Labour Day in the poker room at Caesars Palace, and the $150 buy-in Texas Hold ’em tournament is about to get underway. Trouble is, there are only 13 players.
Last year, such a tournament would have drawn at least five times as many entrants. To make up for the lack of bodies, Caesars Entertainment Inc. let players reenter an unlimited number of times in the first two hours if they lose all their chips. About an hour into the game, a new arrival takes full advantage of the rule change and throws what looked like a standard game into total pandemonium.
He goes all in on his first hand and loses. He immediately rebuys, goes all in and loses again. He throws another $150 on the table, for another 15,000 chips. Within 15 minutes, the new player has spent $750 competing for a first prize of just over $1,000. Is this pandemic poker or just a very aggressive player? It’s not…