In what has been a frantic weekend around the tournament rooms of the Rio All Suites Hotel and Casino, the 2015 World Series of Poker – and its grand experiment, “The Colossus” – and its officials have been holding their breath regarding how well the tournament was received. From all appearances, the players came out for the party but the cake has yet to be served.
The premise of “The Colossus” was a $500 buy-in WSOP event that had four different flights. Two flights – Flight A and B – took place on Friday and the final two – Flight C and D – completed play on Saturday night/Sunday morning. The rules of the tournament were simple: players could enter all four of the schedule flights, but would only be able to move one of those stacks forward in the event. By placing a $5 million guaranteed prize pool on the tournament, Caesars Entertainment and WSOP officials were hoping to draw at least 10,000 players to break even.
From appearances, that number was crushed handily. Flight A on Friday drew an estimated 5300 players and the remaining flights were at least that large if not bigger. The number of players in the tournament could conceivably crack the 22,000 mark, ensuring a prize pool of well over $11 million and a first prize that could be at least $1.5 million.
Why are we saying could? Because at this point, WSOP officials have been unable to put together all four flights into a coherent ranking. Some players entered into all four of the flights and, if they were happy with their stack from the Flight A effort, didn’t have to play the other three (players would receive a refund). WSOP officials have to remove those buy-ins (and the chips) before they can put together an official entry number, the total prize pool or even how many players are left in the tournament.
From a perusal of the official WSOP.com chip counts, these were the flight leaders, but this could be inaccurate as well:
Flight A: Ty Durekas, 179,100
Flight B: Ian O’Hara, 184,000
Flight C: Steven Geralis, 159,000
Flight D: Ardit Kurshumi, 169,100
Out of the massive throng of players, several professionals stepped up to put their money in the kitty. The potential to turn $500 into a million-dollar payday seemed to be a bit too much to resist for these pros, who will enter Day 2 on Sunday at least assured of a seat if not an official WSOP cash:
Yuval Bronshtein, 169,000 (Flight D)
Taylor Paur, 95,000 (Flight D)
Jake Schwartz, 80,700 (Flight D)
Simon Deadman, 125,000 (Flight C)
Jordan Cristos, 110,700 (Flight C)
Taylor von Kriegenbergh, 104,400 (Flight C)
Mike Leah, 85,000 (Flight C)
“The Colossus” has also had a residual effect on other tournaments in the Las Vegas area. Tournament junkie Dan Heimiller posted a photo over his Facebook account showing one of the Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza tournaments that had a $30,000 guarantee for a $200 buy-in tournament. The tournament clock that Heimiller photographed showed that over 450 players stepped to the felt to build a prize pool of more than three times the guarantee.
Information from WSOP officials is that the final numbers will not be released until 5PM (Vegas time) this afternoon, when Day 2 of “The Colossus” will take place. Regardless of what those figures show, there has been a vote of approval by the players for “The Colossus” that should ensure its return to the WSOP schedule in coming years.
