The domestic portion of the WSOP Online series on the WSOP's three-state (MI/NV/NJ) US network has been reduced to a 32-bracelet instead of a 33-bracelet series following the unintended cancellation of this week's Event #13 of the WSOP.com series, $5,300 NLH High Roller.
The high-roller tourney's demise occurred when only four players had registered by the event's announced start time, which triggered an automatic cancellation and a refund of the $5,300 entry fee to those four players. (It is believed the event needed seven players to start, as the same minimum remains in place for another $5,300 high-roller later in the series.)
Many players who had planned on late-registering the event found it had already been auto-deleted from the WSOP.com client, the standard procedure for cancelled events. Responses ranged from mystification to disappointment to outright scorn, from a few social-media commenters, for allowing an important online bracelet event be cancelled due to being, in essence, on autopilot.
Event deleted, but images captured
One of the four players who registered on time for the high roller was Mike 'mkstr' Setera, who was stunned to see the event fail to start. Setera appears to have been the only one of the four pre-registered players who captured images from the client confirming the event's cancellation, including both his refund notice and the tourney info window:
Setera, a 12-time Circuit ring winner (tied for seventh all-time) from Michigan who is still searching for his first bracelet, has been hot in the first part of the online series, with six cashes and a final table in the first 12 events. Setera's second image also shows the other three players who had registered on time but were refunded when the event was pulled: Scott 'merrick' Eskenazi, Casey 'CaseyStewart' Stewart, and three-time bracelet winner David 'Dpeters17' Peters.
Auto-tweet promoted event after it was cancelled
For would-be late registrants, the experience was somewhat different. The WSOP's official Twitter/X account auto-posted a pre-programmed tweet that went out to followers well after the event was cancelled. That drew ire beyond the initial cancellation, as shown in a response by Tim Link:
However, perhaps no player took the WSOP's online division more to task than a player prominent for his role with a rival poker entity, World Poker Tour commentator Tony Dunst. Dunst is also a frequent WSOP participant, both online and live, as his three bracelets and three Circuit rings affirm.
The WSOP's pre-programmed tweet was later deleted, as can be seen at the bottom of the post, though the damage had already been done. Whether his comment regarding the dilution of bracelet wins holds merit is a subjective claim, but the points about possibly running satellites to a high-priced online event, or pulling or lowing the minumum-entrants number, would have spared the WSOP the embarassment.
'Tragedy of the commons' variant at work
The entire situation is something of a variant of the 'tragedy of the commons' economic theory, when a shared resource is destroyed due to too many individuals acting in their own self-interests. Here, the shared resource was the high-roller bracelet event, and the self-interest being over-exploited was the late-registration window.
The auto-cancellation of an important online bracelet event appears, in hindsight, as an occurrence that was destined to happen. Mathematical studies of late-registration tourneys has shown that the longer a player waits to register, the higher the expected value that player will obtain via that late entry. In an elite high-roller field, virtually all players would late-enter as a matter of profit-maximizing strategy.
It is true that the high roller's would-be players contributed to its demise due to their collectively acting in their self-interest. Still, the WSOP's lack of close planning and monitoring appears to many commenters as the mishap's primary cause. The event's cancellation was bad enough from a brand image, as it exposed an apparent deficiency in accounting for the shift to more and more late-registering of events. Not having the promotional auto-tweet ready to be pulled at a moment's notice is another operational oversight... and likely one the WSOP won't be keen on seeing repeated, lest it give a ring of truth to Dunst's assertions.
