‘Over-Lap” The new word in Poker Events

In the old days, a mere 5 years ago, major poker events were protected by an un-spoken law. You don’t schedule events that “Over-Lap” other events. Understanding that the traveling pros numbered 100-150 at any given time, adding those pros to the local players made for very successful events. Part of the decision not to schedule a competing event was that you didn’t want your event diluted by players going to another event scheduled during the same dates and certainly not one in close proximity ala the Commerce and The Bike.

The World Poker Open (WPO) was the first event to try and break the mold. The WPO was always scheduled in March and because of a growth in their casino, rooms became scarce at that time, so back in 2003, the WPO decided to move their event to January where not even the locals came to see the frozen cotton fields. This is where the first over-lap came as January was when we all went to Reno and the World Poker Challenge (WPC).

There was an outcry by the players and organizers alike. So Jack Binion (owner of the Horseshoe, Tunica at the time), sent Ken Lambert to the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas to lobby to the players during the last ever held Tournament of Champions. I remember Ken was hit with some resistance, I included, but it didn’t deter the Horseshoe/Gold Strike from changing their dates.

The WPC decided to hold firm and kept their January slot and it turned out to be an interesting dynamic. I remember players checking into the Reno Hilton taking support for Reno and the WPC, but some obvious faces were missing from our group.

Jack Binion, one of our most respected names in the industry asked some of his closest friends to come to Tunica and they obliged. So we played the first 3 WPC events and the fields were small or at least smaller than they should have been. So we checked the internet and saw exploding numbers at the WPO in Tunica. Those numbers created an exodus that rang of an upcoming blizzard, we all boarded flights and ended up in Tunica.

The decision was merely a business one. If we were going to play similar buy-in events it only made sense to go where the prize pools were the biggest. So off we went and now Tunica in January in our industry means the WPO and the World Series of Poker Circuit event.

The Reno WPC event was eventually moved to the time slot formally occupied by the WPO in March. The numbers have never returned in Reno like they were initially, especially in the preliminary events and not because the players don’t like Reno, it’s a great local. It’s because it seems these days that you can’t run a poker event that doesn’t over-lap some other event going on somewhere else in close proximity. Even if by close proximity I mean somewhere else in the U.S.

What that means and what’s coming next, in my next article.