Big Controversy Over Asia's Newest Poker Tour

The International Poker Open, Asia’s newest poker tour, had a disastrous debut outside of their Korean homeland with huge controversy over their use of staked players in an attempt to avoid an overlay.

The tour had offered a guaranteed $250,000 prize-pool for their $1050 buy-in main event at IPO3 in Manila, but player numbers fell well short of expectations, leading the organisers to introduce dozens of staked and reduced-entry fee players on day 1c.

With 264 players required to meet the guarantee, days 1a and 1b combined only produced 108 of them, and so day 1c was flooded with new arrivals, many playing fully-staked – with 80% of winnings to return to the organisers.

Other players had also been offered discounted fees of $800, both moves which infuriated the full-fee paying entrants. Added to this were changes to the events T&C’s allowing this staking to occur.

Australian Jymmi Briggs Jr –well-known and respected on the Asian poker scene shared his concerns, "I am interested to know if any players that played in the IPO3 Main Event are upset that roughly 45 to 50 players did not pay one single dollar to play this event.”

He continued, “"I made my way to Manila for this event knowing there would be a pretty decent overlay. Day 1a and 1b totalled roughly 105 runners and I knew they would not get more than 70 to 80 for Day 1c. Well I was right and wrong. While they did not get 150 runners that PAID US$1,050, they did get 150 with around 45 to 50 runners that were 'House Players' and playing for a small percentage of ... any money they cashed.”

Although not an unprecedented move by tournament organisers, opening re-registration with 15 minutes left to play on day 1c – and also allowing another 12 entrants to enter Day2 with a full starting stack – did little to endear themselves to those who had paid the full entry fee and played through their respective day 1’s.

IPO3 was the first venture of the company’s expansion plans outside of Korea, having held 2 ‘practice run’ events in Jeju earlier this year. It was also the first event in a new three-year partnership with Resorts World properties.

Their first joint-venture also fell foul of other mishaps, including a an IPO promise of 60 to 70 high-stakes Chinese cash game players that failed to arrive. This led to a farcical situation whereby Mike Kim at PokerStars LIVE provided some players - only to find PokerStars quickly shutting down Kim’s involvement. In fact, the majority of the cash game players ended up playing at the rival Poker King Club instead.

Another ridiculous outcome saw the final table chip leader being argued over, with the IPO and an independent staker both claiming they had ‘ownership’ of his staking.

One positive is that the IPO have realised there is ‘a very serious problem’ and have vowed that, “IPO is going to find ways to solve the problems we met in Manila in the first show."