Lots of angry poker players in the Los Angeles area today.

Gardens Casino, formerly known as "Hawaiian Gardens", is having "The Gardens Poker Classic" this month.

They are having a $1 Million Guaranteed Main Event, which began on September 16th. The original schedule was as follows:

September 16-22: Two flights (one at 11am and 3pm) each day, for a total of 14 Day 1 flights.
September 23: Day 2
September 24: Day 3 (Final Table), to be shown on CBS Sports and streamed live on Poker Night in America

You can see the original schedule and structure sheet here.

However, presumably they were falling short of the guarantee, and didn't want to take a loss. Today, which was the second-to-last day to enter, they suddenly announced a major change to the schedule, with five additional starting flights, and Day 2 delayed by two days as a result!

*NOTICE: New sessions have been added to EVENT #2 - $1 Million GTD Main Event

Remaining Schedule:
Thursday 9/21 11am & 3pm
Friday 9/22 11am, 3pm & 6pm
Saturday 9/23 11am & 3pm
Sunday 9/24 11am & 3pm (last chance)
Monday 9/25 Day 2 at 2pm
Tuesday 9/26 Final Table TBD

Single table satellites extended through Sunday 9/24 10am - 6pm

Mega satellites extended through Saturday 9/23 8:20pm

5 drawings a day extended through Sunday 9/24
5 seats to $1 Million guarantee

The following Poker Classic Events have been canceled:
Event #3 – Six Handed NLH Mega Deepstack
Event #4 – NLH Bounty

All other events remain the same.
We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience.
Taken from: https://www.thegardenscasino.com/tou...-series-events (this link will only display the information until the series is over, but I copied and pasted it above for that reason.)

Notice that they added FIVE FLIGHTS (which I bolded above), including a 6pm on the 22nd, plus two flights on the 23rd and 24th. Day 2 has been delayed by two days, and two events previously scheduled have been dropped to make room for these new flights.

In addition, they are running more satellites on those additional days in order to further prop up the numbers, and avoid an overlay.

This is completely unethical, and violates the entire concept of a guarantee.

The reason many play "guarantee" tournaments is because they hope the turnout might be low, and thus some of the prizepool will be contributed by the casino (known as an "overlay"). This can make the tournament +EV for an otherwise breakeven (or even slightly losing) player.

What does the casino get out of offering a guarantee? It attracts more players for the above reason (that, plus the guarantee of a large prizepool), and thus the tournament gets more entrants than it would if it didn't have a guarantee. In most cases, the guarantee is set low enough to where it is exceeded, and thus the casino benefits big time from it.

Hawaiian Gardens is choosing to extend the starting days and adding flights until they finally eliminate this overlay -- or simply reduce it to a number they're more comfortable with.

Every player should enter guarantee tournaments knowing the exact number of flights (and approximate number of satellites) being run into it, or otherwise the entire guarantee is a sham.

Furthermore, delaying days 2 and 3 of a tournament is highly unethical (barring an emergency situation), given that some players have other plans for the dates following the tournament. For example, someone on Twitter complained that he had a vacation already scheduled (and paid for) starting September 25, and now will be in a huge bind if he makes Day 2.

Failing to meet the guarantee does not constitute an "emergency", and the Gardens needs to simply EAT the overlay, chalk it up to an unsuccessful event, and move on.

If you cannot afford to deal with a big overlay, then you shouldn't be running and promoting guaranteed tournaments.

This is even WORSE than the cancellation of guaranteed tournaments which fail to draw the expected number of entrants (something the Partouche Poker Tour in France became infamous for doing), because at least the tournament gets cancelled and nobody ends up buying into it. Here, these changes were announced after 10 flights of Day 1s had already completed -- full of people who made their decision to play based upon there being 14, not 19, starting flights.

I encourage all affected entrants to report this to the California Gambling Control Commission, as the Gardens deserves to be punished for this egregious abuse of player trust.