ESPN Poker Blog

Posted by Steve Rosenbloom

And oh, what progress. Someone will walk away with a record $12 million first prize when the last nine entrants of an astounding 8,773 participants play the final table of the main event tonight, starting at 5 p.m. ET.

And after that, the Harrah's folks who run America's greatest home game will walk away with pats on the back and kicks in the rear.

But why wait until after the event? Let's cover the good and the bad of this year's seven-plus-week extravaganza with the man who's in charge of making it all good: Jeffrey Pollack, Harrah's VP of sports and entertainment and commissioner of the WSOP.

"This is my first World Series of Poker,'' said Pollack, who came to the job late last summer after five years at NASCAR and two years with the NBA. "I'd never gone through this before. So it's been a learning experience each and every day.''

First, let's start with the good: the changes that were made from last year that worked out best.

"There are a couple things I'm pleased with,'' Pollack said. "First, we did exactly what we said we were going to do and we did it effectively. We said we were going to take care of some of the basics: food, bathrooms, smoking. Those are checked off the list. Done. The feedback has been terrific: better food this year, no smoking in the hallways, and access to more bathrooms. Those should be the givens, and I think they are now givens.''

Tournament officials also instituted staggered breaks, a terrific idea. Instead of sending players out of the room to take care of whatever, officials cut the room in half, giving the first group its 20 minutes, then sending out the other group when the first half returned.

A couple other things on the good list were quick responses to media and player problems.

Harrah's issued 650 media credentials for the WSOP while setting aside a room that would accommodate only about 40 laptops. I was told by two officials that media concerns were addressed last year, and this was all they could arrange. Nope. Sorry. Wrong answer. If you're going to act big-time, if you're going to claim that you're big-time, if you're going to brag on the voluminous multimedia coverage that you get -- and want -- then you had better make sure that the media you invite have a place to work.

That's pretty much what I told Pollack almost three weeks ago, and he and his staff responded within a day to setting up a second, more spacious media room. Pollack and his staff worked equally quickly in establishing a Player Relations desk that would be manned almost around the clock to hear player issues and respond as quickly as possible.

A lot of players still were cranky and complained, of course, formally or otherwise. It is what poker players do. They complained about the cards, the dealers, the floor people, the tournament officials, and the way some events were run, or run over. So let's get to all that.

First, there were complaints about the quality of the cards: flimsy, easily bent, perhaps easily marked.

"I am not the right person to judge their quality,'' Pollack said, "but we're going to take a look at that and make sure they have the best possible cards. We felt this year going into it that we did have the best possible card. But if there's something we need to do there, we'll do it.''

Next, the dealers issue. Some who came quickly left and were replaced by some who were getting a form of on-the-job training at the biggest pokerpalooza event in the world.

"There were a few dealers who were unhappy with the compensation structure,'' Pollack said. "They were unhappy with the communication leading up to the development of that compensation structure and I also think that we may have had some dealers who weren't up to World Series of Poker standards.

"That said, we have, I think, 400-500 dealers that we need to cycle through this event. That's a huge number of temporary employees -- freelancers -- that we have to find. We need to do better. The goal next year is that every dealer is a brand ambassador for the World Series of Poker. This must be viewed as an honor to deal here. I don't think that's the case right now.''

Dealers might tell you that's because they don't get paid as if it's an honor.

"I think we need to recruit, train, socialize and compensate our dealers in a manner that reaffirms the plum nature of this assignment,'' Pollack said. "If that means table tests, one-on-one interviews with a pop quiz about dealing and dealing judgement, if it means more customer service training, we're going to do it.''

I don't know much about the corporate world and how these companies work and play nice with each other, but if I'm Harrah's and I own the biggest franchise in poker and I own the Rio, Caesars, Bally's, Paris, and of course, Harrah's, then next year I'm telling every poker director that I want the best dealers they have and I want them throughout next year's seven-week tournament, and I'll fill in around that.

Because if you connect the dots, inexperienced dealers lead to inexperienced floor people. People are playing out of position. Not all, certainly. But some. Frankly, all it takes is one to drag down credibility. One respected pro told me that during the razz tournament he was asked by a floorperson what the best hand was -- "Is it ace to 5? Do suits matter?'' Later, the same floorperson asked the pro what the second-best hand was. Yikes, babe.

Floorpersons expected to rule on situations who don't know the most basic of rules? Just to clarify: Not a good thing.

"I don't know that we have a lot of inexperienced floor people,'' Pollack said. "That hasn't been my experience. Again, across the board, everyone who works in this tournament needs to be the best in their field. And if it takes us a couple years to get there, we're going to get there. But our business and our customers and our brand demand it, and we shouldn't settle for anything less.''

Whether it was floor people, tournament officials or whoever to blame, there was a credibility-straining flap with the $1,500 buy-in pot-limit Omaha event. At least, it was scheduled to be the only pot-limit Omaha event that day. And it was scheduled to be a no-rebuy event. But some players were told after they signed up that it would now be a rebuy event. Who knows who complained and how much clout they had, but suddenly a new pot-limit Omaha rebuy event magically appeared on the same day as the one originally scheduled.

Without going into all the equity or edge a particular player might have when factoring in one buy-in vs. a bigger bankroll for rebuys on top of an option to play a similar event later in the day, just know that integrity is an issue here.

"I haven't quite figured that one out yet,'' Pollack said. "Here's what I know: We shouldn't be creating events on the fly, and we're not going to going forward.''

As for going forward, I think of the line from "Jaws'' when Roy Scheider's character says, "You're gonna need a bigger boat.''

Every one of the more than 200 tables in the Amazon room was filled, and refilled with alternates to the point that spectators were kept out for about five hours to allow for tournament-only foot traffic in the narrow aisles between tables. And this wasn't just for the main event, which nearly hit the 8,800-player tipping point that tournament officials planned for.

"I think we were a little space-constrained,'' Pollack said. "We shouldn't be. We're the world's largest gaming company. We shouldn't be in a position where we don't have a big enough physical plant, if you will, for this tournament.''

Pollack said Harrah's officials have already begun meeting internally to discuss additional space and perhaps moving the event. The Amazon room, where the event has been staged the last two years, is the second-biggest in the Rio Hotel. The biggest room is where the Gaming Lifestyle Expo was held, and it's bigger by a lot.

"We've even talked about that maybe this needs to go to Caesars once they complete the expansion of their convention area,'' Pollack said of the prestigious Harrah's property on the other side of the freeway on the Strip. "That probably won't be in time for next year, but it's certainly an option for '08.

"That said, the Rio is a great home to the World Series of Poker and I'd like to see it stay here and we're going to work hard in the offseason to make sure that it does, but make sure that it stays here with a little bigger footprint.''

Speaking of bigger, any guesses for next year? Any thoughts or worries that it has maxed out?

"Our goal should be that everyone who wants to play gets a seat straight away, so there are no alternates so we can sit everyone who wants to sit,'' Pollack said. "We haven't had the ability to do that. We may not get there next year, but we're certainly going to try.

"In terms of attendance for next year, I'm still getting my head around what we did this year. We had 5,600 entrants in the main event last year [5,619, to be exact]. I would've been happy if we were flat or at 6,000. We exceeded that by a terrific number.

"We want to plan for growth and we are planning for growth. I don't think that we will sustain a constant year-over-year geometric expansion in the numbers. Every sport has its moment. We're having ours, and attendance and ratings will come and go. You have to build for the long haul and build for the absolute fact that your metrics are going to drop at some point. It's happened to the NFL, the NBA, the NHL. It's all cyclical, and that's what we're building for -- to withstand those cycles.

''So, I have no idea how many people we'll have next year [for the main event].''

But Harrah's is planning for a bigger space, which implies it is planning for more people.

"We'll probably plan for north of 9,500,'' Pollack said.

The All-Star Game that is the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E event, by the way, will be four days instead of three next year, and that event, along with all the others, will be played earlier than it was this year.

"We haven't announced the dates formally, but we're moving it earlier in the year starting next year,'' Pollack said. "Don't be surprised if you see a late May or early June start date.''

Which would be closer to last year than this year.

"We're now headed back in the other direction,'' Pollack said. "We will not run the tournament as late as it ran this year.

"We're doing it because we think it's better to run it earlier, and also for television. We'd like to see our event and ESPN would like to see our event on the air earlier during the summer more than they have been.

"If you ask me in six weeks, I'll know a lot more about what we're going to change.''

Starting at the top, Harrah's suits and the tournament staff underwent big changes since last year, so stability and perhaps credibility and integrity suffered in spots. Understandable. This is what happens with unparalleled growth. Poker people have no experience in dealing with all the details of an event this massive because poker has never been this massive.

You almost get the feeling that poker used to make it up as it went along. That thinking can no longer apply. Expectations inside and out are greater. More people are playing, more people are watching. Flaws are magnified. Inexperience is exposed. Credibility is questioned.

This has been the case with every major sports league at some point. A crisis arises. The response defines the sport. Baseball had a World Series fixed. The NFL had players gamble on games. The NBA had a drug issue. All three faced the expensive specter of free agency. Deal with it or die by it.

Pollack knows this, what with his experience in the NBA during it's lockout and with NASCAR during it's stupendous growth that mirrors the poker boom. He seems to be the right guy to make this work.

But he might have to wield a heavier hand to speed the learning curve, force feeding the blueprints from the NBA and Major League Baseball to people down the food chain whose only real concern previously has been rewarding the player who ended up with all the chips.

Different deal now for poker. Different deal for everyone involved in running America's greatest home game. The WSOP is finding that the spotlight doesn't just shine, it can also burn.