ACR Boss Phil Nagy Blasts PokerStars Over 24 Hour Late Registration

ACR owner Phil Nagy took to Twitter yesterday to denounce PokerStars’ 24-hour max late reg in their upcoming Sunday Million celebration…

Titled ‘Important message to the poker community’, Nagy reveals he was staggered to hear that “the biggest poker company in the world” will be allowing players to still enter some 18 hours after the first session finishes.

‘I’ve just read that PokerStars is doing a $12.5million guaranteed, $215 buy-in’, says Nagy. ‘There’s a small catch – there’s a 24-hours late registration…Twenty. Four. Hours.’

Accepting that he likely shouldn’t be discussing competitors and other sites, but stating ‘I have to at this point’, the ACR boss remarks how he was ‘joking when I said I was going to put dates on late registration.’

His voice rising in incredulity at PokerStars plans, Nagy adds:

‘Seriously? 6 hours of play, eighteen hours of max late reg…and this is the biggest poker company in the world?’

Buy-ins and numbers

The tournament in question is PokerStars 14th Anniversary of the Sunday Million, a tournament that saw its buy-in ‘permanently halved’ this time last year from $215 to $109.

It was halved again for a pre-Christmas running just last month, but will be back to its old $215 buy-in for the March 22nd anniversary edition.

With $15 of the $215 entry fee going towards rake, that means the site will need 62,500 runners just to break even – which probably explains the 24-hour max late reg plan.

Max Late Regging – the debate

PokerStars have introduced the 24-hour late reg window across all their ‘main events’, and the max late reg issue has been a talking point for several reasons.

One is that it’s sometimes possible to reg for an event so late that you are almost in the money without playing.

It also played a part in recent WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard races, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson showing the effects of live late regging to amass a slew of min cashes, and with them enough points to secure the title in 2017.

On the plus side, for huge events such as the WSOP, it allows players to enter multiple tournaments and helps to avoid burnout.

With the big blind relatively small compared to stacks early on, the EV handed over is limited.