Jared Jaffee is furious at Matt Savage and Venetian for not combining final 8 players into one table at WPT Venetian
Jared Jaffee is one of those grizzled poker veterans who came up during the boom years while young, and have been able to survive long term. He's 40 years old, and you can sense a lot of cynicism in his tweets, as is common for formerly young players who came up during those years. He is often outspoken and will brashly come out on Twitter and state his opinion, regardless of who it offends or insults.
He's done well for himself overall, racking up almost $5 million in tournament cashes since appearing on the scene in 2009.
He recently decided to call out veteran tournament director Matt Savage for a head-scratching decision made when down to 8 players at the WPT Venetian, which had a $5k buyin and a $750,000 top prize.
He teased with this:
https://twitter.com/jaredjaffee21/st...50036282511361
Then he came forward with the whole story, the following day:
https://twitter.com/jaredjaffee21/st...42874530160640
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwDiFYaVoAIV-am?format=jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwDiFYZVoAAdZL2?format=jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EwDiFY5XEAInr7H?format=jpg
The poker community is overwhelmingly on Jaffee's side here, wondering why they decided to run two four-handers instead of one 8-hander, given that it's an 8-handed event. While it's true that WPT final tables are 6-handed, this still made little sense.
Jaffee then accused Savage of trying to pass the buck.
https://twitter.com/jaredjaffee21/st...28273315319821
Savage then joined the conversation, and I threw in a question:
https://twitter.com/ToddWitteles/sta...31546797686789
Jaffee wasn't happy with that answer:
https://twitter.com/jaredjaffee21/st...37699887759364
Notice that from Savage's link to the structure sheet, the relevant rule is this:
Quote:
SEATING REDRAWS: There will be a full seating redraw prior to the start of each day of play, unless the tournament is already at 24 players or fewer. In that case, redraws will take place at 24, 16, and 7 players (or at Tournament Director’s discretion).
However, that doesn't explain how many handed the tournament is, only that redraws are done when there are 24, 16, and 7 players left. Given that it's an 8-handed event, they're doing the redraws at 3 full tables (24), 2 full tables (16), and 7 players (one player short of one table).
Savage said that the Tournament Directors Association (TDA) voted in 2019 to always require balanced tables, and that they couldn't combine at 9 because of COVID rules, limit the maximum to 8 in Nevada. He claimed this prevented the usual combining at 9 players, so they had to stay separate at 9 (true), and then TDA rules disallowed combining them at 8, because they were balanced. That's why he said they combined at 7.
Additionally, "redraw at 7" only makes sense if there's currently more than one table running, or otherwise a redraw is meaningless. (For those who aren't familiar, a "redraw" means getting new random table assignments, as is common at tournaments when there are 3 or fewer tables left.)
Jaffee called it "ambiguous", and I agree. The bizarre thing is that the initial plan to "redraw at 7" makes essentially a 7-handed final table, when in reality the final table is 6-handed, as is always the case at WPT events! Also, the TDA rules don't seem to prohibit combining at 8 -- only to avoid unbalanced shorthanded tables (such as a 5 and 4 configuration, if COVID weren't happening).
It looks like Savage intended this tournament to go to two 8-handed tables at 16, and then stay as two tables until it hit 7. However, the "7" thing is weird because it's one more than the final table (6), and one fewer than the size of the table for the rest of the event (8), so this really is awkward and should have been very clearly disclosed. It's also just a bad idea. If everyone's been playing 8-handed the whole time, and there's 8 left, then the obvious solution is to combine at 8.
Jaffee feels that this was just a tactic to speed up the final two bustouts, as the 4-handed play forces antes to go in much faster (you're posting the BB ante once every 4 hands instead of once every 8), and thus knocks out short stacks a lot quicker.
Savage maintains that this was in the structure sheet the whole way, and that it would have been wrong to change it midstream just because nobody liked it. However, given that all eight remaining players wanted to be combined, I think this was a no-brainer. Apparently nobody was objecting loudly, though, aside from Jaffee and Joe McKeehen.
