I'm very interested in all perspectives! Guarantees are a big part of GOLIATH and summer tournament poker in general - however they are not everything.

Concur. Good structure and competent dealers are FAR more appealing.

I've no qualms about not having a big guarantee on the events that I will actually get to play (ie. stud and other mixed/draw games).

That being said, I am not a fan of the sub-$500 events because they don't bring in enough of a prize pool once all of the other fees have been removed. When an event is multiple-bullets and only a few hundred on the entry fee, it becomes a glorified game of bingo. Even prior to the adoption of the BBA, the bingo component was part of why I quit making the drive up to Durant...

A non-BBA, $600-$1K freeze out NLHE event...yeah, I'm there. I'd go higher on the entry fee but I am guessing some would whine that it was too much for a non-WSOP tourney...but put that on the calendar and I will give the credit card info for entry NOW!

I agree completely -- allowing folks to bust out and then re-enter is great. Let 'em re-enter as many times as they want. I'm even fine with guys busting out and then coming back with 8-10 BB. At the Borgata there is typically an end to the "entry" option, and then several levels later is the end of the "re-entry" option. New players can't come in late and try to hijack the table when the field has already been thinned out. I like that approach.

If the top prize is 100x the buy-in and the field has already been whittled down to less than 50% of the starters, there's a pretty attractive ROI for a new player who'se willing to gamble that he/she can get lucky on a couple of shoves and get up to 25BB quickly -- avoiding the need to grind it out for 4-5 hours during the early action. (But, I know that there are the guarantees to consider . . . )

agree with michelle, I already booked for 4 weeks. I would love to see SOME tournaments (p.e. 1 or two per week) with max 1 re entry or freezout..buy in 400-600$, maybe multiple flights (2-4).

The 2-7 NL SD event last year was awesome and hope you keep it.

Thanks for the open lines of communication Chris. It's greatly appreciated.

Quick note about having the mixed events the day before or after a bracelet event.... It is immeasurably more important (in my opinion) to have have these events the day before as a warm up rather than the day after as a 2nd chance. In particular, games like 27TD are so niche, that it's nice to get the feel back of playing those games before dropping $2k on the bracelet event. An the people that have that strong an interest in a game like that will probably get to a day 2 and miss the 2nd chance events.

OH! One more thing that may be completely beyond your scope, but as someone that stays at PH and then shoots over to RIO for events, it would be great if you could regirster/print WSOP events at the Bravo Machines in PH. Not sure of the logistics of that though, but it was something that occurred to me last year.

My annual 2 cents. Looking forward to another great summer at PH.

All great feedback and it's appreciated. I lean towards offering as warmup events over 2nd chance...schedule pending of course.

Not sure if your Bravo request is possible or not, will look into.

I agree with this. I think one-day $500 buyin events for more obscure Bracelet events (Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw, Razz, etc) would attract a good amount of casual traffic if run the day before the bracelet event starts.

Warm-up is good if they are single day events. If they are 2-day events, a lot of people will skip them because they don't want to miss the bracelet event by making day 2 of a smaller event.

Sad I missed it and hoping to factor it into my schedule this year!

I'd be curious how many of these super-late first-time entries there typically are. If not many, then I don't think it should effect guarantees much. And I too think allowing this is wrong and antithetical to the spirit of tournament poker.

I'm not sure what the logistics of an entry period + a re-entry period would be, but this seems like a pretty reasonable idea.

a few years ago you could register into the main event at ph with 5 bb. i witnessed someone last minute register and fold into the money. from my single experience last year it hasn't gotten much better which is a big part of the reason i only played one tournement at ph. until they have reasonable cutoff for late registration i am unlikely to play more than 1 or 2 tournaments a summer at ph.

Chris,

I suggest looking at this article by Kenny Hallaert if you haven't already (though I'm guessing you have). https://twitter.com/spaceyfcb/status...734080?lang=en

He points out the significant advantage players get if they are allowed to buy into an event late enough. Their equity can easily go up by 10-20%, or more. I suggest ending late registration well before you are likely to be down to half the field or less, and thus still quite a ways before reaching the money.

See you this summer!

Cheers, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Day two regs are definitely not right in almost all cases IMO, even if the structure is so deep as to allow players to late reg day 2 for 20 or more BB. But I'm curious if the advent of deeper starting stacks, slower structures and re-entries at the summer WSOP has made it so the benefit of keeping satellite venue registration open later to catch WSOP bust-outs has been greatly reduced?

While a venue may not track the reason someone regs late, they should certainly be able to tell how many people are entering for the first time (and when) and glean something from this info.

Hi everyone, I've certainly made note of the mentions of the ultra late reg and concerns everyone has. Changes will be made.

Interesting article by Kenny H. - perhaps a solution might be to allow players to register late, but with progressively decreasing stacks. For example, a late-reg during level 2 might get 99% of a starting stack, whilst a player buying in just before the cut off would only be given, say, 90%. For sure, this would create a few administrative problems for the organiser, and require careful monitoring of the total chips in play, but might be a more equitable format.

In this model, I see no reason not to continue to allow a full stack to players who have busted and wish to re-enter.

As an afterthought, if one didn’t want the aggravation of distributing and then accounting for short stacks, a late reg player could have his stack ‘taxed’ by the dealer when he sits down at the table, and that tax would be fed into the next pot (or pots) for the benefit of the entire table. It’d make late-reg guys much more welcome when they join the tourney - they would effectively have to fund a short series of ‘bomb pots’ that celebrate their arrival. And, just to preserve their new-found popularity, they shouldn’t get dealt in until that series of bomb pots has ended.

Interesting idea. But I don’t know, splash pots in tournaments and taxes or reduced starting stacks on late entries and re-entries... just seems odd/unfair and an administrative headache. Just shortening the re-entry period should do it.

Open to suggestions, but I don't see a scenario that exists where I'd consider altering stacks for players registering late. Certainly not common practice from what I've seen.

That sounds awful to me. Action like that affects everyone in the tournament, but only the one table gets to benefit from the artificial action.

A surcharge for excessively late registration or re-entry. Charge people a little bit extra if they don't register by the first four levels or if they fire more than two bullets. Give people a financial incentive to show up closer to the start so that recs don't get frustrated by short-handed starting tables. Those recs who show up on time would also get to feel superior to late-comers because they get to believe that they didn't waste money by showing up late.

I see it as functionally the same as decreasing the starting stack. You are adjusting the chip:entry fee ratio in both cases, but a late reg surcharge would be easier to implement because you don't have to mess with the chips you have prepared.

If Ph does something like that then people are going to go late reg at other places. Unless it is universal they will lose tons of entries.

Agree. The reason they allow late entries at all is to make more money. They aren't going to cut their own throats.

Hi, do you have any examples of other venues or events implementing something like this? And is it successful?

As a player, I can't see any value in paying a surcharge for the privilege of registering late for an event. I'm already getting taxed by paying the same as everyone else has for a smaller starting stack - in relation to the current blind level.

I'm supportive of revisiting our late reg time frame - not sure if any other changes can be made.

Yeah the only issue I had last year with your Goliath series was in regard to the somewhat extended late registration period, especially for a survivor tournament I played there.