Cards at WSOP Provoke Players' Revolt

photo credit: PokerWorks

The United States Playing Card Co. produced the special decks for Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., which hosts the WSOP at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The decks feature large rank indices without suit pips in the opposite corners to traditional card designs, and "Poker Peek" indices in the traditional corners. Suit pips on the face of the card are reduced in size, making it difficult for players to distinguish between suits of the same color.

PokerWorks quoted 2005 World Champion Greg Raymer as saying "There is no way any poker player has played with these cards before today." Players during the first event of the weeks-long tournament series chanted, "New cards! New cards!" An unnamed Harrah's executive claimed that players in the high-stakes cash games refused to play with the new card designs.

photo credit: PokerWorks

Harrah's and U.S. Playing Card executives are scrambling to replace the unsatisfactory decks. A truck with 300 replacement decks is on its way to the Rio. Supposedly, USPC was to produce a total of 18,000 decks of cards for delivery to Harrah's over the course of the WSOP. Aborting production of the newly designed cards cannot be coming cheap.

The WSOP was already opening under a cloud due to the sudden departure of tournament director Robert Daily two weeks ago. It remains to be seen whether Harrah's staffers remaining can overcome the challenges they are facing and run a successful tournament series. The success of the WSOP is the success of poker, and so poker enthusiasts are hoping the WSOP is a success.

(via Spencer Sun)