Has WSOP gotten too big?

[BS Yee]

WSOP is just a tournament which was able to grab the title "World Champion" at a time when no one cared.

It is the biggest and most prestigious event to win, if you have to win a tournment. Much like Andy North (in golf) only winning three tournaments in his life, two of them being the US Open.

The size of the WSOP will always depend upon (1) market forces (players wanting to play) and (2) the greed of Harrah's.

Harrah's looks at this as a hugely profitable venture balanced against resource constraints. The resources they have to balance are the physical facilities and labor/manpower staffing.

IMHO, the big issue for them is staffing. You need to hire enough dealers for 200 tables and try to keep the tables full from roughly noon to midnight, or at least when you have players there. Dealers from the other casinos will pick up shifts at the WSOP but there is a finite number of dealers available to work Noonish to late night. As the main tournaments break down, the cash games, daily tournaments, and all the other satellites fill in the empty tables. To keep 200 tables full, you need at least 300 dealers plus some swing shifts to keep everything running (forgive me but I don't know how long dealer shifts are - it varies from casino to casino).

For them to expand above 8000 players in 2007 and beyond, they have several options. (1) Go from four Day 1's to six Day 1's, etc. Unlikely because I don't think you can keep up the player census if the tournament lasts more than two weeks. (2) Open up a second auxillary poker room at the Rio to handle a bigger field. Possible but there is a huge cost involved in constructing a secure poker room that you would only be using for a few days. Of course you can use it if, like last year, the $1500 NL buy in filled every single seat and then some. If the capacity of 200 tables is not enough, then it could make sense to do this. Of couse you need a flexible labor force to be able to handle the bubble of dealers needed for the few days where every single table is filled. (3) Create and farm out Day 1's to the other Harrah's properties. Much like the old Bob Hope open where it was a 90 hole tournament but you played four different courses and the cut was made at the final 18 holes, you can use the conference facilities at Caesar's, Paris, whereever and work the field down that way until you can get them in one room. Again, physical costs and labor costs are the constricting factors.

[cwsiggy]

Daniel Negreanu talks in his latest journal entry about meeting with a bigwig and discussing the WSOP and schedule etc.
Lets hope they bring back HORSE as per Dan's suggestion.