The November Nine Poker Spectacle
One day til the World Series of Poker finally ends. What a spectacle it is turning into it. The PR person from Harrah's emailed around a bunch of information yesterday, including a schedule of events. Schedule? Events? I thought they were playing poker!
They are -- just there are a bunch of other things that are going to cause breaks in the action. Namely:
Michael Wunderman Watch Presentation
Johnny Chan All-In Moment (no idea, probably just a shill for that energy drink he was pimping during the WSOP)
Hall of Fame Inductions
Player of the Year Presentation
Heads-up Player Introductions/Shuffle Up and Deal (Michael Buffer)
In other news, I've mentioned before the symmetry between the first prize of the Main Event ($9.1 million) and the rake Harrah's collected on all of the WSOP events combined ($9.1 million). Yesterday Harrah's sent around an updated payout list for the final table. Each player was paid $900,670 (9th place money) on July 15, and the remaining $24,527,416 was put in an interest-bearing account. According to Harrah's, the $24.5 million earned $98,179 in interest.
That number seemed surprisingly small to me. I broke out my eighth-grade algebra book, a slide rule and a pencil and paper to figure out what the interest rate on the account was. I know from my days as a corporate lawyer that these types of fixed escrow accounts usually come with an upfront locked-in interest rate -- a rate better than what you can get by taking $100 to your local mega-bank. Which makes sense. $24.5 million dollars should buy you a better rate than $100.
The formula I used was [principal * annual interest rate / number of days in a year * number of days in the account = accrued interest]. After plugging in some values, the equation is $24,527,416 * x / 365 * 117 = $98,179. When we solve for x (I always thought that would make a good band name; that and "Jesus Cat"), we get... 1.25%! Really, Harrah's? The best you could do with $24 million was 1.25%?
The players got screwed. I was getting 3.5% on a personal savings account over the summer. $24 million should have at least been able to buy a 2% interest rate. Given the figures involved, an extra $75,000 split over eight places might not amount to much, but why forego it?
[Edited to add: California Jen did some actual fact-checking for Pokerati (Fact-checking? Who does that?) and reports that the money was invested in a Fidelity Institutional Money Market Fund - Treasury Only Portfolio on July 14th and withdrawn on November 5th. The account returned a variable rate of .9%. I suppose it was compounded daily. Harrah's likely figured better-safe-than-sorry by choosing a Treasury Only account, but why wouldn't they have just put it in a special escrow account with an agreed-upfront rate of return? This makes no sense to me.]
Credential pick-up begins at 8am tomorrow. Cards are supposed to be in the air at 10:23am (no joke). Follow the action at PokerNews.