What if You Gave a Party and Nobody Came?
What if you gave a party and nobody came? That’s what seems to be happening at the Bellagio Cup III.
With record totals at the World Series of Poker, and large fields at the Venetian’s Deep Stack II event as well as downtown for Binion’s Poker Classic, something seems to be going very wrong at the Bellagio.
The attendance for their World Cup III tournament series is sinking like a stone. Their first event, a $1,590 no-limit Texas hold’em tournament (the entire series is all Texas hold’em, every day) attracted just 145 entrants. Things ran straight down from there. At the second event, which had a $2,620 price tag, only 103 players showed up. For the third event, the total number of entries was down to 78.
This is probably a big enough problem to get the attention of those who make the decisions about that sort of thing. If their main event, which is a World Poker Tour tournament beginning on July 10 and running through July 15, lays an egg of similar proportions, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some heads roll as a result.
I don’t know why this has happened. I’ve no ax to grind with the Bellagio, nor am I intending to diss them, but they seem to have really missed the mark here.
The decided to go up against the big Kahuna, the World series of Poker, but did it with a tournament series that apparently didn’t do enough to separate itself in the minds of those who matter most, the poker players who pony up their money to play.
While the WSOP is the market leader, the Venetian’s Deep Stack II event carved out a unique position for itself in the market. They offered lots of play with lots of chips—just like their name suggests—and at a moderate price.
Binion’s offered many of the same events scheduled for the WSOP a day earlier, and at one-tenth the price, so that players who did well in the smaller buy in events at Binion’s could try to parlay their money by entering the same event the very next day at the WSOP.
Both the Venetian’s event and Binion’s tournament series complement the WSOP. But the Bellagio simply butted heads with them. They offered no-limit hold’em every day, did not find a way to work hand-in-glove with the offerings at the WSOP, and did not do enough to make their product unique in the marketplace. Or so it seems.
It’s still early in the game, but this is a development worth keeping an eye on. Stay tuned…
With record totals at the World Series of Poker, and large fields at the Venetian’s Deep Stack II event as well as downtown for Binion’s Poker Classic, something seems to be going very wrong at the Bellagio.
The attendance for their World Cup III tournament series is sinking like a stone. Their first event, a $1,590 no-limit Texas hold’em tournament (the entire series is all Texas hold’em, every day) attracted just 145 entrants. Things ran straight down from there. At the second event, which had a $2,620 price tag, only 103 players showed up. For the third event, the total number of entries was down to 78.
This is probably a big enough problem to get the attention of those who make the decisions about that sort of thing. If their main event, which is a World Poker Tour tournament beginning on July 10 and running through July 15, lays an egg of similar proportions, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some heads roll as a result.
I don’t know why this has happened. I’ve no ax to grind with the Bellagio, nor am I intending to diss them, but they seem to have really missed the mark here.
The decided to go up against the big Kahuna, the World series of Poker, but did it with a tournament series that apparently didn’t do enough to separate itself in the minds of those who matter most, the poker players who pony up their money to play.
While the WSOP is the market leader, the Venetian’s Deep Stack II event carved out a unique position for itself in the market. They offered lots of play with lots of chips—just like their name suggests—and at a moderate price.
Binion’s offered many of the same events scheduled for the WSOP a day earlier, and at one-tenth the price, so that players who did well in the smaller buy in events at Binion’s could try to parlay their money by entering the same event the very next day at the WSOP.
Both the Venetian’s event and Binion’s tournament series complement the WSOP. But the Bellagio simply butted heads with them. They offered no-limit hold’em every day, did not find a way to work hand-in-glove with the offerings at the WSOP, and did not do enough to make their product unique in the marketplace. Or so it seems.
It’s still early in the game, but this is a development worth keeping an eye on. Stay tuned…
posted by Lou Krieger @ 7:14 PM
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