Dennis Phillips

Dennis Phillips is a professional poker player from the St. Louis area.  He wasn't always just a poker player.  He worked as a manager at a trucking company when in 2008 he made the final table of the World Series of Poker.  He finished third in that event taking home $4.5 million and changing his life forever.

Dennis plays a tight, aggressive, old school style of poker typical of many of the grinders seen on the circuit.  He plays his big pairs and strong aces for raises up front and the speculative hands in late position if he can see a cheap flop.  This style makes it hard to take any chips off of him but carries him deep into most of the events he plays.  As expected, this style has won him a lot of money but coming into Chicago, Dennis has never won a ring or a bracelet at a WSOP event.

Thursday was "Satellite Day" at the Horseshoe.  Satellites are tournaments that pay out in entries or seats to another, higher buy-in tournament.  The Main Event at the Horseshoe will have a $1,600 entry fee.  The honest way a player gets into such an event is not to just plunk down sixteen hundred bucks but to win your way in.  For $150 you can win a seat in the $1,600 event the next day.  The way the "Mega" satellite tournaments work is that once the prize pool has been established, the number of seats can be determined.  For example: After the rake and the dealer tokes have been deducted from the entry fees there might be $17,000 in the total prize pool.  Ten seats would be the prize with the player finishing 11th getting the remaining $1000 in cash.

In the Mega Satellites for the Main Event three seats were added by the house at each one.  The house was giving the players back much of the rake taken in at the entry fees.  It makes the satellites an attractive value playing "juice free".

The 9 pm $150 Mega was also a rebuy tournament.  Players start with 4000 chips and if they fall below 2000 they can buy another 2000 for $100 or if they bust out they can buy 4000 for $200.  At the end of the rebuy period, after the first six twenty minute levels, players can add 2000 or 4000 to their stack as an add-on for $100 per 2000 chips.  All of the rebuy money is added to the prize pool with no rake for the house, however, their is still a 3% toke taken out for "dealers and staff".  By the time the players came back from the 11 pm break, the announcement came out that 17 seats would be available. 

This mega satellite tournament was small enough that all of the tables fit on the stage of the Venue leaving enough room for the final table arena encircled with gold ropes and monitored by an internet web camera suspended above the table.

I pushed into the separate $1,100 final table just before the mega satellite was finishing up.  When they got to their final seventeen the tournament abruptly ended and the stage was empty except for this final table of the $1,100 tournament that had begun the day before.  Dennis Phillips had made the final table despite feeling ill all day.  By this time there were only three players left, each with a mound of chips in front of them.  When Gordon Vayo busted the third player, he had about a 2 to 1 chip lead on Dennis.  The blinds were up to 15,000 and 30,000 with a 5000 chip ante but with over 3 million in chips between the two of them, they could still play some small ball.  And they did.  Back and forth went the blinds and antes.  Shuffle, shuffle, box, shuffle, deal, raise, fold, repeat.  Occasionally, a call.  Put out a flop. Bet. Fold. Over and over.  Gordon and Dennis grinding it out.  30 minutes I dealt, then a 30 minute break while Jason dealt. 30 minutes on, 30 minutes off.  Shuffle, shuffle, box, shuffle, deal, raise, fold, repeat.  During one break I straightened all the chairs and tables on the stage, bussed tables and picked up all the trash.  30 minutes on, 30 minutes off. Shuffle, shuffle, box, shuffle, deal, raise, fold, repeat.  This was going to take a while.

A few hours into it, Dennis says, "You know how this is going to end.  One of us is going to have a pair against a big ace and it's all going in."  About two hands later, just that happened.  Raise. Re-raise. "I'm all in."  Think, think, think, ... ..."I call."

Dennis turned over two sevens while Gordon showed an Ace and a Jack.  I tried to position the cards so they would show up under the web cam and put out the flop.  Jack in the window followed by a ten and an eight rainbow.  The suits were irrelevant.  With Gordon's big chip lead, Dennis needed another seven for a set or a nine to make the gutshot straight.  The Turn card was a four.  No help.  The River brought the nine.  Straight.  Kill the Jacks.  Dennis starting pushing stacks of chips forward.  I was momentarily confused but then, oh yeah, I gotta count all those chips.  There were over a million in stacks of powder blue 25,000 chips and blaze orange 5,000 chips.  The count was verified by Jeremy, the Floor Supervisor, and then Gordon counted out an equal amount from his mound of chips.  It was a complete reversal.  Dennis, once a 2 to 1 dog now held a 2 to 1 chip advantage.

Back to small ball.  30 minutes on, 30 minutes off. Shuffle, shuffle, box, shuffle, deal, raise, fold, repeat.  By 5:30 am with the stacks about the same, Jason dealing, Jeremy and I watching, it went raise, re-raise, all in and call.  This time, Gordon showed the pair, Sixes, while Dennis turned over an Ace and a Queen.  The Sixes never improved but a Queen hit the board and it was all over.  There was just few spectators, Dennis' girlfriend, Jeremy, Jason, the payout person and me.  The rest of the place was empty except the security guards.  According to the media guy, there were 35 people watching the final hand over the internet.

Dennis took home $55,045, a seat in the $1,600 Main Event and a WSOP Circuit gold ring.  He was then taken to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a ruptured appendix.  Rather than playing in the Main Event, he will be recovering from surgery.  I imagine he will still be a happy guy.

Dennis Phillips will forever be able to say he won a WSOP Circuit event and I will be always be able to say I dealt the final table of Dennis Phillips' first WSOP tournament win.

5:30 am. I had started the day at 11:30 am. 18 hours of dealing. I never worked this hard when I was working. So much for an easy retirement.

WSOP Circuit Chicago

The Venue at The Horseshoe

OK, it's the closest casino to Chicago - The Horseshoe Hammond, IN.  To comply with Indiana gambling laws it is a building built out over the water so that it can technically be a "boat" located on the water.
This is the largest WSOP "Circuit" event of the 17 stops on tour that runs from September 2011 to May 2012.  It is held in "The Venue" which is the Horseshoe Casino's theatre, cleared of theatre seats replaced by 99 poker tables.  There are 12 tournaments that will award WSOP Circuit rings to the winner in addition to prize money as well as daily satellite tournaments and nightly non-ring tournaments.
Event #1 was $350 entry fee with $500,000 guaranteed prize pool with day 1 of the tournament spread over two days to accommodate all of the entries.  There was a fantastic turnout with 1392 entries on the first "Day 1" and an additional 1609 on "Day 1B" for a total of 3001 entries, the largest field ever at a WSOP Circuit event.  Something like 500 of the entries on 1B were people who busted out 1A and were allowed to re-enter as a new player on 1B.  The place was packed.  86 Circuit dealers were augmented by local "House" dealers to fill all of the tables in The Venue plus a share of tables set up in Horseshoe's Poker room.

For dealers looking for work, this is the place to be.  There are daily tournaments at noon, five and seven along with Mega-satellites and single table satellites running throughout the days.  Many of the tournaments are two day events with the first and last being three and four days.  We are scheduled to work every day of the event with no days off.  One shift.  Start at 11 each day and work until no longer needed, generally getting cut between 9 pm and 2 am.  One day I worked until 5:30 am.

It will be interesting to see how the pay works out.  Dealers are paid minimum wage plus dealer tokes.  The toke rate is determined by the number of tournament entries.  3% of each prize pool is held out for dealers and other tournament staff.  The dealer share, plus any tips left by winners, is divided by the dealers according to how many hours were worked.  We should do quite well because the pool of funds is being shared by a small group of dealers working ten, twelve or more hours a day rather than spreading it out over a larger group working more standard eight hour days.  The total number of hours it takes to deal a tournament will be the same, but at this event, those hours are being worked by fewer dealers than I have seen in the past.  This is a good thing.  Nearly all of the dealers are here from out of town and have little else to do but work.  May as well make money instead of reading a book in the hotel room.

More later...

Late Registration

Last year I wrote an article about the "Latecomer Celebrities."  The issue of entering a tournament late has arisen again, this time at the European Poker Tour (EPT) London.  Daniel Negreanu in particular has been "tweeting" his dissatisfaction with the EPT officials who decided that any late registrants would be penalized chips for their lateness.  He said:

@RealKidPoker: The buy in for the high roller is £20,000 but if decide to skip the early levels and rest EPT tourney directors will penalize your stack!
Players LOVE the option of late registration so MOST tours cater to them but not the EPT guys. They are driving me absolutely crazy.

Matt Savage weighed in on the subject saying that he thought late registrants should get a full stack.  He said:

@SavagePoker:  Late reg advantage/disadvantage too minimal to determine so allow most flexibility for players to get in (traffic, schedules, flights, other.)

At the WSOP they have a rule that if a player registers before the tournament starts, his chip stack is set out at his seat.  The blinds are paid from this stack and his hands are folded until he shows up.  On the other hand, a player who registers after the event has begun will get a seat assignment and a full stack of chips.  I see a problem when someone registers early, but for what ever reason shows up late, gets blinded off while the guys that don't even register until after the event has started get a full stack.  This seems to be very unfair to the players who are faithful enough to the tournament to actually send their money in early or avoid the crush of the long registration lines by signing up the night before.  The faithful get punished while those who don't commit until the last minute are rewarded.

First of all, the EPT and the WSOP need to get together and decide on the rules for late registration.  It would be nice if they all agreed to use the same rules whether hosting a Poker tournament in London or Las Vegas.

The WSOP rules state that any player registering after an event has begun will receive a full starting chip stack.  Registration remains open for the first four levels, except the Main Event where it is open for two levels.  It further explains that a player who is registered but does not show up will have their chips blinded off until they show up or until the start of the third level when they will be removed and entry fee refunded.

My view is that I think we need to be consistant - both for pre-registration / late registration as well as WSOP / EPT tournaments.

If the big name pros like Negreanu, et al think they gain a slight advantage by resting and entering tournaments late and not playing the "unimportant" first four levels, they why should we have them at all?  Why not just start the tournament with the blinds and antes at a level equivalent to that of level four or five?

Well, many think those early levels represent much of the "value" of buying into the tournament.  They like the idea of getting a lot of "play" for their buy in and being able to play for some time without feeling that every hand they get involved in is a "Shove or fold" situation.  Big Stack Poker is fun and Big Stack Poker is what you get to play at the beginning of tournaments.  Of course, the big name pros are not in it for the fun, they are in it for the money.  There is also the idea that many in the field have entered the tournament with the idea that they will be able to sit at the same table with and compete with some of the star players that they and their friends have seen on television.  Allowing players to routinely skip the first few levels without any penalty kills the idea that one of the draws to the tournament is the possibility that you might be playing with somebody famous.  In the large field events, doesn't much of the prize pool come from the large number of players who don't have much of a chance but want to try to catch lightening in a bottle?

I think the big name players owe it to the event and to those casual players to show up for those first "unimportant" levels and give the casual players their shot.  Odds are it would be profitable for them.  They are, after all, the better players, aren't they?

To the Tournament Directors Association, the WSOP, the EPT, Matt Savage and Jack Effel, here is my proposal regarding starting tournaments:

1. Pre-registered no shows and late registrants will be treated the same.
    
2. Chip stacks will not be placed at a player's seat until they have shown up to play.  This means that the only time a players chips are "blinded off" is when they have shown up to play and left the table.
    
3. There will be no penalty for any late entrants during level one.
    
4. Players entering during levels two, three or four will forfeit 5% of their chip stack for each complete level missed e.g. a player entering any time during level three will forfeit 10% of their starting stack.  The maximum penalty would be 15% of the starting chip stack.

 I think these rules would be good to adopt because they provide a lot of incentives that would drive desirable behaviors.  First off, people would not risk being punished for registering early.  This should help tournament organizers by increasing the number of players who take advantage of early registration and cut down (a little) on long registration lines immediately before the start of a tournament.  It would give the "famous" pros an incentive to show up and play the early "unimportant" levels which would increase the odds that the casual player would get a chance to play with a big name.  This should increase the desirability of playing in the tournament and increase participation.  Tournament Directors should like this plus the pros should like this because the more "Dead Money" you can get into a field, the better the payouts are when you cash in.  Players who desire to start late still can and while there is a penalty, it is not a killer.  In the typical $1500 WSOP event, the starting stack is 4500.  A player starting as late as possible would start with 3825 giving up 675, which is less than three and a half Level Five Big Blinds where the blinds are 100-200. 

Some will argue that any advantage to starting late is insignificant and even starting with a full stack it is smaller than an average stack because the average stack in the tournament is be slightly higher by then as some players will bust out during the first levels.  While this is true, there should be some price to pay for the priviledge of not putting any of your chips at risk.  The price I have suggested is less than a player would pay if their stack were set out and blinded off, losing the blinds as the button orbits the table at a rate of 30 hands per hour, but certainly more than the nothing that is currently used for late registrants.  It is also less than the penalty one pays to register early and show up late.

The procedure for dealers would be cleaner also:  Only put out a chip stack to a player who has shown up.  Anyone showing up during level one gets a full stack whether they registered early or late.