Missing Thread On Shootout Debacle.

[Shizzmoney 0]

I can tell you from a business perspective, it is not our general concept to highlight poor sportsmanship.

Harry was wrong (and admittedly so) about his knee jerk, Bobby Knight-like reaction; but his intentions (and the actions that caused them) were of a solid and concrete nature that any pure poker publication should highlight. BUT what Harry did wasn't poor sportsmanship. Complaining to the referees in sports about a questionable call isn't poor sportsmanship (unless.........more like when..............Randy Moss pees on a referee someday after he gets called for a pass interference).Poor sportsmanship occurs between the players on the field. Poor sportsmanship is rubbing it in someone's face after taking down a pot and claiming that the loser "had little balls" while he "had really big balls".....which btw was Mike Matusow, someone who happens to represent your magazine (and that's nothing against Mike because I love the way he plays and he's funny as hell). So that reasoning for not including it in the updates is a bit hypocritical and questionable from a journalistic POV.

It was absolutely the right decision to work the numbers to get to 100 tables.

Barry makes a good point about how the structure should of been altered after the final tally of regisitered players was in to make it a more effective tournament. I have no argue with that.The main issue is the timing of it all (changing the format literally just before the shuffle and deal). If they anticipated that the expected turnout could affect the number of people at each table (due to the alloted timeslot they need to finish the tournament under), they should have printed said possibility on the sheet that they give you when you buy the ticket.Daniel read the ticket on his blog. It said that it had a maximum, but no minimum. No mention that the event would become shorthanded if they didn't get enough people. Ergo, it shouldn't of happened. Plain and simple.That's like if I was an umpire before a Friday afternoon Pirate-Royals baseball game, and just blantantly decided that since both pitchers suck so bad and can't throw strikes, that strikes now become balls and vice versa just so we can finish the game under 2 hours and beat traffic. As much as I hate to admit it, I think Harrah's has CardPlayer under its thumb, which sucks because I think poker players get taken advantage of enough by the casinos that you'd hope some journalistic voice would step up and help the cause to level the playing field somewhat.I understand from a business POV why CardPlayer wants to keep Harrah's happy, being the offical magazine of the WSOP. But it doesn't change the fact it's shotty journalism.

[tobytobey 0]

Tue Jul 18 13:17:00 PDT 2006Shulman EliminatedBarry Shulman has busted out of the tournament.Good ole' Karma.

[caeslinger 0]

Alright, Harry and Daniel need to explain to me what the egregious difference is in their mind that the first day must start 10-handed, and the second day be played 6-handed (as it was last year and others), vs Harrah's decided to make the first day 6-handed, and the second day 10-handed to get to a 10 person final table.This was posted on the orginal hand out sheet people! Second day was to start iwth 100 people. Pure and simple. Yes, maybe they did not explain well enough far enough in advance. But that does not mean that this wasn't the plan, and couldn't be deciphered by anyone who read the original handout closely enough!Last year wasn't even a true shootout -in some minds- because day 3 started with 13 and played down to 10.

[hank213 1,823]

I posted my thoughts on the shootout at my website: www.rzitup.com. Feel free to copy it here if that works better (it is kind of long).

Some very interesting bits of information in there. I've been mulling it over and kicking it around with a lawyer friend of mine. The conclusion being that these actions on the part of Harrah's could possibly be legally construed as fraud by inducement. Granted, I'm not familiar with Harrah's operating procedures for the WSOP or any other tournament, so there are few conjectures here, but here's the theory:By having ten stacks at each table, the players in this tournament have a reasonable expectation that there will, in fact, be ten players at each table. Furthermore, when players purchase entry into a 6 player per table event, the practice of Harrah's is to label the receipt as "short handed." Finally, the "industry" standard for a shootout event is 10 per table. The key here, at least to myself and my lawyer friend, is the the 10 starting stacks at each table. The organizers should have a good idea a couple hours before scheduled start of a tourney to know if they are going to meet the projected number of players for said tourney. Again, I don't know about their procedures, but this seems like pretty basic I.T. work here. It would make a difference here if they typically get a very large number of players signing up for tourneys in the hour prior to scheduled start. But, leaving those stacks out until after the tournament is underway seemingly demonstrates fraudulent behavior. By knowing, or reasonably calculating, there will not be 10 players at each table, but making it appear as if there will be, and not informing players of changes in format and with no relief for players (refund etc) after the change, Harrah's very well may have perpetrated a fraud. Sorry for the long post but this really got me thinking....

[yergan 0]

Lol. POTD. Personally, I'm borrowing from my college fund for WSOP, but boycotting the events. I'll post when I go broke.

His POTD, replaced by yours.Very nice.