Editorial: End The “Re-Entry” Tournament Craze

The opinions in this editorial do not reflect the positions of the ownership or management of Poker News Daily.

In the past couple of years – perhaps due to the shrinkage of the poker economy, perhaps to ensure notable names stick around a bit longer – a particular tournament format has reared its head on several major poker tours. The “re-entry” tournament (where players who are knocked out on an earlier Day One of play can pony up another buy-in and play on another Day One) has become popular on the World Poker Tour, the European Poker Tour and several smaller venues. It is time that this particular format is ended in the world of poker, less the game become more elitist and less egalitarian.

Back in the mid-2000s, tournament schedules often featured something that, while popular for deep pocketed professionals, was actually a detriment to the game. Rebuy events were popular because a large prize pool could be built without the hassle of going through a large field towards the payday. The rebuy tournament fell out of favor, however, when clearer minds actually looked at how the rebuy tournaments affected the game.

In 2009, the World Series of Poker quit offering rebuy tournaments due to the perceived advantage that players with a large bankroll would have over those that didn’t. Quite honestly, players are going to play a different style if they know they are going to take several shots instead of being limited to their one bullet. For example, at the 2006 WSOP, Daniel Negreanu famously re-bought 48 times in a tournament (a record); in 2007, Layne Flack would rebuy 33 times on his way to winning the $1500 Pot Limit Omaha bracelet. These instances led to the removal of the rebuy events beginning with the 2009 WSOP – because it seemed as if players were “buying” bracelets – and the rebuy phenomenon cooled for a while.

With tournament attendance falling after the financial collapse of 2008, the major tournaments were left to try to “pump up” their prize pools while contending with more fiscally concerned poker players. This led to the development of the “re-entry” tournament which was just a thinly veiled “rebuy” tournament, for all practical purposes. The Everyday Joe who had his “one shot” at poker immortality now had to face off against the cash-flush pros who could take two, three or even more shots at taking down an event.

This was particularly evident at the most recent stop on the WPT. The Borgata Poker Open, long one of the most popular events on the WPT schedule (as it is one of the few East Coast stops on the circuit), not only offered players knocked out on Day 1A the chance to re-enter on Day 1B, it also allowed players eliminated within the first four levels of each Day One action the option to “re-enter” the tournament ON THE SAME DAY. Of course, this built a large prize pool (the 1181 entries generated nearly a $4 million prize pool and offered the largest first place payday to this point of the WPT’s Season XI schedule) but it also, in theory, affected those players who only had “one shot” from being able to play the aggressive “multi-shot” style that was in play by moneyed professionals.

One of the charms of the game of poker is that it is, befitting of its development in the United States, a perfect expression of equality, democracy and fair play. Legendary poker journalist and author Lou Krieger has said it best, stating, “Not only is poker good for you, it’s the American way – where winners play fair, have the right stuff, and nothing else matters – except, perhaps, a bit of luck every now and then.”

“Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy,” Krieger says in another of his musings. “It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring or hard and impersonal, fickle and elusive…but ultimately it is fair and right and just.”

With the “re-entry” tournaments – as with its brethren in the “rebuy” events – that “perfect storm” of fairness, equality and democratic principal is lost. Although the poker tours (and their host casinos) enjoy having full tables at their premiere events and offering sizeable prize pools, there isn’t that level playing field that many popular sporting contests attempt to ensure. By limiting the Main Events of major poker circuits to that “one shot” principal, the game of poker maintains its integrity.

For now, the “re-entry” tournaments seem to be ingrained into the poker landscape. If it continues, however, we may see the Everyday Joe pass on these events, as they cannot compete equally against the deep pockets (and money sharing) that the top professionals employ in these tournaments. If we lose the “amateurs” by making too many top tournaments these “re-entry” animals, we are actually harming the game more than improving it.