Poker’s overcrowded tour schedule creates smaller turnouts at major stops

The North American Poker Tour’s second stop of the year was primed for a big turnout. The recent debacle at the “Big Event” (where the NAPT pulled its branding a week or so before the tournament began) left many believing that official NAPT entries would be rolled over into Mohegan. An impressive 716 players turned out in 2010, which also boosted hopes for this event, but only 387 players would show up in 2011, creating a prize pool of $1.7 million, including a grand prize of $450,000 to be awarded on Wednesday.

The low turnout could be essentially seen as a side effect of the ever-crowded tournament schedule. The NAPT and World Poker Tour both held big buy-in events ($5,000 and $10,000, respectively) which began on Saturday. On a smaller scale, the WSOP Circuit offered its $1,500 main event at Harrah’s St. Louis and pulled in 449 (up from 129 in the $5,190 main event last year) as it began on Sunday, and the biggest domestic tournament belonged to the Heartland Poker Tour, which had 491 players in Colorado. We’re not done. Then add in the 773 players at EPT Berlin and the thousands of players who opted to stay at home and play all the online Sunday majors.

As you can see, we have a variety of tours fighting for their time in the spotlight. On Twitter on Sunday, I offered that there needs to be a governing body of some sort to come in and schedule all these major tour events for the benefit of the players. Yes, all the casinos want to bring in the most players and will want the biggest possible piece of the pie, but if there were a system in place that could appease everyone, wouldn’t the industry in general benefit? The poker “league” idea is being undertaken by Annie Duke, but what I’m talking about is a PGA/PBA tour that everyone can buy into.

I’ll backtrack and say that the odds that the NAPT/WPT/WSOPC/EPT/HPT/Name Your Own PT working together are less than optimal, but hey, here’s my idea and by all means chime in with your thoughts below. This isn’t thought out to the extent that we can implement it today, but it would be the place I’d start if everyone was willing to be on the same page for the benefit of the players and the game.

• The Poker Tour Commission would be responsible for communicating with each tour
• All tours would be given a calendar where they would fit their ideal schedules
• The PTC would evaluate schedules and look for conflicts. Ideally, the PTC would maneuver schedules to make it easy for players to travel from one event to the next. For example, if there is an event scheduled in Paris, the next week’s stop wouldn’t be in Chicago, but somewhere near the previous venue.
• To address conflicts, a mediator would be in place to discuss potential solutions with the tours in question. If a resolution is not reached
• All tours (in which conflicts are concerned) would be given auction dollars to participate in a league auction for available tournament slots. Auction dollars would be allocated in relation to how many stops the tour is within conflict.
• Given that the WSOP is still the crown jewel of the tournament year, major events will be scheduled around that time. No, I’m not saying this as a representative of the network which broadcasts the WSOP, but as a poker fan who sees that if the WSOP continues to succeed, poker will continue to succeed.

Clearly, this isn’t thought out to the extent that it could be, but it’s something that we could start with. Imagine the potential for poker growth if players ended up simply traveling from place to place (like the PGA) and fans got the ability to see the same people at most locations. When we start to split up the tours, all it does is create a system that doesn’t work. Competition is important and I don’t need a degree in economics to teach me that, but poker is still in its infancy and has the potential to continue to divide up and die — forcing some casinos to realize that it’s not worth holding events anymore — or bind together and see constant stops with massive amount of players and prize pools.

All this said, let’s take a look at the three tournaments still currently in action:

NAPT Mohegan

Last year, Vanessa Selbst absolutely ran over the final table. It was something to see, and thankfully, I had a tableside seat to witness one of the most impressive performances we’ve seen in a very long time. After two days of action at the NAPT, Selbst is back, among the chip leaders with hopes of an unthinkable back-to-back run at Mohegan Sun.

Only 74 players remain in the event and 73 of them trail Aaron Overton, who holds a dominating stack at 598,700 in chips. His closest competitor is Aaron Mermelstein (382,500), and with the blinds at 1,500/3,000, Overton has tons of play on Monday as the field shrinks from 74 to 24.

Selbst occupies fifth place (339,200) and has a stranglehold over her starting table as no other player has more than 164,800 in chips (Vincent Rubianes). In eighth is Olivier Busquet, who’ll occupy a seat next to Eric Froehlich to begin the day. “Big Event” winner Victor Ramdin has continued his solid 2011 with a deep run here and will start the day in ninth. Nick Binger, Jacobo Fernandez and Adam Junglen will be trying to grab some of Ramdin’s chips at Table 5.

Despite the smaller turnout, many of poker’s stars showed up, including Jonathan Duhamel, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker, Carlos Mortensen, Vanessa Rousso and Jason Mercier. As the field dwindled, all of the aforementioned busted, but Adam Geyer, Bernard Lee, Chris Tryba, Greg DeBora and 2010 runner-up Mike Beasley remain in contention. Fifty-six players will make the money and earn at least $7,500, and that number seems to be another point of contention for the players. That said, the NAPT has had a history of a flat pay structure, but this one may be just a little too flat. Survive the day and make it into the top 24, and you’ll make only $12,000.

WPT Hollywood Poker Open

It’s no surprise that the WPT event in Lawrenceburg, Ind., had the lowest turnout since Season 1 of the WPT. The event didn’t really thrive in 2010 with only 143 players, and 97 this year may make WPT organizers wonder if this is the right spot (or timing) for this event. Andy Whetsone leads the final 27 players in search of the $273,664 top prize, and Whetstone’s story is an interesting one as he qualified online from ClubWPT. Apparently he can hold his own. Whetstone’s Day 3 table includes Chris Bell.

Shockingly, Erik Seidel is also in contention. You’d think after his horrible year (please note the sarcasm) that he’d just quit playing, but it’s not the case. Seidel will start off the day in ninth place and will be seated with Allen Kessler and potential WPT Player of the Year Andrew Frankenberger. The third table in action includes one of the hottest WPT players in 2011, Shannon Shorr, who enters the day in second place. Shorr has made the money at the last two WPT stops, finishing fourth at Beau Rivage and 10th at the Commerce. He’s tied for ninth in the Player of the Year race and a win would put him ahead of Frankenberger if he is unable to make the money. Shorr’s table includes Tom Marchese, recent WSOP Circuit Regional champion Ali Eslami and Bay 101 Shooting Star runner-up Steven Kelly.

Only 12 players will make the money and lock up at least $22,157.

WSOP Circuit main event

Greg Raymer may be without an endorsement deal, but he has the chips in the WSOP Circuit main event stop in St. Louis. A field of 449 players spent the $1,600 to enter one of the biggest events in the state, and 93 survived to make Day 2. Raymer will start the day in eighth and will trail chip leader Harris Paroya by nearly 200,000 in chips. Hometown poker hero Dennis Phillips enters play in fourth.

Neither Raymer nor Phillips have earned their seat into the National Championship yet, and that coveted spot (as well as $142,290) will go to the winner of the event. Less than half the field that remains will make the money (45) and action should continue Monday until only nine remain.

Small blinds: Spencer Uniss claimed the Heartland Poker Tour title in Black Hawk, Colo., to win $221,594. Not bad for someone who paid only $370 to get into the event through a satellite. Ben “NeverScaredB” Wilinofsky, a PokerStars qualifier, won the EPT Berlin title for 825,000 euros. Martin Jacobson (fifth), Fabrice Soulier (11th), Jeff Hakim (16th), Konstantin Puchkov (17th), Cornel Cimpan (42nd), Kent Lundmark (47th) and Per Linde (66th) were among the 120 players who made the money. The Poker Edge podcast is celebrating its five-year anniversary this week and will have two very special announcements. Want to see a slightly ridiculous poker tattoo? Here you go. Last week, Washington approved a bill that could lead to the first legalized intra-district online poker site. It’s a first step and we’ll keep following this story to see where it’s headed. I still feel it’s important to see this succeed, but would much rather see the approach to regulate online poker come on the federal level. The recent PokerStars/Wynn deal excited the financial sector a bit. “The potential is enormous,” says The Motley Fool.

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