Five Live Poker Tournaments Management Got Wrong
There is a lot of planning involved in getting a live poker tournament from the board room to the casino floor, or so those in charge would have you believe.
Having worked on the World Poker Tour, European Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker, I can attest to major live event being akin to a military operation. There are supervisors, managers, managers' managers. You name it, there is probably a person in charge of looking after it.
When deciding where to host a poker event, those who wear the suits and sign the contracts have to take into consideration a whole host of factors that could have an impact on players, staff and the publicity of the event. As a general rule, the organisers get this spot on, but sometimes things go wrong or the poker community is left scratching its head while wondering WTF?!
World Poker Tour Amneville
I reported on one of two WPT Amneville Main Events that have run and thought it was one of the strangest places I have worked. Think of a kind of Centre Parcs establishment but in the middle of nowhere and I mean nowhere.
I flew into Luxembourg airport with a couple of fellow workers and negotiated a €100 taxi into Amneville that took the driver about an hour to find because IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.
The first Main Event saw Sam El Sayed top a 542 strong field and win €426,425 so plenty of people managed to find the place, but the attendance plummeted to 379 the following year and then was scrapped from the main schedule and used as a National / regional stop instead.
European Poker Tour Moscow
In 2009, the European Poker Tour was scheduled to open its sixth season with a Main Event in the Russian capital of Moscow. As the tournament's start day loomed, rumours were rife that it would be cancelled, not least because Vladimir Putin's Mother Russia decided to close casinos!
Although EPT Moscow was due to take place in the Radisson SAS Slavyanskaya hotel, the EPT decided not to risk running such a prestigious event there under such uncertain conditions and headed to Ukraine's Kiev instead. At least they thought about their players' safety.
LAPT Medellin
Although it has passed without incident for two years, I can't think for the life of me why the Latin America Poker Tour (LAPT) would have a tournament in Medellin, Columbia.
Medellin was once known as the most violent city in the world thanks to rival drug cartels taking it upon themselves to kill all and sundry. It's also one of the most likely places on the planet that you will be kidnapped, again by the drug cartels. So sticking cash-rich poker players in a casino playing for vast sums of money isn't risky at all, is it?
World Poker Tour National China
Imagine the meeting that took place in the WPT boardroom that suggested heading to China for a major live event.
"Let's head to a county where gambling is banned and where they won't let us film, blog or take photos of the poker tournament taking place, therefore giving us almost no publicity at all."
"Brilliant idea, let's go to China!"
World Poker Tour National Kazhakstan
"Oh boy! I watched a really funny film last night about a guy named Borat. It was hilarious!"
*light bulb goes off in head*
"I know, let's go to Borat's house for a poker home game!"
That's correct, the land that gave us the mankini and the greeting "Jagshemash" has been chosen to host a WPT National event. Rumours that you can buy in with livestock or rocks have not been confirmed or denied.
Where is your choice for a ridiculous venue for poker? We're thinking WPT Iraq or possibly some event held in North Korea. As the Dr.Pepper adverts say, what's the worst that could happen?
Prices quoted in copy are correct at time of publication but liable to change.
