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WSOP Mania starts early this year
Mar. 14th, 2005 02:55 pmConfirmatiion, if confirmation be needed, that the one place not to be this June is at the WSOP came to me when I saw the number of fools trying to qualify for Round 2 of the Pokerstars WSOP qualifier. Round 2 requires 4,000 FPPS (frequent player points) to enter and the top two players get packages. I've tried to work out what Stars FPPs translate into in real money, and I reckon that it's about a penny a point. So 4,000 FPPS is about £40 or $75. At a prize pool of $22,000, that means you need less than 293 entrants to be getting "value"
However, with the top two of the Round 1 qualifiers going through, the calculation is trivial. 8,000 FPPs to the prize winners, 40FPPs to enter, means that you only get val;ue if there are less than 200 entrants. In days gone by you would often get 300-odd entrants for these satellites (for less prestigious tournaments like the Five Diamonds...) at the weekend, and as few as 110 entrants during the week.
So, how many entrants do you think Stars managed yesterday for round 2 of qualification for the Ratfest that will be this year's WSOP? I'm going to tell you, because there is no way you would guess it. 1,396, that's how many.
I mean, if you see 1,000 entries already, what on earth possesses a player to consider throwing 40 FPP down the drain? Clearly this indicates some kind of learning disability, which I guess should make me cheerful for the cash games.
But this clearly indicates a manic desire to be in the WSOP. The only limit on the number of entrants will be logistics, so I guess that 6,000 is not an unreasonable guess. Eventually the big names will just decide not to play. Dead money out there or not, the whole thing will just take up too much of their year.
There's an obvious solution to this -- up the entry fee to $100,000 and flatten the prize structure so that everyone gets paid (i.e., even the first out gets, say, $10,000). You will still get online qualifiers who will have "won" before they sit down. But instead of there being 4,500 online qualifiers, there will only be about 40 of them. Add to that about 250 pros/big money guys and you have about 300 runners going for a pool of $30m. even with a massively flattened prize structure that cane give $5m to the winner.
However, with the top two of the Round 1 qualifiers going through, the calculation is trivial. 8,000 FPPs to the prize winners, 40FPPs to enter, means that you only get val;ue if there are less than 200 entrants. In days gone by you would often get 300-odd entrants for these satellites (for less prestigious tournaments like the Five Diamonds...) at the weekend, and as few as 110 entrants during the week.
So, how many entrants do you think Stars managed yesterday for round 2 of qualification for the Ratfest that will be this year's WSOP? I'm going to tell you, because there is no way you would guess it. 1,396, that's how many.
I mean, if you see 1,000 entries already, what on earth possesses a player to consider throwing 40 FPP down the drain? Clearly this indicates some kind of learning disability, which I guess should make me cheerful for the cash games.
But this clearly indicates a manic desire to be in the WSOP. The only limit on the number of entrants will be logistics, so I guess that 6,000 is not an unreasonable guess. Eventually the big names will just decide not to play. Dead money out there or not, the whole thing will just take up too much of their year.
There's an obvious solution to this -- up the entry fee to $100,000 and flatten the prize structure so that everyone gets paid (i.e., even the first out gets, say, $10,000). You will still get online qualifiers who will have "won" before they sit down. But instead of there being 4,500 online qualifiers, there will only be about 40 of them. Add to that about 250 pros/big money guys and you have about 300 runners going for a pool of $30m. even with a massively flattened prize structure that cane give $5m to the winner.
