's paradox at the poker table as the tournament directors would have us believe that Achilles will never catch the tortoise.

Translation, again, thinking has to match with reality as we all know that the tortoise is dead meat.

The mythical time (substantial) savings of eliminating antes is one of the greatest examples of perception not matching reality which I have encountered in quite a while.

Anyhow, you've always had a more poetic flair than me, and what you describe is definitely real. And it illuminates what has always been the most noxious aspect of the whole BBA debate to me. In truth BBA is a little bit better in some ways, and a little bit worse in others. And depending on what a person cares about when playing poker (and by extension what they are aware of), a player may have a preference one way or another. But BBA is not a revolution in the game. It doesn't fundamentally make the game better... at least not for everyone, and likely not for most. Despite the claims of people like Matt Savage who, for some reason, has staked his reputation on it (and the throngs of TDs who have gone along with the current), it does not save a significant amount of time due to simple physical reality. And despite it being sold as a process simplification, we now get to watch TDs twist themselves into pretzels trying to come up with complicated and inconsistent methods of trying to reduce the negative aspects of BBA. So much for process simplification.

Can MTT`S be paid in advance. Can someone outline the process.

Once the schedule is out you will be able to preregister with the methodology (credit card, bank transfer) included in the schedule. If you are in Vegas you can preregister at the Rio so long as the schedule is out, as of a specific date set by WSOP.

The deep stack dailies cannot be preregistered ahead of time but only on the day of the event(12:00 AM.) at the Rio.

If you plan to preregister, study the method and then ask the appropriate questions here as to any difficulties, etc...

I say this as a non preregisterer who has and will not again register by wire or credit card but many do ...

This should help last years instructions:

http://www.wsop.com/2018/

Already booked room for week of June 9th. Geez Total Rewards site already have their room rates up for WSOP. My final bucket list wish to play seniors event.

Don't want to give the impression that you should wait until the day of the tournament to register; you're there and you can go in the evening a few days before and registering will be pretty easy.

The mornings will probably be crowded , any day, and especially the seniors.

Ya likely take a stroll over to Rio and soak up the atmosphere and register.

I pre-paid/registered last year, it is through Bravo so if you have a Total Rewards account and Bravo account you just pay with a credit card. There is an extra fee, it was $20 for the Colossus but that is well worth it to avoid the potential long lines I hear so much about. It will be end of Feb or Mar before registration opens/starts if i remember right. GL

Sounds like you're coming in earlier in the week for Seniors, which is great. There will be other venues running seniors events that week, including Venetian and Golden Nugget (if same as prior years). Good idea to get to the Rio at least a day before to register. In the afternoons at the Rio the cashier's line is pretty quiet. Do not wait until the morning of the Seniors to register. Lines are crazy long and even getting to the Rio (if you are not staying there) can be a challenge. Every cab and Uber in Vegas is busy shuttling Seniors to the Rio, so getting there "early" to register is not a given. Much better to register in advance. Take some time to browse the merch area and pick up your WSOP shirt or hat, walk around the convention center to get a feel for where the rooms (and restrooms) are, and do your registration when you are not rushed. Have fun, good luck, and I'll see you there on the 13th!

The extra 'fee' is the surcharge attributed to the payment processor. It was not juice going to WSOP. As such, the amount varied based upon the entry fee for the specific event. I absolutely concur that it was more than worth the small percentage to not have to wait in line and have the convenience and just be able to go to the kiosk. Not to mention that with the correct card choices, a poker-playing consumer will actually tend to see most of that fee offset by the rewards from the card...and with some cards, the rewards will actually be MORE than the fee.

Yes played the Nugget event. You are correct there are other senior events likely happening all that week. Also I believe the over 65 event is usually that Saturday. Definitely registering at Rio in early morning the Tuesday or Wednesday.

Really glad there is activity already around the WSOP.
Anyone know who it was that did the blind ratings for the good events to play last year.

I continue to be curious which credit card offers more than 3% back on whatever category poker tournament entrees falls under.

WSOP website states that rooms at Rio are $33 a night in the summer, I clicked on the link and put in random dates in June, it averaged over $110 a night after adding taxes and resort fee.What gives?

There are a bunch of credit cards of the "Spend $4,000 in the first 3 months, get $250-500 bonus" variety.

Check out thepointsguy for more details.

No, WSOP website states that with a player's card you can find rates as low as $33 at some Caesar's properties on some days. That is true:

https://www.caesars.com/reserve/?vie...=1543878019977

I see May 23 @ The Linq for $32.

It isn't just about the percentage coming back on rewards but how you can USE those rewards. Further, even if it was only 2% with no immediate manner of turning the rewards into a more profitable return, the .9% difference is still more than offset by the time-value of money vis-a-vis not standing in line. That being said, ChasePay was a 5% bonus category during 2018 Q2. Also, as noted, those other bonus categories on spend thresholds can come into play like the other poster noted. One of my AXP cards had a substantial bonus on an initial spend in the first 90 days with a second bonus for a total of $7500 in the first 12 months. There were no restrictions on clearing it in the first month. Thus one can easily make more than the third-party processing juice by using cards wisely...some of us old people points and bonus-whore really well

I am actually a little curious about the 4% that CrapOne is offering on the currently marketed Savor, but not enough to want a CrapOne card in my portfolio...

Ok. Intro offers makes sense.

Also, I don’t remember TR website rates ever including resort fees or tax.

Well you can get a king mountain view for $15 a night mid week (plus resort fee of $32 + Taxes of course LOL) and the weekends $132 or $121 depending.

There already are various discounts WSOP9 , 72 hour sale, 20% off Hot rates 2018 that are available and like any promo's change (other than the WSOP9 should be good all year). The ROOM can be cheap but the fees and taxes will be almost the same additional cost as the room.

Resort fees are a mask to hide the real price of the room. They created them as a way to bait people into booking them on the various travel sites without reading the fine print.

I’ll be slumming it this year with my brother and staying at Four Queens. Already booked the room. No resort fees and no charge to park if you have a players card. I actually don’t mind the old casinos but I can’t stand what they’ve done to downtown. Allowing the homeless to panhandle while wearing g-strings combined with the Slotzilla zipline nonsense makes me feel sleazy. I liked staying there when it had the dank dirty feel of old school mobster Vegas. Now it’s a cheap, Midwest, hole in the wall, low class strip club feel.

$1000 Double stack or $1500 Monster stack? Any (ha!) opinions? Double stack has 1 rebuy/flight. Monster stack, no rebuys (but I can register for 1B if I bust 1A?). Trying to plan my summer vacay, and one of these will be my 'anchor' WSOP event, I think.

My approach is I definitely want to play the WSOP seniors. But!! from having said that I am also planning to play whatever the best structure is available for any remaining senior events I am around for. + one PLO event
Like my earlier post I inquired about a poster last year who rated all the events from worst to best structure. I am not referring strictly to senior events. The guy really put a lot of work into it just as Spacey makes up the weekly co ordinated event schedule from week to week during all the vegas summer events.
Got a hunch that $500 WSOP event is going to draw an enormous amount of rec runners ever imagined. HUGE donkfest

Is this not just a replacement for the Colossus? The only difference is the structure looks better for the big 50

I would wait until structures come out to decide. I would be extremely surprised if we don’t see major changes given the significant starting chip jumps. Somewhere in these forums a poster named plog does a structure analysis of all the various tournaments and his methodology is fairly sound.