Poker’s Re-Entry Problem

I’ve made clear over the years that I think re-entry tournaments are a detriment to the player base. They allow the best players, with the biggest bankrolls to play more buy-ins, to compete with little concern for their tournament life in the early levels.

This practice, in my opinion, is bad for everyone who is a small winner or worse in the field. Because I have three kids and my wife works full time, it doesn’t end up affecting me too much as I don’t really play many tournaments anymore. However, it seems like I’m not the only one that has a problem with this tournament format nowadays.

The first thing I heard on social media about this was from none other than former all-time tournament earnings leader Daniel Negreanu. He tweeted:

Daniel is not necessarily outright complaining about re-entry tournaments, but the fact that he’s interested in running a tournament series that specifically doesn’t allow re-entry or late registration implies that he either doesn’t like the format, or thinks there is a market for something different.

I agree with Daniel, I’ve been interested in a no late registration and no re-entry tournament for a long time. If this series was in Los Angeles, I would definitely consider playing some events. (Incidentally, The Commerce Casino held a one-entry per day tournament series in November.)

He went on to post a hypothetical schedule that included a good range of buy-ins and game choices. I’m not surprised that Daniel would come up with a schedule that I would like, as he has been a proponent of playing non no-limit hold’em games for his whole career.

We’re not that far removed from a time where re-entry tournaments were an odd occurrence. And now, we have to specify which tournaments are NOT re-entry. After Daniel shared his idea on social media, World Series of Poker commentator Norman Chad got involved. He went on a several-tweet binge about the sanctity of tournaments and how the WSOP Europe series had been hijacked.

It may sound a little bit like Norman, a man who has built his WSOP broadcasting career on sounding like a bit of a curmudgeon, is shouting “Get off my lawn” at these crazy tournament kids. I, however, tend to agree with him. Why does every event need to be a re-entry event?

I know the answer, of course. It’s great for the host casino to allow re-entry, and especially unlimited re-entry. Why only take rake once per player when you can allow them to enter as many times as they want and collect rake again and again?

When the WSOP and other tournament venues used to run rebuy tournaments, every entry after the first one was rake-free. (Of course, there were some issues with free-flowing cash and chips without the significant oversight of a casino cage, but that’s a different topic.) When the series switched to re-entry tournaments, requiring busted players to get out of their seat, and go back through the registration line, that second entry now gets raked. Obviously, that was a big win for the casinos and their bottom line.

Of course, I think it’s important for the casino that is hosting a poker tournament to be able to make money. If not, there wouldn’t be poker tournaments available in so many different venues, times, and buy-in levels. The proliferation of re-entry tournaments has made for a healthy tournament economy for the casinos themselves. However, I’m not convinced that it’s good for the players. At least, it’s not good for those that aren’t among the top earners in their regular buy-in pool.

Yes, I think there is a time and place for re-entry tournaments. Re-entry tournaments are good for small to medium buy-in tournaments to draw people with the promise of a big prize pool, and fine for whatever people want to do at the biggest limits. It’s such rarified air that they basically make their own rules.

I don’t think it’s a good idea, however, to have them in every event at a particular stop. I’d like to see re-entries limited to just a couple events at every series.

I’m also excited to see if Daniel’s idea for a no re-entry series gets off the ground. It might just be enough to get me to enter. Once. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG