WSOP at its worst

I agree with you about the shorthanded starts. I played a $1500 event where we started with 3, 4th came after 10 minutes or so but it was an hour or so before we had a full table of 6. One feels penalized for being on time. Unfortunately the alternative of starting with full tables means people will get moved around a lot when they need to open new tables. Just when you are getting comfortable with your opponents you can get moved. Used to be that if it was a noon start players showed up at noon or close to it. Miss those days.

As to the shot clock some short stacked players were said to be stalling for as long as 15 minutes hoping to get a pay jump before busting. By the 7th day a jump was worth $20k plus so you can understand why but it is unfair to the other tables. Going hand for hand at each pay jump would be excruciatingly boring so shot clock was the option they went with.

WSOP is a remarkably well run event but the shot clock may have been an overreaction. But something had to be done and their hand was forced.

Regarding the shorthanded tables most of it is due to the fact that most players don't show up on time. Not sure what the WSOP can do about that. One thing you can do though is register a few minutes after it starts. Would think that on average you may be at a table with more people since you are person for which the app is saving room

This is precisely the problem. By starting play 4-handed, and putting stacks in play for players that register and "sit in" before the start time, but not for players who wait until just after the start time, the WSOP is incentivizing players to wait. So the problem just gets worse as players try to figure out the right balance between avoiding short-handed play and missing early deep-stacked levels. We shouldn't have to do that, and I agree that it sucks. I didn't experience anything quite so bad as still being 6-handed 2 hours in, but even just the first level an be awkward playing a lot of hands 5-handed.

As for the shot clock, I'm happy they implemented it. It made the final couple days of the ME stream watchable. I really don't find it a big deal to have to manage time cards, and while it may temporarily throw off a rec player who's never had to use them before, I don't think it takes long to figure it out and adjust. Deeb and D-Negs (in a very rare agreement between those two) both made sound arguments for why the unlimited time actually helped pros more than recs, so in the end I really don't think it's a big deal. Fortunately WSOP clearly put it in the rules that they reserved the right to add it and they did it before the start of the day. Seems to me it was very well handled, given their hands were forced by the absurd 15-minute tank that occurred.

There's no getting around the "problem'" as the issue simply is that not everyone wants what the OP wants; a full table or close to it on level 1 playing 300BB deep. Some people play many events and don't want to play super long hours every day. Or even if they want to and plan on it, show up late often like rest of the world tends to in their endeavors.

Have only played a few events but you can see the other tables, and by end of 2nd most are missing just one player.

To answer the OP's question, I think it's just him that "WSOP is a bad run event". What they pull off every year is a logistic marvel and the App is great. 20K fields going off without a hitch.

Maybe we should all just start late registering and see what happens.

There's no getting around the "problem'" as the issue simply is that not everyone wants what the OP wants; a full table or close to it on level 1 playing 300BB deep. Or even if they want to and plan on it, show up late often like rest of the world tends to in their endeavors.

Have only played a few events but you can see the other tables, and by end of 2nd most are missing just one player.

To answer the OP's question, I think it's just him that "WSOP is a bad run event". What they pull off every year is a logistic marvel and the App is great. 20K fields going off without a hitch.

Why

Why ? pick the one you like -

1. so everyone starts even
2. to demonstrate that the late regers are taking advantage of the folks that show up on time.
3. because there wouldn't be a tournament if the sponsors had to wait 4 or 5 hours for it to get started.

There's no getting around the "problem'" as the issue simply is that not everyone wants what the OP wants; a full table or close to it on level 1 playing 300BB deep. Or even if they want to and plan on it, show up late often like rest of the world tends to in their endeavors.

Have only played a few events but you can see the other tables, and by end of 2nd most are missing just one player.

To answer the OP's question, I think it's just him that "WSOP is a bad run event". What they pull off every year is a logistic marvel and the App is great. 20K fields going off without a hitch.

Why

Lol I'll play along for a tiny bit

What do you mean everyone starts even If you want outlaw late reg completely go ahead but prize pools would be tiny and those fists would be shaking

Late reggers are not taking advantage of people who show up on time. This doesn't even make sense. It can only be worth it for themselves based upon their own personal utility function but from your perspective they are not taking away from your EV. And if we are talking about a skilled player having him come in late as opposed to on time increases your EV.

There's no real problem that needs to be fixed. Early on you might play a little shorthanded but against players that are weaker. But then it fills up after a few levels.

There's no getting around the "problem'" as the issue simply is that not everyone wants what the OP wants; a full table or close to it on level 1 playing 300BB deep. Or even if they want to and plan on it, show up late often like rest of the world tends to in their endeavors.

Have only played a few events but you can see the other tables, and by end of 2nd most are missing just one player.

To answer the OP's question, I think it's just him that "WSOP is a bad run event". What they pull off every year is a logistic marvel and the App is great. 20K fields going off without a hitch.

Why

Lol I'll play along for a tiny bit

What do you mean everyone starts even If you outlaw late reg completely prize pools would be much smaller, it would be inconvenient, and people would be outraged

Late reggers are not taking advantage of people who show up on time. This doesn't even make sense. It can only be worth it for themselves based upon their own personal utility function but from your perspective they are not taking away from your EV. And if we are talking about a skilled player having him come in late as opposed to on time increases your EV.

There's no real problem that needs to be fixed. Early on you might play a little shorthanded but against players that are weaker. But then it fills up after a few levels.

I played in a number of WSOP events this year that had massive amounts of entries. The Colossus $500 had like 4 day 1's at 10am and I think there were also 4:15pm starts each day. Millionaire Maker had a ton of people each day. Mini Main had a lot of people as well.

Every single start at 10:00am had tables with basically 4 or 5 players registered where if people did not show up on time their stacks would be on the table and they would lose some chips (as long as 4 players were actually there but then in the Gladiator it was only 3 that had to be there). One guy in the Colossus showed up at level 2 and didn't realize his stack was on the table (and he had lost about 3,000 chips).

The reason they did this was so that as players filled in they would grow each table at the same rate. So by level 2 the tables would have 8 players (seat 5 was typically empty until a little later).

The problem with doing it differently, as in filling tables extremely early, could be explained by what happens when you entered very late. When I bounced in a tournament that I bought back in and it was a latish level where I would have about 33 blinds or so, I found that they were creating new tables because they didn't have enough open seats for the new people. And when they did that (in the White Section of the Horseshoe) it took a few minutes before 4 people showed up. Once it took about 5 minutes and that was upsetting because it was late and every hand of playing counted.

So basically they were trying to set it up so people coming in after the start wouldn't cause the above problem. They would just be seated at a table already in play. And a lot of people were registering after the start because they didn't want to be penalized for registering early and then not getting there on time.

At most casinos that I have played in around the US there is a similar problem in terms of starting with 4 or 5 players at a table and it getting up to 9 at each table. And yes it happens a little more quickly in other places but still its just life if you want to start at the beginning. I happen to like it a lot because the early players often don't know how to play short handed and opportunities are there to start well.

Also the difference between this WSOP and the WSOP Circuit in recent years is that you almost never have to wait to start playing. At the circuit in Baltimore I had to wait 4 or 5 different tournaments to play the first hand. Once it was 10 minutes. Meanwhile all the other tables had 4 or more people (some even had 7). So it was unbalanced and they wouldn't move people to the short table. The same thing happened in the Horseshoe in Las Vegas. I had to wait 10 minutes to play a first hand while other tables had 5, 6, or 7 people and were all playing. I was told about the circuit (here at this WSOP) that people had registered but they didn't put the stacks on the table until they got there. I actually don't think that was the case. And even if it was, how in the world could they not move a player at a table of 7 people to the short table and move a "registered" player who wasn't there to the table that had 7 players?

^ I hear what you are saying but can't just move players around like that. It should all be completely random and as far as the App is concerned they were balanced

Early on it's all luck of the draw to get a situation you like. And not everyone prefers the same thing. Conceivably someone may love SH play and get three loose passive fish all to yourself for a few levels. Although in my experience after first two levels it's usually filled minus one player.

I don't see any compelling reason to force early tables to start with <=5 players. With WSOP Live management has much greater discretion where seats are assigned. This can be seen when early registering, you are not assigned an actual seat until less than hour before start.

If it is a question of dealers, then simply assign x number of dealers based on registration received y minutes before the event start. For late registrants, they can be queued until a new dealer is assigned to a new table with 7+ new players, or when a seat opens up at an existing table. (which WSOP Live handles very well)

All of the tables have more than 5 players assigned. But there's nothing simple about assigning dealers, how many y minutes do you need to know if you have to work that day

Perhaps they can tweak on the boundaries somewhat resulting in more filled tables on average early on. But I think they error on side of being able to accommodate any amount of numbers.

For past few years everything has been going off without a hitch. Previously I remember long lines waiting for people to bust for people to get in. Tournaments delayed for hours. I've seen none of that recently.

OP's experience was probably lower percentile but still wasn't that bad. They started at 10am and he had a full table by noon.

Of course they can't get dealer assignments perfect. With that in mind hiring an extra dealer or 2 is not going to cut into the profits much. And there are other things that can be done with an extra dealer to mitigate other issues.

But that is not even the issue at hand. WSOP generally does NOT assign full tables at start. This would be the easiest problem to fix. And by fixing that you reduce the need for maximum dealers for at least an hour, maybe 2 hours or more. So WSOP SAVES MONEY by hiring fewer dealers early in an event.

If management can consistently predict at what level ITM hits, they can easily predict the number of tables required x hours into an event. And frankly, queuing a few late registrants with WSOP LIVE should not be an issue anyway.

Generally speaking I don't believe there's a problem to fix and you can't assign full tables at beginning as too many early entrants may be waiting. And then we'd see way more posts complaining about the WSOP, this one was first I've seen critical of any issue of this ilk.

I did mention that perhaps there could be a tweak and fill it just a little more aggressively but since the WSOP is a massive logistical undertaking I tend to trust those with the data and experience. And it has been improving every single year in this regard.

My advice for people who feel like OP is just to register a few minutes late. You are then part of the late flow and on average there should be one extra person than had you entered early.

WSOP deliberately assigns "thin" tables for the first few levels when they don't need to. They hire extra dealers early in an event when they don't need to.

You are masking these issues with supposed benefits of those who show up late and don't have to wait to get a seat because of the over-abundance of open seats.

Late registration is an admitted problem due to the advantage it provides, at the expense of "timely" registrants. That is a problem to be fixed. I don't see a need to incentivize late registration, which is basically what you are doing, directly or not.

Again, there is no compelling reason to assign thin tables to start an event. Even simply assigning 7 players to all the starting tables would be significant improvement.

And, you got 2 open seats to handle those who show up late. Which WSOP should be DISCOURAGING players to do.

And comparing the situation now using WSOP LIVE compared to the era when all the open seats were handled manually is naive at best.

I could walk this through for a typical event which would show you that each table would have 7+ stacks to start at each table, WSOP would SAVE MONEY, and late registrants would not be inconvenienced as much as you think they would.

I don't feel like getting into a long debate with (respectfully) some guy siting on his couch versus the guys who run the WSOP who have stuff you don't know or see, especially since it's so well run and improving all the time.

I'm not even completely disagreeing with you. Seems like they could make it less thin at start. But there's no real issues the way they are doing it now. But you can't plan it for full because if you undershoot then all of a sudden the event is delayed two hours waiting for dealers.

People are registered before the event and you cannot make sure they show up on time. OP got a little unlucky but he had a full table by noon. I've lost track of the problem we want to fix.

This is not rocket science. It is a linear programming problem which can be solved fairly easily using simple constraints and agreed upon goals.

How do you think organizations improve? There is a fairly strong consensus of players who don't like late registration and how WSOP encourages it.

What problem are we trying to solve again Lol. From my vantage point it's working great, a well oiled machine. But they do improve every single year.

If you are going to branch into a general late reg rant our journey together will come to its conclusion. Sure maybe we can tweak when the late reg period ends but overall its a great thing for poker tournaments. That supposed consensus would dismantle instantly at the sight of much smaller prize pools if it ever got taken away. But it's here to stay certainly.

Late registration does not provide an advantage. WSOP is taking steps to provide easy convenient access to its product to all customers, as it should.

If you are confused you can refer to the above to figure out what the point of the conversation/thread is.

No rant, simply an explanation on how to improve.

And based on an abundance of players' views, late registration indeed provides an advantage.

My suggestions do not shut down late registration, only discourage it somewhat.

And my suggestions address the issues at hand, and save WSOP money in the process.

Lol I'm not confused

No, late registration does not provide an inherent advantage whatsoever. At least in terms of EV for the event. Someone can increase their hourly but that doesn't impact my EV. The logic and math on it is easy. An abundance of potential misguided views sums to zero as far as I'm concerned.

But not everyone is there for money EV. There's maximizing entertainment EV and that usually entails starting on time. The average person who starts early is probably weaker than average player. Some of these players are underdogs to make it past level 6. Late reggers miss these guys.

But again, it's a well oiled machine and everyone can do what they want.

Actually, it does. Even late regging by one hand provides a tiny spec of +EV (like, an extra 0.00001% or some other useless amount). If you can late reg when half the field is gone, you gain something like 10% extra EV. This has been shown to be mathematically true. And the math used to do that assumed all players are equally skilled at all stages of the event. If you are above average at playing a deep stack, you personally might lose EV by late regging, despite this proven advantage.

However, with regard to what 77 is talking about, the period of late reg between the start and when all the tables are full or close to full, there is an unimportant gain in EV. Probably not even 1%.

Also, if we follow the suggestion of 77, and start all the tables close to full at the beginning, the floors would be spending a LOT of time pulling the next big blind off of active tables to start all the new tables constantly being created. And I suspect we would be hearing people complaining about how they had to change tables multiple times in the first hour or two, and that something should be done to prevent that from happening to them.

In 77's plan it seems like there may be a queue of players waiting to enter because they wouldn't have enough dealers for new tables. Or as what happened several years ago some tournaments were delayed several hours from start as they frantically called dealers. But he wants late regs to suffer.

But onto the theoretical if you had a group of 10,000 players, 5,000 that start on time and another 5,000 that came in when 15% of the field was gone the number of chips that each group has is exactly same. Now this doesn't tell the entire story as ICM is involved and at this juncture I'm not sure each additional chip is worth less than a single chip as having chips helps you accumulate more. Certainly that's true on bubble. First group is going to have chip leader at every table.

Anyhow, thread got derailed by people who hate late reg (it's here to stay obviously) and thread title saying WSOP is at its worst is a bad take. Expectations need to be managed because at end of day OP played short for first two hours because people who had registered didn't show up yet.

Players will never be equally skilled at all stages of any event, especially WSOP events. And you must know this...

Bad players will mostly either be knocked out or have shortish stacks by the time late reg happens. The other thing is that players who buy back in are typically better than average so bad players who get knocked out often don't even buy back in.

This is a critical point. At the WSOP this year I was moved early almost never. It did happen in one tournament where I wasn't in Horseshoe Blue but that has to be expected some small amount of the time. But in WSOP circuit events this year it was happening all the time. There was one event where I was moved 4 times before the first break. And this was where the dealers were dealing cards to see who was going to get moved (not because I was the BB each time). It is terribly unfair to not be at a table with the same players for a long time.

The other problem with starting tables at almost full is that people who register late will often be sitting at tables with less than 4 players for a while which means they can't even play hands, and that is unfair. This was happening at the WSOP this year for extremely late registration in some tournaments where the players were basically all in the Horseshoe Blue section and they were creating new tables in the Horseshoe White section but they weren't doing it one table at a time (so colluders wouldn't be able to collude) so that it was taking minutes before 4 players were at the new tables. And If the WSOP (or anywhere) chooses to put all late regs at the same table as they sign in (which would speed up starting) then they will basically be open to colluding players coming in late and gaining incredible advantage over the rest of the field. So that is why it isn't being done.