Borgata frequently does stuff like sun-thurs for multiflight and they do fine. Got incredible numbers pre covid and now post covid doing great still. Wynn won't have any issues, people will take a second poker vacation of the year for this.

There's been some interviews that Adam Pliska and Ryan Beauregard had done why they did with the schedule, freeroll, no gtd on places like pokernews podcast, onlyfriends podcast and others.

I’m sure they will do”fine”. But “fine” could be a 40% drop in entries from last year. I’d be curious to hear Ryan’s explanation. Do you have access to a link?

As for the vacation idea, that remains to be seen. But I don’t see it. I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Vegas in December. Outside of things like the Rodeo and an occasional convention, it’s a dead time of year. This is why Wynn is even able to hold a major series in this timeframe. Less demand for the space.

That being said, there’s no reason I can see why they couldn’t have held the Prime championship the weekend of the 7th. Just very odd.

But maybe I’ll be proven wrong. We’ll see.

https://x.com/LVPokerBeau/status/1840157440152854626

You don't think an $1100 with a 5M guarantee appeals to recs? I'm a rec, and I'm playing it.

I’m prepared to believe they will have less space this year. I’m just wondering if that is the case on the weekend of the 8th. If they won’t be using the ballroom at all that weekend, then ok, the Wynn, or whoever took the space, put the kibash on it.

Still, they are using a weekend for this gimmick freeroll event. I have to imagine they will have the ballroom for that. And so, they are hurting the Prime Championship in order to run what is essentially a promotion for their paid website. That would be disappointing, not to mention what it might portend for the WSOP now that it’s being driven by an online poker site.

I’m all for technological innovation. But live poker doesn’t need to become a vessel for companies to encourage people to blow all their money online.

Mid-week tournaments don’t appeal to recs, by definition. That doesn’t mean there will be no recs. There will just be fewer, and I think potentially far fewer than there would be otherwise. This will still be a massive prizepool. Just not nearly as big as last year or as big as it could have been IMO.

I don't think you can speak for all recs. Recs are not a monolith. They have different levels of flexibility and income.

I wouldn't assume that what's right for me is what's right for everyone. Different strokes.

Personally, if I know I want to engage with a series, I can make weekdays work. There's even usually a latent perk of lower room rates Sun-Thu.

And while I don't claim to speak for everyone, the type of people willing to drop several thousand $$$ on poker tournaments can probably free up a few days here and there when needed. I don't think the majority of the audience for these big Wynn series is going to be locked into a tight Fri-Sun timeframe. FWIW, last year's Prime bled into Monday for anyone who made day 2. Day 3 was on a Tuesday. If someone was playing that event with the intention of running deep, they had to be prepared to miss some weekdays.

I’m a rec and I am making the series for the prime event. It’s usually a big guarantee/prize pool for the buy-in and a favorable structure. I generally go to Vegas twice a year during WSOP and wpt. And I agree with the above…for a pure recreational/low volume player, I have zero issues taking a few days off work and enjoying a week in Vegas.

I am also personally excited for wpt gold. I mostly play online on Sundays and bigger prize pools with lower buy-ins is super appealing to a lot of recreational players. As long as their security is better than ACR and their software/app is better than global poker, it will be a huge success. I do hope I get into the free roll, too.

I think many recreational players are more ok with taking time off if they know they are in the money. That will not remotely be the case this year.

Anyhow, I’m not speaking for anybody. Nor am I saying what is right. I’m saying that rec players, by definition, don’t play poker for a living. That means they do something else for a living. And that means they do not have the opportunity to play mid weak as readily as a professional poker player. This is why the WSOP holds a featured event every WEEKEND.

This is all self-evident. The WPT Prime Championship event will get fewer participants than it would if it were held over a weekend. The only question is why did they make decision. We will have to wait and see what the logistics are that weekend of the 8th. If the ballroom is being used for something else, then that would explain it. But if it’s not, this will remain a curious decision no matter what effect it does or does not have on any single individual’s plans.

For my part, I plan to be there. But will only have one bullet to fire (Sunday) as opposed to a possible 3 if it were Fri-Sun.

I know I’m not all recs, but if a major event has starting days of Sunday/Monday or Sun/Mon/Tues, I don’t bother considering it. Having to take an extra day or two at the end if a deep run happens is massively better than having to take days off to play day 1s. I ceased going to Borgata mains for this exact reason-there are too many other series with schedules friendly to a working man’s schedule.

It looks like the Amazon ReInvent convention is being held in Vegas Dec 2-6 and the Wynn is one of the venues. It's usually a week after Thanksgiving and this year the holiday is late. I think this explains the scheduling. I still wish they had used the weekend of the 13th-15th for the WPT Prime instead of the freeroll. But who knows, maybe they won't even have access to the ballroom at all this year.

Anyone know if a non American/Canadian citizen can qualify for the freeroll? I do have a US proof of address though.

Does anyone know the wpt Wynn series but-in options? Is there an app we can load funds on and buy into events online?

Numbers are in. The Prime got 5,805 entries for flights A-C + 2,409 currently in flight D = 8,214 entries for this year.

Significant drop from last last year's total of 10,512, but still a strong turnout. If I'm not mistaken this will still be the biggest $1.1k in the world this year.

Personally, after talking big game about how mid-week flights aren't a problem, I ended up ducking most of this WPT series, partially because I didn't want to take time off work. I got some really cheap flights/rooms for the weekend before Xmas, so will pop in and play 1-2 events before the series is over.

I do think the turnout still looks really good though. It's clear that lots of people are traveling to play this series. At this point Wynn is becoming a huge brand in poker, which is great for us with the WSOP's long-term future clouded by the GG acquisition.

Reg is still open for another hour. Its over 9500 entries. So not that significant. <10% drop for no weekend flights shows people will still come and play.

9670 entries final number. Only an 8% drop off and I heard lines were massive on the last day which was midweek Wednesday.

$1100 B/I with 9670 runners !!

That’s a great tournament attendance!!

The guarantee of 5 million was smashed by a mile !!

The prize pool. $9,379,000 !!!

Yep. I was 100% wrong about the effect the schedule would have on turnout for this event. Still not sure why it couldn’t be on the weekend since they do have the ballroom. But either way, it was a massive turnout. Live poker is alive and well. I suspect things should be good for the WSOP this year. Long-term… who knows. I don’t think Caesar’s has to agree to hold it. If someone else comes along and wants that space, the WSOP could be looking for a new home.

No way to quantify this, but based on the people I heard talking about the prime event, the field may not have been significantly impacted as far as entries, but the player quality is like up from last year.

I think Caesars would love to have WSOP at their properties. On average, 5-10 thousand extra players visit WSOP every day .

I think there must be on sale agreement that Caesars has right to have WSOP in their properties.

Caesars has the right to hold it. Doesn’t mean they have to. I’m not sure what GG’s arrangement is via payment, but If someone else comes along with a better deal for that space, they’ll take it.

There were a lot of crushers left in day 2. My day 1 table was as soft as could be. I rebuilt a stack 4 different times. Having the Triton and WSOP both running events has to help soften the Prime field.