As I have previously stated there was no decision to pay the top 6%. My intention was to pay out 10%. It has been discussed previously in this thread how I screwed up. Won't happen again after this series. 10% is the way to go.

As far as what you heard me saying to another player: You are totally misquoting me and misrepresenting what I said. And I DO NOT appreciate this. Whether you heard the entire conversation or not is unclear but your intentions are what I believe to be malicious.
I was explaining to the player that I made a mistake to go up to only a max of 800+ players on the payout sheet when I had Parx file for the payout structure two months ago. I never dreamed of 1361 entries. I then said but as it turns out I had many players tell me they prefer this payout structure because if they re-entered once or twice they could still profit small with a min cash. I never said I thought it was better or that it was my 'decision' as you put it to pay out only 81 players. All I can tell you is that it will be 10% in the future because that is what the majority would like.

Here is a copy of the payout structure based on # of entrants.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...mc&usp=sharing

If you would like a complete explanation as you say I am at Parx all week for the rest of the series and you are welcome to talk to me face to face and relay the entire conversation on here.
Your complaint doesn't lie with the PA gaming agency. Your complaint lies with you not understanding the process.

I have provided you with the payout structure in a previous post so that you may see how the anticipated number of players has to do with it. I simply misjudged the number of entrants - by a lot!

Why it has never been a problem at any other casino in PA? Thats because we broke records by leaps and bounds with this turnout over any previous poker tournament held in PA. Isn't that obvious?

This entire statement from beginning to end is absurd. Please tell us your real name on here and or come see me face to face so that we can discuss this entire post.

You are publicly questioning my integrity by saying "it makes my mind wonder if there were other motives" and "Something stinks". I don't even feel the need to defend myself here. I will leave it to other posters and members of the poker community to make you aware of my track record and reputation in the industry. Ask around. Let me know how that goes!


And lastly jriiikk, see you at Big Stax II.

Still here at 3:40am Weeeeeeeee

Matt great posts and very good work from the two day 1s i played. Keep it up and the place is sure to become a staple on the circuit. Also ill say i love how the clubhouse feels as compared to the Convention Center at the Borg. They're entirely different but good in their own right.

Ill make sure to say hi for the next series.

Let me just say this - for you to insinuate anything SHADY about Matt shows how clueless you are buddy. This man has 1 of the best reputations in the whole poker community and you can take that to the bank!!!

To be quite honest, your 2 posts on here speak volumes about YOUR CHARACTER because if you have read Matt's Parx Blog and intro to the series - you would know that Matt has ALWAYS made himself available to discuss suggestions/concerns. Instead of taking to a forum to hurl untrue accusations you could have called Parx yourself and spoken to him.

You are way out of line and imo you owe him a big apology.

Sir, this is just wrong on many fronts. It is a personal unfounded attack, but I can understand you are upset. But you have made inferences and mistakes in your judgement of Matt's part of this, and that is wrong. And to put it out in public forum to start is also not good, slander. You could have dealt with this properly and done better. You are wrong, and then you make it personal. I can say one of the great things of this series and several others Matt has been involved in, no matter who you are, if you have a problem, go to the podium, and he will be there for you momentarily. Some players find it comforting having a players advocate right there, and at Parx, Matt happens to be one of the best you can ask for, for the players. Please sir, come introduce yourself and get the right information. But if a personal attack, come see me and we can discuss it with Uncle Junior and Pauly Boy out back at the horse stables, Id love to earn my bones as the caddy for #TeamAllenBerry introducing you to structure/payout sheets and proper behavior....this part is a joke, but so are your insinuations.
Bob
@eebob2072

Wait, I don't get it...why wouldn't Matt be allowed to post here anymore?

I was really surprised that there were so many players to begin day 2 and that they were only paying the top 6%. Being as I reached the money after only 1 entry, it worked out for me. But I almost bubbled around 90th place, and woulda been pretty pissed, considering I've never seen less than a 10% payout in a poker tournament of this size.

Also the "playing down to 27 people" idea was prrretty absurd. It's not really fair to the players to be able to sleep less than 8 hours after a 16 hour day of grinding, with the most important day on the horizon.

Ill be back for the $550 tomorrow. This is a fun series.

I believe Matt may have been speaking to my wife. She backs what Matt said 100%. We support you Matt!

I got home about 4:45am and had 2 kids waking me up jumping on me at 8:30am lol, then leaving my house at 11:30 today.

Anyway GL to any other 2+2ers in top 27.

No Matt, I will not be back to Parx for a long long time if ever. I know it will wear off but I don't even want to play poker right now. To finish better than 7% in such a tough field and not get anything has me sour about the game.

You say I do not understand the process and your right, I do not. Your incomplete explanations make no sense to me and I was asking for clarification. If the state is making you guess how many players in order to provide a payout instead of letting you tell them that you will pay 10% then there is something wrong with they way the state is doing things. Its an easy thing to just blame the government though which is why I was wanting an in depth explanation from you. As of now you just sound like a guy with over 3 million in lifetime earnings who couldn't fathom a $330 buy in meaning something to an individual.

As far as everyone else who thinks me asking for a clarification on how something that is so standard could go so wrong is an attack on Matt's character I would just say stop being so star struck. Its a fair question and "oh well, I screwed up" is not a fair answer. Maybe PARX or Matt could have done something out of their own pockets for the people who finished 82-130 if it really was a casino screw up.

I said what I had to say. My next call is to the state to see if they can explain the process and if they problem lies with them hopefully I as a lowly casual player can begin to fix the process. Maybe I can report back if anyone is interested.

Sounds like Parx is putting on a great tournament, unfortunately unable to get over this month. However even if I could not sure I would want to play.
I am a casual poker player, go to the Parx once a month and other casinos once a month. So i play maybe 20-25 tournaments a year. It is difficult for me to play 16 hours a day. I undertand that this may not be the tournament for me and I get that. I would love to see if I am good enought to play in multi day tournament. So if the Parx (Matt that I never met) is interested in getting more casual players. i have the following suggestion and wonder if it good work. Rather than have day 1 and day 2 and day 3, if you had group A and group B play the same day separately for only 12 hours (10 would be even better) then you combined the groups the following day. So smaller groups less time needed. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

The mods at 2+2 basically just had to get my affiliation with Parx straight and other business stuff. Minor issues that we got cleared up in less than a day. All good.

At this point, you're just being a dick. Get a life. YOU're just mad because YOU bubbled and YOU wanted money and YOU seem to think Parx owes YOU something because a mistake was made on the inaugural run of a [fantastic] tournament series. You're not the only one who played for 13 or 16 hours and bubbled, but you are the only one who feels robbed or is making a big deal about it. If you are taking a mistake so personally, how do you get along in life?

Matt and Parx - Awesome tournament. A $73K+ first prize for a $330 buy-in is incredible value. The staff, dealers and poker room are top notch, and the deal with InnPlace for a $70 hotel room you can walk to from the poker room makes it even better. Living in Virginia, I have to drive at least 4 hours to play live poker, and that means going to Hollywood in WV, or Dover Downs or Harrington's. I will now be driving the extra hour and 15 minutes to go play at Parx. I also look forward to future BigStax series! Great job!

Totally agree. Day 2 went way too long. After this series we will evaluate everything and try to do better for the next one. It is hard to have such a great structure in 3 total days with 1300+ entries. But, we are still going to do our best to manage it and learn from our mistakes.

I am not sure what you are suggesting with the groups playing at the same time but open to any ideas all the time.

Why does everyone else I spoke to feel it is a full explanation and you do not? I am asking again, do you have a real name? The fact that you are a first time poster and will not give your real name I have to think that you might not be an actual player but just one of our competitors trying to stir up trouble. I will take you more seriously if you private message me and give me your real name so that I can see you are actually a customer that played in the event.

Cliff notes:
We intended to pay out around 10% of the field. We had no idea we would ever get such a huge turnout. In the past we were thrilled to get 500-600 players for any event. We had a payout sheet submitted to the state that had a max of 81 spots cashing. So that means even if for some reason we had 3000 entrants we would only being paying out 81 spots. When we saw the turnout on day 1a it was way too late to submit another payout sheet to the state. Things do no work that fast. If you look at the payout sheet you can see the last column says 800+ entrants.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...=sharing#gid=0

Obviously it is an easy fix for future events and we will take care of it.

Good to hear. Looking forward to checking this series out in the next day or two



For all those complaining about things: this is their first major series like this and seem to be doing what they can to fix things in the future. Instead of bitching, constructive criticism goes a lot further.

I didn't play the 300, but I agree that 16 hours is def too long to play for a day. Matt, want to know how to get a good structured 1300 person tourney finished in 3 days? Easy: you can't. You have to sacrifice structure at some point, or make it 4 days. Perhaps make levels 50 minutes on day 1 and 75 minutes on day 2, then 90 on day 3? Will help speed it up somewhat

matt - you should run a MAY series. That would be great so it doesn't interfere with Borgata's April and June series

For me, having to play more than 13 hours a day discourages me from playing in a tournament. I specifically look for tournaments that have fixed ending times (levels).

A good structure is appealing to most, but for me and many other players, it is more important to have reasonable start/end times each day.

To me this means starting at 11am or noon, having a dinner break, and ending by 1am - 2am each day at the latest. That is a good "structure".

hope to see you at the next one Matt, and everybody.

Yeah, our goal is to end up with 11am-2am time frame. Gotta figure it out by trial and error and keep improving towards that goal.

For the Big Stax 300 all day 1s were 11am -12:30am and day 2 was 12pm - 3:30am. We can work on smoothing that out for next time.

hoping to do just that.

Tacking it on to the end of the WSOPC at Philly (even though that didn't get a great turnout last year) might work well

11am to 2am is a looonnnng day. i would suggest 11am to 12pm or 1am....OR 12pm to 1am or 2am

Matt,

Just out of curiosity, the schedule (PDF) had day 2 ending after level 23 (unless you were down to 9). Why did it change to level 24 (or down to 27 players), adding an extra 105 minutes to the day?

Thanks again for a great tournament (even if i didn't cash)!