This particular editorial isn't so much of a criticism as it is an enlightenment. Perhaps the people who schedule the WSOP's main event have not even thought about how it works best for the players. When you are running a poker tournament, one considerations is keeping as many players in your casino for as long as possible, since this will increase money spent on rooms, food, gifts and gambling., unless you have a problem with facility capacity, in which case you want to clear out as many players as fast as possible.
Some players, like the pros, want to have as much action as they can get, so staying longer is not a problem for them. However, the majority of WSOP main event players are there for just one reason ... to win the bracelet and the money. As soon as they are eliminated, they would rather go home and back to their normal occupation.
One only has to view the final days of the WSOP to verify this.
Right now the WSOP main event has so many players that Harrah's has to start it in four flights. Let's call them A, B, C & D. On Day 1, flight A plays. On Day 2, B plays, Day 3, C plays, Day four, D plays. The amateurs who have lost (half the field) have gone home, but, those who won must hang around until their turn comes again. On Day 5, the remainder of flights A and B play. On Day 6, the remainder of flights C and D play.
To accommodate late comers and possible overflow, Harrah's scheduled an extra day that may be Day 7. All the remaining players have to stay over another day for this accommodation. On Day 8 and thereafter, all the active players will be playing and each person who loses can, at their option, go home. See the chart below for a graphic illustration:
In this scenario, winners in flight A gets held over for 5 days. Flight B is held over for 4 days, flight C is held over for 3 days and flight D is held over for two days. Now, suppose the flights were scheduled differently. Let's reverse the order of play from D to A. This is not important, only a name change because we are going to assign the flights differently. As an incentive for signing up early one gets into Flight A. When it is full one gets into flight B ... and so on.
Flight D will play first on Day one. Flight C will play on Day 2. The remainder of flights D and C will play on Day 3. Flight B will play on Day 4. Flight A will play on Day 5. The remainder of Flights A and B will play on Day 6. Keeping the same day open for overflow, we have the following chart:
As we can see in this scenario, Flights D and C still have five and four days respectively of hold over; however, there is a four day wait before they have to play again. If business or family calls, they can check out and check back in as appropriate. But Flight B has only a 2 day wait, and Flight A, the early birds, have only a one day wait.
This not only gives the least expense to the early signups, it also saves them days of wasted time.
Now, from the players' point of view, isn't this a better way to schedule a four-flight major tournament? Doesn't it also become a marketing tool where players are encouraged to sign-up early? I think so. What do you think?
