The Showdown – Episode 6, Part 2

The Showdown continues with WSOP tournament director Jack Effel.

Host Jon Friedberg begins this part of the interview by asking about how Effel puts together the tournament schedule. Specifically, is it made so No Limit Hold’em players get to play in all the No Limit Hold’em events and mixed players for mixed events and the like.

Effel responded, “Well, it’s not an exact science. What I try to do is offer the highly attended events as noon starts and then the smaller fields as the later starts which ends up being No Limit and Pot Limit events at noon and then the mixed variations at five o’clock. I try to spread the mixed events out so if you are a seven card stud player you can play the $1,500 and the $10,000. If you want to play HORSE you can play the $1,500 and the $10,000 … so you wouldn’t necessarily see a HORSE event backed up by another HORSE event.”

Effel continued, “You can put a mixed event any day of the week and the guys who play those events w3ill be there. But you can’t put a $1,500 event on a Tuesday because you will get bigger participation because you will get a much larger field on the weekend for that level of event.”

Friedberg then discusses the chatter about the huge buy-in events. Friedberg asked if the WSOP is going to integrate huge buy-in events and what Effel’s thoughts are on including those events in POY races.

Effel said, “Well I think that every buy-in is meaningful. At any byu-in level there is going to be a certain level of competition and skill, it’s not going to be a crapshoot or cakewalk. The higher the buy-in the tougher the field comes into effect. The field of 200 playing in a $10,000 Omaha event is probably a little tougher than let’s say an open $1,500 event. But they both have their level of skill needed to play those events.”

Responding to Friedberg’s question regarding events such as these at the WSOP, Effel stated, “There’s always the possibility for more buy-ins. We always try to find events that are exciting to players.”

You can follow Jack Effel on Twitter @WSOPTD if you want to hear more about the man in charge of the tournaments at the World Series of Poker.

Remember that Jon Friedberg wants to hear from you about Full Tilt Poker’s multi-entry poker tournaments, so send him a message on Twitter @JonFriedberg or via email at jonfriedberg@gmail.com.