Good News and Bad News

I was offline for the whole weekend and the Philippine poker community went on without me. Just in case you haven't heard about them, I have good news and bad news for you all.

Good News

I would've posted this earlier if I had read the email but I didn't receive it. Weird.

Anyway, the PAGCOR Cup will be held this week.

PAGCOR Cup details (from text message)

Apr 1-3

Manila Pavillion Hotel then SMX SM Mall of Asia

Buy-in P30,000 + P3,000

Estimated Prize Pool P2.1 Million

I can't afford to play in any of them, and I have work on those days. Tough.

Bad News

This is straight from glenster's post in PokerManila.

This is to enlighten everyone on exactly what went down at Pocket Ace last Friday. 

100K Garaunteed Tourny

Pool Prize:

100k - 10% service = 90k

Total re-buys and add-ons = 22,500

Total Pool prize = 112,500

This is where all the controversy started and let me enumerate each one.

1)  4 tables left, someone (Not an employee and no longer in the tourny) proposed a payout structure on behalf of the management as follows:

Final 30 players will be garaunteed a 1k satellite ticket for 2009 ASIANGEM 4th PagCor World Charity Poker Tournament. This 30k will be deducted from the pool prize. (are they crazy? announcing something like this during the tourny! too many objections and this was a dead issue from the beggining). Funny thing is, they continued to try to negotiate in including the satellite tickets from 30 to the equivalent of the re-buys and add-ons, which is 22,500k, too many violent reactions.

2)   Final 2 tables, this same person drafted a payout structure to the 20 finalist as follow:

11th to 20th place 2k = 20k

112,500 - 20k = 92,500

1st to 10th will be the standard percentage payout from 92,500. 

Everyone agreed to this, there was no objections. 

3)   When it was down to the final table, a new proposal was drafted and invoked, not proposed to the players by the management.

1st to 20th garaunteed 2k

1st to 10th will be the standard percentage payout from 72,500 

The difference in the 2 payout structures is very minimal which is aside from the main point. A payout structure has already been proposed and agreed upon on. Why change it during the final table? Management states that they did not present the initial proposal and insist on the second one. 

I don't want to mention any names, but one person walked out and did not continue to play and claim the prize. He wants to set an example and make a stand for the poker industry. I admired him for this but all I wanted to do at that time was to finish the tourny, get my money and go home.

I seldom paste posts but this actually got to me. I mean, this is just the worst thing they can do for their business and the poker community in general. I haven't been to that poker room and I don't imagine me wanting to go there. Not that they would lose a lot by losing my business but hey, I have a blog.