World Series of Poker

In 2004, I was part of the management team that ran what was then the largest tournament in the history of poker, the World Series of Poker. I moved into the Horseshoe Hotel and didn't leave the building for six weeks. I worked an average of 18 hours per day and got sick four times, all while single-handedly paying out almost $50 million in prize money.



From the day that tournament ended up until even this day, people have asked me if I would work the WSOP again. My answer is always the same: No! There is no amount of money that could entice me to go through what I did in 2004.



And now that the 2005 WSOP is over, I know exactly how the Rio's management team is feeling. Johnny Grooms, Jack Effel, Kenny Lambert, and the rest of the 2005 WSOP staff deserve a pat on the back for a job well done. Throughout the tournament, the problems were always brought to the forefront and made a big issue of, while all of the things that were done right were glanced over. Of course, everyone expected everything to be perfect.



There were many problems, from the registration/buy-in process for the second event to the smoking in the hallways and the crowd control of the main event. Of course, there is always the problem in any major tournament of assembling an adequate staff from all over the world, training them in a short amount of time, and getting them all on the same page.



What many people failed to realize during this tournament was that no one, and I mean no one, could have anticipated everything that it was going to take to run this tournament. Sure, they had to expect large crowds and prepare for them, but with the tournament moving to a new location and being run by an entirely new staff and company, there were going to be problems. In comparing all of the problems they had with all of the things they did right, I think that the 2005 WSOP was a huge success from an operations standpoint. With that said, there were of course some bad decisions made at this year's WSOP, and since this column is about decisions, I must point them out.



During the first few days of the WSOP, Tournament Director Johnny Grooms addressed a situation that was causing some problems. The rules are clear: There is to be no cellphone usage at the table. If you are on the phone when the cards are dealt, your hand is dead and you can't play it. But what happens when someone is wearing a cellphone headset? Johnny made the decision that anyone wearing a cellphone headset would be subject to the same rule, and his hand would be declared dead.



While I was playing in event No. 5, I heard a commotion at the table next to mine. One of the floormen was making a decision that at least one player didn't like, and it appeared that others at the table didn't agree with it, either. The scene went on for a good 10 minutes. Afterward, I asked one of the players what happened, and he explained it to me.



On the next break, I asked the floorman for his side of the story, and, surprisingly, it was the same as the player's.



On the river, there was a dispute about a mucked hand and whether that hand would be live or not. The floorman had been called to make that decision, and he ruled the hand dead (which, apparently, was the correct decision, although it's irrelevant to this story). This meant that there was only one live hand, and the floorman was going to rule that the player with that hand would receive the pot – until he looked at the player. It seems that the player with the live hand was one of the key principals involved in a situation that provoked the tournament director to make the "cellphone headset rule." When the floorman saw that this same player had his headset on during this hand, he immediately made a ruling that the player's hand was dead! Two dead hands in one ruling, and no live hand, so who wins the pot? The decision was made to split the pot.



Obviously, this was a horrible decision, in my opinion. The cellphone rule is designed to prevent players from carrying on conversations that will slow down the progress of the game. The rule is not designed to kill a player's hand when that player has money already invested in the pot. I asked Grooms to clarify for me that the ruling was in fact wrong, and that his intentions in making the rule were not to kill a hand that was involved in a pot. He confirmed that, and agreed.



In a future column, I will discuss the one ruling that caused more controversy than any other in the history of poker: the F-bomb!