Mini Main is a freezeout.

It was handled pretty smoothly, small delay in a few things is fine and if there wasn’t it would probably indicate that they weren’t trying to offer enough

For airlines, if someone is in charge of algorithm of booking seats and no flights were ever overbooked where they needed to pay people to get off and take another flight they aren’t doing a good job and have to get more aggressive

Really? Then that insane line was just late reg? Lol.

I think I’m pretty fair with the WSOP. They do a good job in general. It was a complete **** show at various times during the week of colossus’s/warriors/mini main. And as far as I can tell it was largely self-inflicted due to the schedule.

And the WSOP lost out on revenue due to the **** show. People who would otherwise have bought in didn’t. And people will also be less likely to go next year if they had a bad experience.

If the airline overbooked 50% of the flight I think you might have a different view of that analogy.

I think it was initial reg. When I saw the line it was about 9 am.

Even crazier. Goes to show why holding it on day 2 of another large field event was a big mistake.

The line for the mini main event was for initial reg. I registered the night before and had no problem. But a lot of people showed up the day off and there just wasn't enough capacity.

I think late reg in general, is good for the game. A lot of people want to jump into tournaments at the later stages when pots and blinds matter. Some people find it boring to play 200BB deep in a small buy-in tournament. The days are long, and with how fast people get knocked out, how beneficial is it too pick up information on these players and watch them play early on? (Many of whom will not be still in the tournament a few hours later).

I think the rake increase is a real issue, but I don't hate WSOP for playing 10 handed due to capacity issues. I will say though, I played the lucky 777s event and I honestly feel like that is the optimum number of players for me. Plenty of space, but not quite shorthanded.

My guess is those people came in for the Main and wanted to play the Mini too. To arrive the night before means spending a Saturday night, and prices were absurdly high this year for weekends.

If I had to give the WSOP a letter grade for the whole series it would be probably be a C-.

Agree that the player experience is getting worse and worse. I also don't feel the WSOP engages the community in a meaningful way, which would go a long way in reducing the angst from the biggest issues.

I also agree with the poster who said that a lot of the wounds were self-inflicted, and would add that many were predictable. I think a lot of gripes around registration are legimate, especially around the most popular events and satelites. Online registration is not one-size fits all.

Cash games lacked resources. Immensely popular SNGs were not offered. The WSOP was not transparent enough about the logistic/registration/capacity issues and how players could adjust - a big deal given how many players travel just for WSOP events and only come a few days.

And things like a key bathroom operating at less than 20% capacity AND unsanitary conditions (backed up sinks with fetid water and leaks from toilets) for 36 hrs+ just highlights the lack of accountability and professionalism.

Scotch think your posts are a bit rose-colored.

Agreed. I played the mini-main and the ME this year - 2nd overall WSOP trip for me. My thoughts on what worked and didn't are below along with a few missed opportunities from my perspective.

What Worked
Online registration and Fastrac system worked like a breeze once I loaded cash onto my TBIC account - more on that below. I pre-reg'd the mini-main the day before from my phone and printed my ticket at the kiosk. No lines required. For the life of me, I don't understand why anyone accepts the need to stand in crazy registration lines - more on that below as well. I had seen reports of all the registration delays for the large field events in the weeks prior and decided pre-reg would be a priority for me since I was only coming into town to play two events really.

Dealers were nearly uniformly solid. Floor was available and showed up quickly when called. Seats were filled pretty quickly, including later in the day in the mini-main when people were dropping like flies at every table.

When I pre-reg'd the ME (Day 1B), the Fastrac told me I had to see player support. Was able to find and resolve a minor technical issue very quickly with support staff. Everyone on the staff side that I dealt with seemed happy to be there and friendly and helpful.

What Didn't Work
Capacity Issues - More thought and work needs to be done to address the situation during breaks for large field events. This includes bathrooms, having more food options, and access to tournament areas. Every break was a cattle call and too much time spent crammed into hallways waiting for doors to the tournament areas to reopen. This was particularly bad on the Horseshoe side for obvious reasons. When you add the ridiculous late reg lines to the same hallways, it was pretty rough. On the food side, it would be great if Paris/Horseshoe showed some real thought in having easier and more convenient dinner options available. For those that have a reserved table at a restaurant, no issues, but otherwise there were long lines for anything "fast" casual.

Horseshoe Entrance/Exit - Something must be done to improve access/congestion at the only entry/exit point to the Horseshoe ballrooms. It's a bottleneck and also incredibly gross as it becomes a de facto smoking area with people standing around at the first possible option to light up. If a few of the slots over in that area could be moved during the series to give some additional space, that would do wonders.

Line Management - I waited for about 40 minutes in a relatively short line to load cash onto my TBIC when I first arrived in town. The line didn't spill out of the room, so not too bad all things considered. When I got to the front, I was then told that the area was only being used for tournament registration given how busy they were and that I should go to the next room over (where player services and payouts were) to load my account. Thankfully there wasn't much of a line over there when I switched rooms, but there was no way to know I was in the wrong line/room. Would be helpful to have staff managing the line to make sure people are in the right places...I doubt I was the only one.

Areas to Improve / Missed Opportunities
Use Player Information Better - Player data and registration info needs to be better leveraged and paired with technology to reduce delays and lines. It boggles my mind to see long registration lines and long lines of people waiting in a queue for chips and a seating assignment. For large field events, it seems to be a very laborious and staff heavy process that could be more automated and free up those waiting for seats to go get lunch / play blackjack / literally do anything other than stand in line clogging up space in the halls. I know other venues use numbering to try to give players some sense of how soon their turn will be to sit, but even that seems antiquated. Given that this is an every year issue at this point, I hope WSOP will invest in / partner with a platform that would give players an option to get notified through an app (etc) of their place in the queue. This really shouldn't be hard in an era when we get notified that our table is ready at a restaurant, our flight is boarding, our car is here, etc etc.

Require Online Registration (or Heavily Incentivize It) - Everyone (or nearly so) has a smart phone at this point. For large field events at least, WSOP should require players to utilize TBIC/Bravo/Fastrac system (and simplify and make the system easier to use if possible as well). It's not enough that it's available - it should be standard. This would help with the data piece above as well. For the stragglers that can't be bothered to download an app and register, charge them a higher reg fee to offset the added staff cost and incentivize behavior (perhaps reduced at off-peak hours).

Player Engagement - It would be great if WSOP would engage players more to make the experience more fun/exciting and like the bucket list item it is for many in the field (not just for the ME). The hype-up music at the start is fun, but after that there wasn't much to speak of. The Guy Fieri interruption on Day 1B was...something. That's not it. Yes, you can go buy a shirt or other stuff in the shop. It just seems like there is more that could be done here than putting up a few places to take staged photos. The gold chip protector for breaking the ME record was a nice touch, but it served to highlight that there really should be something like that every year and on Day 1.

Agreed on all counts.

Maybe they can try staggering the breaks by section, or by “side of the ballroom”, though that would likely be a logistical challenge. However, there are already similar challenges in shuffling people from one venue to the other, so it’s probably doable with some planning.

Unfortunately I don’t know what the WSOP can do about the hallway besides a major construction project. That hotel needs some work done, but I doubt it will be at the behest of the WSOP.

As for toilets, again, not sure much can be done besides providing access to outdoor portable toilets. Have fun in one of those when it’s 110 outside.

As for food, the locations right in the vicinity of the WSOP are typically going to be crowded during breaks. However, between Horseshoe/Paris/Ph/Cromwell/Grand Bazzaar all of which are within a 5-10 minute walk, there are tons of options. And significantly more than at the Rio, so this remains a major plus for the strip location.

They are never going to remove any slot machines to make things more comfortable. That being said, I don’t understand why that hallway was built so narrow given that it leads to a fairly large conventions space. But if we are being fair, the Rio hallway wasn’t exactly spacious and there was the same congestion during breaks there. I just don’t think any of these locations were designed for people to enter/exit all at the same time. It makes one wonder about the fire codes, but you have to assume it’s all up to snuff.

The one thing that is an absolute must is for them to fix the elevator situation in the Horseshoe. This has been a problem in that hotel for years, but it is especially exacerbated during the WSOP. There is no excuse to have 50% or less capacity of working elevators. That is a major safety issue IMO and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were in some sort of violation on occasion when there’s only one or two elevators working. And of course, this year all of the elevators malfunctioned at one point causing a huge problem for the WSOP and everyone staying at that hotel. I honestly don’t understand why this has not been addressed long ago. It’s the sort of thing which can and should get people fired.

Agreed about the info. For example, I had no idea that the TBIC account was single withdrawl only until the counter agent happened to tell me after I deposited. The rule makes sense, but it’s a big deal, and may sway people’s decision. I shouldn’t have to wait till after depositing for this important info to be made known. Frankly there should have been a sign right next to “TBIC deposits/withdrawals” which said something to the effect of withdrawl frequency being limited. It also should be spelled out in the instructions on the website.

As for tech upgrades, the casino industry tends to be behind when it comes to this kind of thing, which is surprising considering how much money there is to invest. I think that is probably because of two reasons. Casino execs tend to be old-school thinkers and there is so much regulation surrounding the industry that they have to jump through a lot more hoops to innovate.

But yes, investing in a modern registration/seat-assignment system would pay enormous dividends. The only question I have is… does the WSOP have the incentive? Record crowds keep showing up despite the logistical headaches.

As long as cash transactions rule, online will never be mandated.

I don’t think it would be legal for them to charge a higher fee for regular registration, but I’m not certain. In any case, until the **** show week of Colossus/Weriors/777/Mini-Main, I actually didn’t think the regular registration lines were all that bad this year. I missed the Monster-Stack, so I don’t know what things were like for that, but I was there for pretty much the rest of the series. On occasion, there were long lines in the morning (particularly on the last flights), but it didn’t seem nearly as bad as it has been in years past. I think more people *are* registering online and at off-peak hours to avoid the crunch. What caused the mayhem on some days, IMO, were people late-regging and re-entering. This process could definitely use an upgrade. And it’s in the WSOP’s interest to do so since they would get more entries if the process were more efficient.

I used the TBIC account for the first time this year and it was convenient at times, particularly to quickly re-enter. But the seating assignment process was the bottleneck in most cases, not simply registering.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I feel like some of the stuff they do to interrupt tournaments is unnecessary. These tournament days are long. And they tend to have unplanned delays. I would rather they do stuff like ring ceremonies, or special videos, etc before the start of the events, rather than during them. I know they want an audience, but so many of these events don’t start on time because of one thing or another. Better to plan that stuff for at least 15 minutes before the scheduled start. There are plenty of people there early.

They can't do that because of the tournament clock. What if you're playing and 500 people are on break. Then you bust. 500 people didn't have to put anything at risk, but get to come back from break with a smaller field, and maybe a pay jump.

Ever been to a convention? People don't all arrive or leave at the same time. I've attended over a dozen conventions at Bally's, and the hallways always seemed adequately wide to me.

The location doesn't work for that like it did for Rio. It's a long way from the convention areas to outside. What they can do is fix things when they break. They can do it between midnight and 9 am. It would be expensive though, and we're talking about one of the cheapest entities there is, the WSOP. The only one I can think of that's cheaper is Eldorado.

Again, cheap owners who love to defer maintenance.

Cheap owners are the biggest hurdle. It would cost millions to develop, and probably two years. Plus a million for new hardware and infrastructure.

It would be ridiculous. I don't have a smart phone, will never have a smart phone. People just arriving have not had the time to do all the crap you have to do to deposit. I think that's why the Mini Main line was so long. They can't reg the night before if they're not in town.

Sure it would be great to do an ach transfer the day before you arrive for all your tournaments. The dealers check ID's so they won't have to worry about impersonators. But they don't have that technology, and are unlikely to acquire it any time soon.

Lol I give them an A-

But I think I base my grading on reasonable expectations in that I don’t think you could have brought on another team that could have performed much better. Get aggressive with offerings which is what players want and sometimes there might be a delay. I experienced some of those delays but it was all good.

There is massive variance when dealing with projections on how many people show up for an event as well as how fast the field collapses.

There are limiting constraints here, the dealers probably the most key. They can’t grow them like Christmas trees in the back. I’m sure they hired as many as they could.

I mostly stick to cash games and think the situation was much approved since the past year.

I find it very difficult to blame the WSOP for whatever plumbing problems may have gone on at Horseshoe, at least in terms of what we are critiquing here.

Kudos to the WSOP crew!

You might be able to stagger breaks on a Day 1 though on something like the Collossus and then somehow join them back together at end of dinner

But players want big fields, big prize pools, but you just can’t make people disappear.

So unless we start having these things in airplane hangers dealing with some crowds is just part of the work involved if you wish to participate in a chance to turn $400 into 500K

If you don’t want crowds you can go play at one of various other tournaments on Strip where your $400 can at most turn into 40K or whatever

Can someone explain how the TBIC account works and is it worth it for someone who plays 4-5 low buy-in NLHE events (4-10 bullets) over a 6 day period? I late registered every event and the longest I waited in line was like 5 minutes (which wasn't the case a year ago when I had to wait 20+ minutes once).

Is it as simple as 1) going to TBIC counter and handing them all my buy-ins worth of cash or pulling that amount from my checking or a credit card then 2) each time I want to buy-in I click the event from the brovo app and then 3) go to one of those machines outside of the cashier to pick up my ticket that says to go to late registration?

I don't want to play the first 2-3 levels of any of any event - does that mean registering the night before is a no-go for me unless I want my stack in play at the start of the event? If I register 1 minute into the start of the event can I still go get my ticket 2 hours later and get a full stack?

I don't really think we are grading on the same rubric here.

I agree with you that tournament and cash game officials (that is to say career poker personell) are good to excellent for the most part. Though this crucial group was also a bit understaffed.

But it's far from enough to make up for poor planning AND let's call it what it is - stinginess/greed on allocated resources/budget. The way I see it, an A grade was impossible before the event started.

Furthermore, I don't share your view that higher numbers than expected justified the extent of the problem. There are many different systems of modular planning that could do a better job adjusting for a wide range of attendees. More importantly, planning should have also been more dynamic, to mitigate for problems in the less favorable or least expected scenarios. This didn't happen - or you wouldn't have issues like satelites to the ME being restricted at the last minute.

I think it's also important to note that even when tournaments were routinely overbooked the WSOP didn't want to commit to a lower number of entrants, even if it would mantain a higher quality of product. While this is a complicated subject, I view this as poor business practice.

I also think the dealer hiring and management had more problems than you realize.

But circling back to my earlier point - I think most of the major problems were entirely on upper management.

A- suggests a pretty good experience with small room for improvement. I think the experience is more accurately described as barely satisfactory with major improvement required if you don't want your brand to detiorate.

Yes it is worth it, and yes it is as simple as you outlined, except you also have to get verified the first time, which only took me 5 minutes this last year. It's in the same room as the payouts. The TBIC min was $2500.

If you register before the event, your stack is in play from the start. If you reg after the event starts, the ticket you print out at the kiosk will say late reg and you'll get in the late reg line.

We will just have to agree to disagree.

I always have a good experience at the WSOP and always amazed at how well oiled that machine is with such a large mass of numbers and moving parts.

But if someone wants to play in a tournament with 7K runners on a Day 1 and expect to sign up that morning line free or not have lines for bathrooms sure they might be unhappy. But I would consider them unreasonable.

And I’ve had to wait for tournaments to start and/or go play cash games elsewhere due to over capacity. Just comes with the territory in a big event. Any big event with crowds like with sports or concerts is going to be accompanied with some inconveniences. It’s just the nature of the beast.

The brand is fantastic, one would argue it’s never been better.

We’re talking about early day 1 breaks when the fields are huge, not anywhere near pay jumps. And like I said, it would be a challenge. But by holding the event in two different rooms fairly far apart, we are already used to dealing with different participants playing what are almost two different events. The clocks are often nowhere near synchronized.

I mentioned this in my comments. The convention spaces are definitely not designed with something like the WSOP in mind. However, that hallway at the Horseshoe still seems narrower than it ought to be.

There are doors to the outside right next to the Horseshoe ballrooms. Not sure how much space is out there, but if they wanted to have some sort of outdoor area like they had at Rio, the probably could. But, of course the weather makes things difficult.

Universal cashless transactions are probably a lot closer than one would think. We see that everywhere in society, and though casinos will be late adopters, anti-money laundering and other laws will probably push them to it.

Companies like PayPal, Apple and X, etc. will basically be the only way to pay for stuff. At that point, you will need to rely on technology to move money, whether it’s shopping or buying into poker tournaments.

I agree the WSOP has not seemed eager to improve their logistics through technology. Bravo is a step up from purely in-person transactions, but it is not a very good system compared to the state of the art.

I, too, am skeptical about the WSOP moving forward. This is sort of why I am glad to see the WPT starting to make some waves. Competition drives process improvement.

I think what you describe here is pretty spot on, though I have never “late-regged” an event through bravo. I have re-regged, which should be pretty much the same. You can register at any time through bravo and then go print your tickets when you are ready to play. The only things I would add are the min deposit is $2500 (as of this year), you can deposit as many times as you like, but you can withdraw only once.

One thing you may want to confirm (or perhaps someone can comment on):

I assume the stuff about when your stack goes in play is based on when you get your seat assignment, not when you register. Obviously these things happen at the same time when registering in person. But if you register online and print your tickets later, that second event is what drives the stack question, as well as whether you get an actual seat, or are sent to a separate late reg line. If this weren’t true it would seem like people could easily take advantage. But this needs to be confirmed. I used the account this summer and a couple of times I regged an event early in the morning. However, each time I went to print my tickets immediately rather than waiting a few hours for the event to begin. I didn’t want to be an alternate and assumed I would be if I waited.

The clocks are purposely nonsynchronized. It's so when they break players from Horseshoe to Paris (or the other away around) don't lose anytime. It approximates the time it takes to walk in a big group plus the wait. It also has the effect of staggering the breaks and dinner times.


The doors outside the Horseshoe Ballroom were open in 2022 which had an outdoor smoking area.
But for whatever reason in 2023, it was deemed emergency exit and security were posted to prevent people from using them.

Most WPT casinos use the same system as WSOP, bravo with much the same line and late reg process. It's just not as big of a deal because they're smaller and have lesss events. WPT doesn't actually run the events, its the casinos and whatever outside TDs/dealers they might hire.

TBIC: late reg is same as re-reg and it was confirmed multiple times by Kevmath that the seat (or late reg) was when you registered, not when you printed the seat. So preregistering and not showing up for an hour would result in stack being blinded off.

Thanks

Thanks for all the responses.

I hear you on the complexity. To me, you either address the problem by trying to better manage the crowds or more bathrooms/food/etc. or both. There are air conditioned temp bathroom trailers that exist in this world...

At any rate, my point in raising is to say this is an issue, and it's only going to get worse as demand continues to grow from the player pool in terms of field sizes. Speaking as a recreational player, I'm only going to show up if I have a good experience. If it's painful and annoying, it's less fun and not worth the expense/time/etc. At that point, maybe I plan my next trip around a WPT or other event as others have mentioned. I don't particularly care if it was worse in past years at the Rio. The move to the strip and the emphasis on growing fields and improving the player experience is all fantastic. Two years in, there's a lot to recommend what WSOP and Caesars have done in making those moves. Now, continue to build on that long-term by investing a more scalable approach that can accommodate field sizes larger still than this year. Clearly the demand is there if they can do what is necessary to supply it.



That is nuts. I had no idea. It should be simpler and faster to deposit money. As someone who HATES paying fees, I'm never going to use a credit card and the wire options are expensive or require significant advance timing. My career is such that I'm not going to wire money a few weeks ahead of time and risk the pain-in-the-ass factor associated with trying to get the money wired back if I have to cancel the trip out to LV. So I end up just carrying large amounts of cash (which I hate doing for the obvious reasons) and then having to deposit at the tournament cage. Wires should be able to process in a day or two tops. In a perfect world, there would be player accounts that you could access online through wsop.com and just link to venmo/paypal/etc. WSOP doesn't need to become a bank, but let's not pretend Caesars is a neophyte at handling funds either.

It's a question of opportunity cost. It's clear the demand is there across the board. Is it worth the cost (amortized over future years) to architect solutions to these issues and scale the WSOP infrastructure to permit them to accommodate continued growth? Depends, of course. I would think, though, that it would be pretty odd to move to the strip, market the hell out of the WSOP, and see such success and growth and then turn around and decide this is as big as it can be. I can't see them resting on their laurels.


100% agree. The staff crushed it in moving players into seats as quickly as possible. Just need to better manage the crowd waiting for seats by using virtual queues or another solution to ensure people aren't standing in line for hours creating a nuisance both for those in line and everyone else.


100% agree here as well. The interruptions are unnecessary and are NOT what I was meaning to suggest be added/extended. The Guy Fieri thing was obnoxious and came out of nowhere. Same with the Hellmuth entrance. Ring ceremonies bother me less, but even here, it seemed pretty half-ass to do a ceremony over the loudspeaker and not show it on the TV screens. Just suggesting that touches like the commemorative coin/card protector are welcome and should be standard for the Main at minimum. Playing in the WSOP is an EXPERIENCE for many and not just another poker tournament. Treat it like that since that's what differentiates the WSOP from other events.

Lol at big construction project to increase size of hallway or air conditioned trailers for bathrooms

Crowds are an inconvenience but can be managed. Leave with around 1min on clock and you’ll probably be in bathroom with no line. I never did but was still able to just wait in a quick moving line right across the hallway and still made it back in plenty of time.

Food is another issue but you can plan ahead and bring something with you. But with so many options within 10 min walk it’s doubtful that would need to be done, but you could

But dealing with a few minor inconveniences such as maybe having to walk at a smaller pace down a hallway is part of the process for the chance to turn $400 into 500K.

Also know that there is a $3 charge for each event you use your TBIC account via the Bravo app.

This year I cashed in the super senior event and put in money for the mini main and the main but I left out the $6 which they never told me I needed. So after the mini-main I had to deposit $6 into the TBIC account in person (which they let me do).

In my opinion it is worth doing because you can register online once you have deposited your money into TBIC. If you use a credit card there is a 3% charge (which for me is just 1.5% because of cashback on my credit card).

In my opinion its a mistake not to play in the first 2-3 levels of all of the events. The worst players typically bounce early and it is a great opportunity to pick up some of their chips.

If nothing can be done about the hallway, then nothing can be done. But I mentioned at least one thing which could be tried in staggering the breaks.

The hallways situation isn’t really a minor inconvenience. It’s a safety hazard and also just eats up a lot of time in the breaks. Folks at the WSOP should try to see if the situation can be improved without a major construction project.