2009 WSOP: The Late, Late Show

There's been a rash of problems within the last week at the 2009 World Series of Poker with the daily 5pm bracelet events. They're not starting until 5:15. That wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, but it's a symptom of a bigger issue. Each tournament got off late because by 5pm only about 60% of the final field had registered.

The problem repeated itself three nights in a row -- with the $2500 Eight-Game Mix, the $2500 Razz and the $2500 Omaha Hi/Lo. The effect was that each table started play extremely short-handed. My razz table played 4-handed for about 45 minutes and 5-handed for another 45 minutes after that. We didn't fill out to 8-handed until Level 3. For the first two levels we were effectively playing a different game. We weren't playing razz; we were playing short-handed razz.

This happened because of the way the registration process works. As best I can tell, the WSOP makes an estimate of the number of entrants for a particular tournament and then allocates tables and dealers based on that estimate. If they estimate 300 entrants for an 8-handed tournament, they might allocate 41 tables. Then as players register, they are randomly assigned a seat at one of those 41 tables based on an algorithm that balances the number of players at each table. So far, so good.

The problem lies in the fact that late registration extends for a full two hours and twenty minutes after the start of the tournament. And when a tournament goes off late, it means late registration goes late also. For whatever reason -- triple chips, multiple events on the same day, pure laziness -- anywhere from 35-40% of the field for each of the 5pm events this week registered after the scheduled start of the tournament. Given that players have two and a half hours to register, many of them show no particular rush to take their seat at the scheduled time. While this was always true for tournaments in general, it has become especially true in fixed-limit tournaments. There is less incentive to show up on time in fixed-limit tournaments because it is very difficult to acquire a large number of chips in the early stages without playing like an utter maniac.

[I should point out that if you register on time, your stack is placed on the table and anted off, whether you show up or not. If you register late, you start with a full stack once you arrive at the table.]

I've never understood why late registration needs to extend so late. It could be that extending late registration until the first break in the tournament seems to tournament officials like a convenient time to do so. Or maybe it's because the WSOP is trying to keep the name pros (who often play multiple events on the same day) happy by giving them oodles of time to gauge their chances of a deep run in one tournament before registering for another. Perhaps in events like $1500 NL donkaments, tournament officials are trying to jam in as many people as they can in order to increase their take. I hope that neither of the latter cases is true because each would sell out a tournament's integrity.

How can the problem be fixed? Very simply by not allowing late registration to go so late. Thirty minutes is more than enough time for late registration -- if someone over-sleeps or gets stuck in traffic, they will still have ample cushion to register. That's what late registration should be for -- allowing people who've had some inconvenience in their life the chance to overcome that inconvenience and still play the tournament. It shouldn't be for what it's being used for now, which is to allow lazy players to show up when they feel like it. And by limiting late registration to 30 minutes, it will ensure that tournaments (a) start on time, (b) don't penalize players who sign up on time by requiring them to play a different game than the game they were expecting to play for the first two hours, (c) will allow players to have a much better idea of the size of the field they can expect to encounter when registering and (d) collapse to full 7- or 8- or 9-handed play (depending on the game) before the first level ends.

I'm interested in any competing theories as to why two-and-a-half hours of late registration is a good thing. Feel free to leave a comment.