South Point Casino in Las Vegas hosted a shootout tournament on June 10 in honor of gambling icon Benny Binion. The poker room moved away from its usually affordable price points and decided to set the buy-in for the Benny Binion Summer Shootout at $2,200, with a guaranteed prize pool of $256,000. The tournament concluded on Saturday, June 12, and while everything went smoothly, South Point had to cover a massive overlay.
To meet its guarantee, the tournament must attract a total of 128 entries, but only 94 players registered, leaving the poker room on the hook for more than $50,000. South Point is well-known for hosting affordable daily tournaments and cash games, and also runs occasional freerolls, making it a top choice among low-stakes grinders in Las Vegas.
The venue made a bold a move by introducing a much higher buy-in for the shootout tournament, which could have pushed away players, but that wasn’t the only reason why the tournament failed to generate that much interest.
Unusual Format
As it turned out, not everyone liked the format adopted by the tournament. One player shared that while he took part in a cash game at the poker room earlier in the day, he decided to skip the shootout tournament because the format just didn’t appeal to him. This was backed by another player who said the structure was “obviously pretty fast” for a tournament of such buy-in level.
Indeed, the event adopted a quite different structure from a regular No-Limit Hold’em tournament. It became a fast-paced battle, with play being temporarily halted once half of the players at each table were out. There were two rounds of play on Thursday – one at noon, and then another at 6pm. The remaining players returned on Friday to battle it out for a spot in the eight-handed final table. The final action then took place on Saturday.
Payout Structure
The tournament’s top-heavy payout structure also did not sit well with a lot of players. The winner gets $100,000 in first-place prize, accounting for 39 percent of the total prize pool, well above the payout percentage involved in a typical tournament. The 9^th to 16^th place finishers only min-cashed for $3,000, representing a difference of just $800 from the actual buy-in.
Apart from that, the South Point’s shootout tournament ran simultaneously with a host of other events at prominent locations, like The Wynn and the Venetian, with plenty of better value tournaments also taking place online.
The Silver Lining
While the Benny Binion Summer Shootout ended in overlay, officials have chosen to look on the bright side.
The marketing and advertising aspect of a certain tournament usually gets a chunk of the blame when the event ultimately fails to reach its target. But for South Point’s poker room manager Jason Sanborn, you can only do so much when it comes to reaching the “right” people effectively. With players providing their feedback about the tournament, Sanborn said the poker room will benefit from it in the long run.
Sanborn said it’s turned into a good thing after all as players were talking about the unique tournament, regardless if they participated or not. He said it could serve as a marketing tool for future events at South Point. Sanborn is also hopeful that players will acknowledge the fact that they honored their promise despite the huge cost.
The Binion shootout tournament was ultimately won by Ian Steinman for $65,000 following a three-way deal with Patrick Gunraj, (2^nd, $55,000), and Kyle Grosshanten (3^rd, $55,000). The rest of the final table were made up of Zachary Andrews (4^th, $18,000), Ryan Laplante (5^th, $14,000), Joseph Baranowski (5^th, $11,000), Nellie Park (7^th, $8,000), and Dustin Dirksen (8^th, $6,000).
South Point is currently running a mini-series through June 22, with guarantees ranging from $3,000 to $50,000. Among the main highlights is a $250 buy-in, $50K GTD No-Limit Hold’em Mega Stack, which takes place daily at 6 p.m.