Gavin Griffin: Poker Questions Asked And Answered

People in the poker community often come up to me and ask about whatever is on their mind. Some of these questions are good questions, and some are bad beat stories in disguise. I’ve been through quite a few things in my poker career and I like to help whenever possible, and in this new Card Player series, I’d like to share my experiences and knowledge. Feel free to ask any poker-related question, and I’ll do my best to answer it in the space below.

Question: I know you play tournaments regularly, did you make it out to the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open or the WinStar River Poker Series this week? What do you think of their prize pool issues? Should there be a central organization to standardize structures and schedule major events better? – Allen

Gavin: The truth is, I don’t play very many poker tournaments anymore. For instance, I will probably end up playing less than 25 this year, with all of them being in California or Nevada. I just don’t travel for tournaments anymore for several reasons. First of all, travel is expensive and tough on my family. I think you have to be young, unattached, and loving the tournament grinder lifestyle in order to justify all of the flights, hotel rooms, and other stuff needed to play live poker tournaments on a daily or weekly basis. The other option is to have a sponsor that pays for you to travel, but they’re not exactly giving those away to just anyone these days, especially American players. So, as a result of that, I did not make it to Florida or Oklahoma to play the tournaments there this week.

However, I’ve been reading about them plenty, and they are telling an interesting story. First of all, the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open guaranteed a $10 million dollar prize pool just like they did last year. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for the players, they did not achieve that total prize pool and are left holding the bag on a whopping $2,055,300 overlay, probably the biggest in the history of poker. Looking at it another way, the players paid $5,300 per entry to play in a $6,671 per entry tournament. Casinos gamble with these big guarantees and sometimes they fall short. They probably came close to securing that much money in hotel rooms that otherwise wouldn’t have been filled, along with the extra traffic in the pits and poker room.

At the WinStar River Poker Series, in Oklahoma, they beat their primary guarantee of $2.5 million with 1,323 entries and a prize pool of $3,175,200. It’s their secondary guarantee that is some bit of issue. They guaranteed a $1 million first-place prize and they’ve complied with that, but second place is just north of $340,000, meaning that first place is almost triple the second-place prize. I’m sure talk of a deal will be broached with four or five people left with the payouts being that steep and truthfully, I’d be incredibly surprised if it goes through to the end with someone winning the million.

So, why did this happen? Why are there so many tournaments at the same time? The truth is, I don’t rightly know, but it seems like a silly thing that could be fixed. There are so many big tournaments these days. In fact, I didn’t even mention the other two major tournaments going on at roughly the same time, EPT Barcelona (the 100th EPT event that attracted almost 1,500 players) and one of the original WPT events, the Legends of Poker in Los Angeles. I know each casino needs to protect their business opportunities and compromising isn’t generally a strong suit of casino owners, however, it seems that if one of these three tournaments on American soil moved their schedule around, all would have benefited. If the casinos all got together and created their schedule as a group, it would definitely make things easier for us as players and, most likely, the casinos as well.

There is a question of who gets scheduling precedence. Here’s how I propose that is handled. First choice goes to the World Series of Poker. They are the longest running and biggest tournament series in the world and the entire year for a tournament poker player revolves around those six weeks in May, June, and July. After that, seniority and prize money should be the determining factors. Finally, if a tournament wants to move from its previously occupied time slot in the poker calendar by more than a week or two, their priority gets shifted to the bottom. For instance, if the owners of the Commerce Casino decided that they want to move the L.A. Poker Classic to November instead of holding it in January and February, they would have to find a time that no long-running major series is already occupying.

Truthfully, this is something that probably won’t ever happen because there are just too many complications. Casinos host conventions, events for their players, other tournaments, and so many other things that it would be a nightmare to coordinate. In addition to that, they don’t really care if it’s difficult for players to get to their tournament as long as they keep on running. Perhaps the Seminole Hard Rock will have a lower guarantee next year, or perhaps it will promote the tournament more, or maybe, just maybe, it will move it to a different time and consider the entirety of the poker calendar before releasing the tournament schedule. I know they’ll have to do something to change though, because I’m certain they can’t afford $2 million in overlays every year.

If you have a question for Gavin, send it to [email protected].

Related Articles

Poker Stories: First Triple Crown Winner Gavin Griffin

The Secret To Mike Sexton's Winning Smile

Griffin: How The Poker Market Determines The Rake

Most Viewed Articles