# World Series of Poker questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 10, 2003, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424 "2003-07-10T07:20:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/1 "2003-07-10T07:20:57Z")
OK, guys I was watching the World Series of Poker reruns the last weekend on ESPN. I noticed that at the outset all the players at the final table started out with different money amounts. And I think that the money amounts added up to a number greater than the total purse. As I understood it, all the players bought into the tourney for $10,000. Now, if the winner from each table moves on to the next round and so on until there are 10 players left, wouldn’t those 10 players have amassed the exact same money total? Also, the last pot was something like $6.8 million or something and I think the cash on the final table was something like $10 million. I didn’t do the math, so I could be wrong there, but if I am right how could that be? What happens if a guy goes all in and I have less money than he does? I understand that if I have less money and I go all in, he simply matches me, but what if he bets first and goes all in? Can you go all in if there are more than 2 players in a given hand? What if 3 guys are all in and the guy with the second most money wins? Do the two losers just pay whatever the lowest stack amounts to? Inquiring minds want to know. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/2 "2003-07-10T07:22:40Z")
Er, that second question should say: Also, the _total purse_ was something like $6.8 million or and I think the cash on the final table was something like $10 million. I didn’t do the math, so I could be wrong there, but if I am right how could that be? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/3 "2003-07-10T07:59:20Z")
I don’t know the money management of that tournament, but I can answer your other questions: > [@](#): > > What happens if a guy goes all in and I have less money than he does? I understand that if I have less money and I go all in, he simply matches me, but what if he bets first and goes all in? If he bets all in and you have a smaller amount, you can call up to the amount you have, and if you win he’ll get back the difference. In other words, if he bets $10, and you can only call $8, then $2 of his goes back to him win or lose. > [@](#): > > Can you go all in if there are more than 2 players in a given hand? What if 3 guys are all in and the guy with the second most money wins? Do the two losers just pay whatever the lowest stack amounts to? If you go all-in while there are more betting rounds to come, a ‘side pot’ is created for the players left in the hand. For instance, three players call before the flop for $10. On the flop the first player bets $10, the next calls, and you call all-in for five. The main pot that you’re eligible for contains $45, and a $10 side pot is created. All new bets go into the side pot. At the showdown, if you have the best hand you get the $45 main pot. The other two players have a separate showdown for the side pot. I’ve seen situations where there were three or four side pots due to different players going all-in at different times or for different amounts. It can get confusing. Especially in hi-lo split games, where each side pot may be need to be split up to four different players who tied for the best hand. You can wind up with a whole table full of tiny little pots, and the dealer has to keep track of it all. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/4 "2003-07-10T10:52:15Z")
OK, I officially undersatnd the game less now than I did before posting my question… I need a book. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2003, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/5 "2003-07-10T12:09:56Z")
Each person at the final table doesn’t have the same amount of money because each table prior to the finals isn’t played down to “last man standing.” At the end of each day all the remaining players are redistributed to make up full tables. This can lead to someone who’s cleaned out a table (and has $90,000) being at a table with someone who’s barely holding on (with, say, $1,000). You can only accumulate the chips that are at your table so the final table is highly unlikely to be composed of 9 people with exactly the same number of chips. The cash on the final table is for first and second places. As each player at the final table goes out he or she is paid their prize money out of the huge stack. When it’s down to two players the remaining cash for first and second is brought to the table (by tradition, in a plain cardboard box). So if first place is, say, 3 million and second is 2 million there’s going to be 5 million on the table. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/6 "2003-07-11T06:52:06Z")
**Otto** , your first explaination makes sense. Though it seems a little lopsided that one player would be at the final table with $1.8 million while another player would have $125k. Your explaination would clearly explain differences of say 25%, but while it certainly is possible that your explaination accounts for those huge discrepancies, I’m curious if there’s more to it. Regarding your second explaination, I think you misunderstand. When they sat down the players to start the match they said how much money each player had sitting in front of them. Its totalled something like $10 million if I remember right. Then they explained that the 10 players would each split a final purse of $6.8 million dollars, the prizes gradually increasing based on order eliminated. I assumed that if there were some 680 players each with $10,000 to start apeice, accounting for the $6.8 million dollar purse, that the finally 10 players total beginning stack would be equal to $6.8 million. Now, I may have misheard the announcers and it did indeed add up to that, but I seem to reall the total adding up to something like $10 million. Any idea why this might be? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/7 "2003-07-11T07:05:27Z")
If you mean the Binion’s World Series of Poker won by Chris Moneymaker (ho ho) in May, there were 839 players who bought in and at the last table there were $8.39 million in “tournament” chips on the table. The actual prize Moneymaker collected was $2.5 million. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/8 "2003-07-11T08:10:15Z")
I watched that one too, but the numbers I’m quoting were on the previous years. It was the one where the announcer ended up getting his head shaved as a result of some arrogant comments regarding the original winners small starting stack. I _think_ it was the 2002 version. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/9 "2003-07-11T08:12:33Z")
Er, that should say “the winner’s original starting stack”. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/10 "2003-07-11T08:24:30Z")
If you go [here](http://www.casinogaming.com/wsop/) you can see how the money accumulates day by day. It seems to be the luck of the draw with tables. If lots of guys who are doing well end up at the same table you have more to win, like on day 2 the top 2 guys are drawn the same table. The money in the game in tournament chips **is** more than the prizemoney because Binions takes a cut before distributing the buy in amount. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/11 "2003-07-11T20:27:14Z")
> [@](#): > > If you mean the Binion’s World Series of Poker won by Chris Moneymaker (ho ho) in May Thanks so much for the spoiler. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/12 "2003-07-11T20:43:36Z")
You know, having read that link I think I found my explaination for the total money discrepancy. I had assumed that only the top 10 players received prize money, and in order to be in the money you had to be at the final table. The page linked above says: > [@](#): > > Buy-in - $10,000 > Total Entries - 839 > Total Prize Pool - $7,802,700 > > _snip_ > > The 2003 World Series of Poker will distribute a whopping $7,802,700 in prize money in the main event alone. Sixty-three players will be paid in the main event, in amounts ranging from $15,000 (for finishing 55rd through 63rd) up to $2.5 million for first-place. So, first of all it appears that Binions spends and/or pockets something like $587,300 of the total amount aquired through entry fees. That seems reasonable when you consider the costs involved in putting this on. If we assume that the players get the full $10,000 in game chips and the costs are taken on theback end, then it explains part of it. The second part is that the fact that the players from 11th place through 63rd place get prize money. That prize money also probably adds up to several hundred thousand dollars which is on the final table in chips, but not in the total cash purse for the final 10 players. ---
**Author:** ![YellowTail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5ac83/32.png) [@YellowTail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YellowTail)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/13 "2003-07-11T21:31:38Z")
How about Welcome Back Kotter as the announcer. Somebody get that man a razor. It looked like he’d been living in the gutter since the show got cancelled. And is it me or does it look like he’s always cracking up? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/14 "2003-07-11T21:48:04Z")
> [@](#): > > How about Welcome Back Kotter as the announcer. Somebody get that man a razor. It looked like he’d been living in the gutter since the show got cancelled. And is it me or does it look like he’s always cracking up? Gabe Kaplan is highly skilled poker player. He’s been playing high stakes poker for 30 years. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/15 "2003-07-12T00:17:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Gabe Kaplan is highly skilled poker player. He’s been playing high stakes poker for 30 years. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a shitty announcer. I mean really, if he can’t announce the event better than Vince fer-gods-sake Van Patten, he’s pretty much a shitty announcer. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/16 "2003-07-12T02:29:24Z")
I agree, I just didn’t want to leave the impression that Kaplan is a poor washed up actor or something (the “it looked like he’s been living in the gutter since his show got cancelled” comment could leave that impression). Not many destitute ex-actors can afford to play in the kinds of games Kaplan plays. He has also placed second and third in the World Series of Poker SEVERAL times, won the Super Bowl of Poker twice, and won tons of other poker tournaments, besides being a high stakes player outside of tournaments. Also, Kaplan is a financial guru and investment analyst. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-series-of-poker-questions/187424/17 "2003-07-12T23:07:42Z")
But a truly poor announcer.