Should the Colossus have a bigger first prize?
Barry Carter responds to some complaints about the WSOP Colossus having too flat a payout structure.
I must admit, with 22,374 players and a $11,187,000 prize pool, I was surprised that the WSOP Colossus had a $638,880 first prize. It was such a historic event, my gut instinct was that it should have had a million dollar first prize, just to make a more marketable story.
But the WSOP stuck to their standard payout structure and have stuck to their guns about flatter payouts, and I for one agree. However, there have been a lot of players complaining that first place did not get 10% of the overall prize pool.
The first prize is 5.7% of the prize pool, but it is also 1,130 times the buy-in. In fact even the players who just miss the final table in 10-12th place will win just under 100 times their buy-in.
While we all claim to be playing for the big money, the reality is most of us want flatter payouts. Most tournaments end in deals, a WSOP poll said 83% of players wanted flatter payouts and the WSOP was praised by many (including myself) for guaranteeing 1,000 payouts for this year’s Main Event.
A Main Event for low stakes players
The Colossus has attracted recreational players and when recs come to Vegas, they are really coming for an experience, not to maximise their EV. To go home having cashed in the WSOP is the badge of honour most players are striving for and this way more players are going home with a great memory and a bigger smile on their face.
Some people would point out that this may be true for the $10,000 Main Event where a min-cash is worth a lot, but not so much in a $565 tournament where a min-cash doesn't even cover the cost of travel. I would argue the opposite. $565 players are, in my opinion, even more price sensitive and much more of the mindset of the enthusiastic amateur. Getting their maiden cash in a genuine World Series of Poker event is likely an even bigger deal for them than the guys who can afford to play the $1,500 events upwards. So for me the more players who take home a big score, the better.
It would have been cool for this to create a millionaire winner, but we probably put too much stock in seven-figure prizes these days. We have awarded hundreds of million dollar prizes already in poker, and we have the ‘Millionaire Maker’ coming up this week for that. Making a millionaire just for the sake of it is no longer a prerequisite for a good tournament.
This is very much the Main Event for most of the players who entered. It is likely the only bracelet event they will play this year. In my opinion, to grow this game we are much better off sending 2,241 raving fans back home, than making one lucky player a millionaire.
Do you agree with the payout structure? Let us know in the comments.
