Venetian Lucky Shot Poker: Lose-lose situation

The scandal surrounding the LuckyShotPoker tournament format at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas had upset the poker community.

The Venetian Pokerroom, which calls itself the “Best Pokerroom in Las Vegas”, had offered a guarantee of $150,000 for the Main Event Prizepool, but at the same time set it as a MAXIMUM payout – Hochgepokert reported. Had many players visited the MTT with 6 start flights, and 8 levels of Unlimited Rebuys, a rake above 50% would have been possible.

The other way around: If many players had followed the boycott calls, e.g. Doug Polk, the Venetian would have had to pay for an overlay out of his own pocket. To make a long story short: Neither the boycott nor the horrendous rake occurred.

Between 600 and 750 entries, there is a lose-lose situation.

In advance players like Jeff Boski on his Twitter account @ICuRaRook pointed out the consequences of different starter field greetings. In plain language, this means:

Players attending       Outcome

600 Entries                                   break-even (no Overlay, no Rake)
750 Entries                                    normal $200+$50 rake
900 Entries                                   33% rake
1.200 Entries                                50% rake

At the end of the last start day 1f, the actual number of Total Entries is fixed. With exactly 645 entries at $250 each, both the poker community and the organizers of the Venetian have done themselves a disservice.

Total Entries ($250 each): 645
Total Amount collected: $161,250
Prize pool: $150,000
Rake/Fee: $11,250
Rake/Fee %: 7.67 %
Real buy-in: $232.56+$17.44

The poker community has failed (just as Mike “Timex” MacDonald suspected in his tweet) to consolidate and make a mark against such anti-player tournament experiments. On the other hand, the Venetian officials shot themselves in the leg for offering a tournament with less than 10% rake, not to mention the negative press. The buy-ins of the 645 entries (250 each) exceeded the guarantee so that a total of $11,250 went into the Venetian’s pockets for this event. The participants came de facto thus into the benefit of a reduced $233+$17 tournament that the Venetian for such an action however at all, even if below average, cashed in, is an imposition for all genuine Pokerspieler.

Conrad Sanchez, Moshe Asulin and Rafael Gonzalez lead

By the way, they also played… On day 2 there are still 129 players in the race, who will end up in the (guaranteed) prize money from rank 72. The biggest stacks after the end of the starting days were Conrad Sanchez (), Moshe Asulin () and Rafael Gonzalez (). With not quite usual blinds of 1.500/2.500-2.500, the second and last matchday will start on Sunday. The winner will receive $30,750.

Lucky Shot Event #1 (NLH)

Buy-in: $250
Players: 645
Prize Pool: $150,000
Players advancing: 129/645
Places Paid: 72
1st Place: $30,750

It only remains to hope that the mass of poker players will use their influence in the future and stand together in such actions, instead of undermining such actions on the hunt for the last ounce of value.