Prize Structure of NJCOP High Roller Event Upsets Players

The New Jersey Championship of Online Poker (NJCOP), the first edition of which was held last month, comprised a large number of online poker tournaments. Each event had a prize structure and buy-in, but online poker players are worried about the prize structure of one particular event. Some of them have even posted in popular online poker forums about it.

According to a report recently published in Pokerfuse.com, event #14 of the New Jersey Championship of Online Poker, which happens to be a high-roller online poker event, has created a lot of confusion among online poker players. This $500 buy-in tournament promised a guaranteed prize of $30,000 along with a first-place prize of $20k and a second-place prize of $10k.

The event attracted a field of 150 players who generated a prize pool as large as $70,000.

When the high roller tournament came to an end, several players began complaining that they did not know that only the top two players would get played. The prize pool was shared among two players while the rest of the players who finished in the top positions had to return home empty handed.

Party Poker tried to clarify the issue in a press statement. Admitting that there was no advance communication about what would happen if the prize pool exceeded the guaranteed $30k. They also expressed regrets that they failed to advertise the prize structure as the event generated a larger prize pool and player comments after the event suggested that the event might have had a larger player field.

The games lobby at PartyPoker NJ showed that only the top two players would be rewarded with cash prizes, but players who registered for the event later were not aware of this. The online poker room has refused to change the prize structure and has declared the results will remain as they are. Simultaneously, it has announced that it make sure that it will make advance announcements if any event has a special prize structure.

Players, however, continue to remain discontented. They continue to complain that the lobby did not display the prize structure in detail and suspect that the site does not want to apologize for its mistake. Usually, in case of poker tournaments with large player fields, a number of players are rewarded; and players continue to wonder why only the top two players were rewarded in case of this particular high roller event.