Interesting controversy here regarding the $10k Heads Up NL even at the WSOP.

The Heads Up event has always had a problem involving the first round. Unless the number of entrants is an exact power of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc), then there will end up with some players without an opponent in the first round.

Even though this is randomly selected, the WSOP decided it would be fair to those forced to play the first round (as opposed to those without an opponent, who get a 'bye') to get a 50% refund of their buyin.

So let's take this year's event with 153 players.

The nearest power-of-2 (without going over 153) is 128, so the first round needed to be structured to where the field would get down to 128 when it was done, meaning the elimination of 25 players was needed.

That meant 50 people (2 x 25) would play the first round (and each get $5000 back), while the remaining 103 would get a bye directly to the second round.

But what of the rake? Are they raking the event as a $5k event, or a $10k event?

After all, it's technically a $10k event, meaning the rake is $600 (6%) per person.

However, if many players are actually entering for $5k (since they get the automatic 50% refund), shouldn't it actually be considered a $5k event?

The WSOP does not explicitly state the rules on this, and thus the controversy.

Andy Bloch brought up a good example of this:



So in Bloch's example, where the only option would be to "bye" one player and make the other 254 play, 254 of the 255 entrants would be paying $5k to enter, so why should it be considered a $10k event for rake purposes? At what point is this a $5k event?

Jack Effel (WSOP tournament director) had an odd answer to this.



So this answer implies that, yes, it was double raked. But it isn't 100% clear.

However, some simple math verifies that indeed it was.

The initial prizepool was $1,530,000 for 153 entrants.

Since 50 people played the first round, that meant $250,000 in refunds.

$1,188,200 was paid in prizes (excluding the $5k refunds).

So.... $1,530,000 - $250,000 - $1,188,200 = $91,800

6% of $1,530,000 is also $91,800. So that means each entrant paid $600 rake.

For the 103 players with a bye, that's fine.

However, the 50 who didn't get a bye paid $600 rake on a $5000 entry. Brutal.

Andy Bloch was not amused!