Day one of the main event began without a hitch, make that Day One A, the same for Day One B, and Day One C.  Save for some paltry numbers on the 4th of July, explained away by patriotism on the U.S.’s pseudo-birthday, this was one of the better World Series of Poker’s in recent memories.  Every year there has been improvement, increased efficiency, and streamlining where necessary.  Then Day One D happened and all hell broke loose.

At 11am Las Vegas time, all seats were sold.  The Main Event had reached capacity on the last day.  On one hand, that’s quite a feat, it also overcame weak sales on Day One A and Day One B to make it an $8.5 million first place prize, a prize pool of $61 million, and almost 6,500 players (just six short).  Everybody making it to the November Nine will make at least 1.2 million (one burning question, if Phil Hellmuth is the short stack at 10 handed will it suddenly become the November 10?).

So that’s the good news, the bad news was the hallway full of players locked out from getting a seat.  That group included such notables as TJ Cloutier, Mike Sexton, Captain Tom Franklin, and slew of players that waited until an hour from the last moment to register.  They knew full well that they had four days to choose from yet despite repeated warnings from the tournament officials of a possible day One D sell-out declined to buy-in in advance.

Every year the WSOP strongly urges players to buy-in ahead of time.  If they don’t, the are warned they might wait too long and miss out on a seat.  After a few years of the Rio being Chicken Little the players didn’t listen and as a result missed the main event.   

Fast forward to 3:00-ish.  Commissioner Pollack spoke to the players.  There was some back and forth but essentially the way he closed the meeting is all you need to know, “Sorry, sorry.”  This year, there just wasn’t room for everybody on the fourth day and no concessions were made.  This included a number of online pokerqualifiers whose travel cut into their time to register.  Truly, a black eye for the WSOP.