Grumbling from the Poker Room

As you walk through the main Mohegan Sun poker room, where 15 tournament tables are currently in operation, you can't help but notice that the field seems tougher over there. Instead of two or three notable players at each table, there are five or six. Allen Kessler used his powers of observation and deduction to conclude that everyone in the poker room directly bought into the event or qualified via last night's super satellite that was run here at Mohegan Sun. To put it another way, there are no online qualifiers at any of those fifteen tables.

The pros at the poker room tables are not happy about this arrangement. Rightly or wrongly, the general consensus among pros is that qualifiers help make the field "juicy" and make a tournament like this more attractive for their time and money. Not having any qualifiers at their tables, they feel, is a significant disadvantage.

We spoke to Tournament Director Rick Landry about the situation. He noted that the poker room tables are "overflow" tables there were only added at 9 a.m. yesterday morning, when it became clear that they would be needed. By that time, all of the online qualifiers had already been registered for the tournament by NAPT and Mohegan Sun staff and had been assigned random seats in the main tournament room.

That explanation probably won't mollify the players in the poker room, but it at least makes sense.

2010 PokerStars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun

2010 PokerStars.net NAPT Mohegan Sun

Grumbling from the Poker Room