"Official" WSOP Payment Info and other stuff

[Kevmath]

Including Poker Hall of Fame inductees, satellite info, are at:

http://www.pokerpages.com/blog-players/poker-sharla.htm

Kevin...

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Whenever I see the payout for any really big event, I'm often rather confused by some of the jumps. Here is the payout for 6600 players, as stated by Harrahs, if reported correctly by pokerpages.

1 - $7,444,800.00 / 1

2 - $4,032,600.00 / 1

3 - $3,412,200.00 / 1

4 - $2,915,880.00 / 1

5 - $2,481,600.00 / 1

6 - $2,047,320.00 / 1

7 - $1,675,080.00 / 1

8 - $1,551,000.00 / 1

9 - $1,000,000.00 / 1

10 - $682,440.00 / 1

11 - $682,440.00 / 1

12 - $682,440.00 / 1

13 - $558,360.00 / 1

14 - $558,360.00 / 1

15 - $558,360.00 / 1

16 - $500,000.00 / 1

17 - $500,000.00 / 1

18 - $500,000.00 / 1

From 19 to 27 - $394,056.00 / 9

From 28 to 36 - $198,529.00 / 9

From 37 to 45 - $187,689.00 / 9

From 46 to 54 - $167,598.00 / 9

From 55 to 63 - $146,592.00 / 9

From 64 to 72 - $126,665.00 / 9

From 73 to 81 - $109,258.00 / 9

From 82 to 90 - $93,869.00/ 9

From 91 to 99 - $84,977.00 / 9

From 100 to 117 - $73,477.00 / 18

From 118 to 135 - $64,101.00 / 18

From 136 to 153 - $56,444.00 / 18

From 154 to 171 - $50,132.00 / 18

From 172 to 198 - $44,886.00 / 27

From 199 to 225 - $40,638.00 / 27

From 226 to 261 - $37,170.00 / 36

From 262 to 297 - $34,424.00 / 36

From 298 to 345 - $30,068.00 / 48

From 346 to 393 - $26,052.00 / 48

From 394 to 453 - $22,048.00 / 60

From 454 to 525 - $18,323.00 / 72

From 526 to 660 - $15,236.00 / 135


Reading from the bottom up, all is fine for awhile. Then, you find this odd jump. After going from 73,477.00 to 84,977.00, the next jump is to 93,869.00. Why is a jump of 11,500 (which was in line with prior increases) followed by a jump of 8,893? I don't see why the increment should get smaller, when every previous increment was larger than the increment before it.

There are a couple of small incongruities, and then this weird section. Table 6 gets 167,598, table 5 gets 187,689, but then table 4 only gets 198,529. Again, we had a jump of 20,100 followed by a jump of only 10,840. Then, the jump after that, for table 3, is huge, just about double the payout for table 4, at 394,056. Why such a big jump here compared to previous increases? It seems to me that table 4 needs to get about $20-50,000 more per player, and table 3 the same amount less per player, or something.

We now do a reasonable jump from table 3 to table 2, with an increase to 500,000 for spots 16-18. This is followed by an unusually small increase for spots 13-15 to only 558,360. And this is followed by a large jump to 682,440 for spots 10-12. Why the 58,000 jump, and then the 124,000 jump? I just don't get it.

Mathematically, the oddest jump is next. For moving up to spots 9 through 6, you get the following prizes, 1.0M, 1.55M, 1.68M, and 2.05M. I get the move from 682K to 1.0M, and then to 1.55M, but why is 7th place then only 130K more? Why do we have increments of 318K, 550K, 130K, and then 370K? These are just really odd. There really is little doubt that whomever made up these payouts didn't really have a strong intuitive grasp of math, or at least that's my guess.

Finally, the weirdest part of all. Why would you award the champion 7,444,800? Just thinking from a marketing perspective here, but doesn't 7.5 million, or 7 million, or 8 million, run off the tongue so much better than Seven million, Four-hundred Forty-four thousand, Eight-hundred dollars? I'm really surprised that somebody didn't decide to make this prize a nice, even number.

Just complaining for no real purpose.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[ohgeetee]

From what I can tell, marketing and those sorts of things just seem to be way outside of the grasp of the poker minded. It doesn't explain the math issues with the payouts, but if you look at a lot of the poker sites, books, etc. there is a lot to be lacking.

the 2+2 site is horrid from a website/appeal standpoint. The books have awesome quality but their covers and bindings leave a lot to be desired. all of the poker dvd commercials are poor, several of the poker site commercials are poor, many of the poker players sites are poor, like daniel negreanu's, phil hellmuth's, etc.

I couldn't imagine the cost of someone hired to make things look more polished wouldn't be more than made up for in increased sales, but who knows. I know that when i look at barnes and noble in the poker section, the shitty books look the best and catch the eye, but the best books, 2+2 look like 70's reissues that might be collectibles. The circa '73 photos of sklansky and malmuth on them particularly give off this vibe.

If ESPN doesn't alter the payouts, I'm sure they will get toyota to put in enough to make it an 8 mill 1st prize or some other sponsor sot hey dont look like tards int ehir broadcasts by falsly rounding it up, or quoting out the actual numbers, if they are correct.

btw, my post is nothing more than what i hope to be constructive criticism of 2+2. the books are great and the site is nice even with some of the trolls, my complaints are purely cosmetic, and i think form should always follow function, but the function has been in place for years.

[Kevmath]

Breaking out my handy Windows calculator, 66M -6% =62.04M. 12% of that will get the odd figure of 7.444M. I'm sure they'll be working out the figures to round it into shape and to make the payment levels make better sense.

Kevin...

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
Breaking out my handy Windows calculator, 66M -6% =62.04M. 12% of that will get the odd figure of 7.444M. I'm sure they'll be working out the figures to round it into shape and to make the payment levels make better sense.

Kevin...

[/ QUOTE ]

That would make sence if it wasn't obvious they were looking at the numbers to get $1Mill for 9th and 500K for 16-18th.

[52s]

[ QUOTE ]
From what I can tell, marketing and those sorts of things just seem to be way outside of the grasp of the poker minded.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a couple major issues not making sense with this year's WSOP in this vein.

1) Why is there going to be a four month wait for the Championship table to be shown on TV, one with the biggest cash prize in "sports" history?

2) To me, with ~$62 million in prize money total, why isn't $10,000,000 for first place being considered? I'm sure the "poker minded", as you put it, wouldn't want 15-16% of such a big pool going for one place, but this is where the marketing aspect comes in.

On point one, sure, Raymer's win wasn't shown until 3-4 months later, and WPT's turnaround for it's Championship table (for this year) will be 2 1/2 months, but I feel at this juncture, for TV coverage of poker to be advanced a bit further, and for marketing purposes, the aspect of showing a short-handed final table (my number, at 4), live, ala Turning Stone, should be strongly considered with such a large prize on the line.

Security concerns can be taken care of by having a delay (like TS did). Scheduling concerns are easy with the way things are setup right now. Go from 9 to 4 on Friday, take Saturday off, go live on Sunday to decide the champ.

There's also the angle of the World Series of Poker, the proclaimed "greatest and most important tournament(s) in the world", needing to market itself as such - if it's the greatest and most important, in this day and age, why aren't there going to be daily and/or weekly updates? Showing the final tables of the prelim tournaments later on is fine, but the WSOP and ESPN should be doing what it can with the history imbedded in the name to differentiate the WSOP from every other poker show on TV, especially WPT.

The decision to show primarily HE Final Tables, to me, was a major mis-step - where's the Razz? 2-7 TD? The $10K Pot Omaha? How about taking the chance and show one Stud 8 and Omaha 8 Final Table? Why'd the mixed games tourney get nixed? Some of these tables may initially bomb ratings-wise, but it's a risk/reward situation where if one of the other games catches on, then WSOP can take credit for having the initiative to show other poker games on TV, rather than falling in line like lemmings, bent on driving the HE trend into the ground.

As for point two, it's given that 1st doubled from 2.5 to 5 while the field tripled, but again, for marketing purposes, and with so much money available, $10,000,000 rolls off the tounge and visually is a much more solid number than $7,000,000, or $8,000,000, or $9,000,000 - even $7,500,000, which most would say is the logical number. $10,000,000 has a bigger visual presence.

And that proposed prize structure is just plain goofy. $500K at 16-18 is what throws things out of whack. $500K at 10-12 with a more evenly laid out ascension of the prize money makes things fit better. The >$200K jumps should be starting at 10 going into the final table, not at 28 going into 27 and then minimalizing the jumps until 10 to 9. Horrible. I could probably whip up something better based on 6600.

[Kevmath]

To give my .02:
[ QUOTE ]

1) Why is there going to be a four month wait for the Championship table to be shown on TV, one with the biggest cash prize in "sports" history?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because ESPN treats it like a TV series and to develop storylines, with the final table being season finale that will get the most people tuning in.
[ QUOTE ]

On point one, sure, Raymer's win wasn't shown until 3-4 months later, and WPT's turnaround for it's Championship table (for this year) will be 2 1/2 months

[/ QUOTE ]
Note the WPT season started back in July 2004, but the first final table wasn't until March 2005.

[ QUOTE ]
but I feel at this juncture, for TV coverage of poker to be advanced a bit further, and for marketing purposes, the aspect of showing a short-handed final table (my number, at 4), live, ala Turning Stone, should be strongly considered with such a large prize on the line.


[/ QUOTE ]

Would you like to see what's known as the "World Championship" of poker decided because of some format that would force a crapshoot situation? I think for the Turning Stone event, the levels went up every 30 minutes so they could be done in 4 hours. It helped matters that there were two very small stacks out of the final six, but what if everyone was closer together? Also, FSN really had nothing to lose in airing a live poker tournament, they could prempt Best Damn Sports Show Period, it's not really that big of a loss.
[ QUOTE ]

Why aren't there going to be daily and/or weekly updates? Showing the final tables of the prelim tournaments later on is fine, but the WSOP and ESPN should be doing what it can with the history imbedded in the name to differentiate the WSOP from every other poker show on TV, especially WPT.

[/ QUOTE ] I agree it'd be nice for ESPN to do some sort of updates, but wouldn't that kill the interest to those viewers that want to be "surprised"?

[ QUOTE ]
The decision to show primarily HE Final Tables, to me, was a major mis-step - where's the Razz? 2-7 TD? The $10K Pot Omaha? How about taking the chance and show one Stud 8 and Omaha 8 Final Table? Why'd the mixed games tourney get nixed?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because they take too long? Because they'd be too confusing to the viewers (Note - they explain the rules to holdem EVERY telecast, even after the saturation holdem has recieved on ESPN for almost 3 years).
[ QUOTE ]

Some of these tables may initially bomb ratings-wise, but it's a risk/reward situation where if one of the other games catches on, then WSOP can take credit for having the initiative to show other poker games on TV, rather than falling in line like lemmings, bent on driving the HE trend into the ground.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe that's why Razz isn't being shown this year, why TDL was sent to ESPN Motion 360 even though it was filmed for broadcast. The people have spoken, and they want to see No Limit holdem.

Kevin...

[slickpoppa]

I agree that this payout structure is not good. Perhaps if you send the tournament director an e-mail with the points you just made, they will change the structure. I assume that it is not written in stone at this point.

[Durs522]

I can imagine ESPN doing a 9 player final table. This way with the payout structure everyone at the final table gets at least $1,000,000. I don't really have any idea if this could be true, however from a marketing perspective it would make sense at least to ESPN.

Dave

[SossMan]

final table has always been 9.