News on tournaments and other action in casino poker rooms
Sometimes you have to acknowledge that while records may be made to be broken, that doesn’t make it easy to break them.
And when you’re talking about casino poker attendance records, is it really all that important to break them anyway?
Well, probably, but again, it isn’t easy and numbers can be deceiving.
All this relates to the World Series of Poker circuit events going on at Harrah’s Resort this week. The events began last Thursday, Dec. 1, and trust us, no attendance records were set.
The opening tournament, a $300 + $45 No Limit tournament drew 704 players.
Now that’s hardly a small turnout and did put up a nice prize pool of more than $200,000, but at last year’s Harrah’s opening event, 1,250 players turned out, setting a record for a poker tournament at the casino.
That’s a 554-player fall off. So the WSOP folks had to be wondering: What happened?
The obvious culprit is that the opening event this year started on a Thursday. In 2010, the opening event was on a Saturday.
That seems to have split the opening crowds as Event 2 of the circuit events, another $300 + $45 event, with a double play re-entry (meaning two day ones, Friday and Saturday. Any one busting out Friday could re-buy Saturday) drew 888 players.
Last year’s second event at the circuit drew 343 players. So even with the re-buy, add those numbers up and you get back most of your 550 player fall-off.
Compared to other stops on the WSOP circuit so far this year, save one, these numbers are actually pretty impressive.
The opening tournament for last month’s circuit stop at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, for example, drew only 260 players. The first weekend event drew 347.
That’s pretty much par for the course on the other circuit events so far this year and clearly, Atlantic City still has a lot of punch on the tour.
But the leading stop of the circuit events has left even Atlantic City in the dust. The third event on the circuit calendar, played in October at the Hammond Horseshoe in Hammond, Ind., just outside of Chicago, drew 3,001 players for its opener.
And that’s pretty much unbelievable.
Even the Borgata Open in September, which is a record setter for the competing World Poker Tour, has never come near that number of players for a tournament.
And the Hammond event drew strong crowds throughout.
For the moment, Atlantic City will just have to live with the fact that they’re No. 2 on the WSOP circuit.
Well, it’s better than last.
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Poker Lowdown
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Poker Lowdown
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Poker Lowdown
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