Writing: Jack Effel interview for GX magazine

This month, Paul Sculpher from GX magazine travelled to Las Vegas to speak to the man behind the World Series of Poker, Jack Effel, and find out what it’s like to run the biggest show in the world of Poker.

PS : Hi Jack, it’s great to meet you. Your job must be quite something, can you tell us a bit about how you got to the very top of the poker tree ?

JE : Well I grew up around poker in Dallas, Texas, as my friends played a lot of card games. When I turned 21 I naturally started getting involved, and worked as a dealer. I moved up through the ranks, all the way from dealer through supervisor, floor manager and eventually all the way up to Vice President in my current position . I was working as a Poker Room Supervisor at the Horseshoe in Robinsonville, Mississippi when the company was absorbed by Harrah’s in 2003, and they also acquired the rights to the World Series of Poker, which they moved to the Rio Hotel and Casino in 2005.  I was asked to help out with the whole setup, and from 2006 onwards I was given responsibility for the whole tournament, along with a very skilled team. There’s literally never a dull day in this line of work, and we’re constantly trying to improve the customer experience – after all this is the equivalent of the Olympics of poker.

What are you  up to outside of the WSOP?

My job title is VP of international poker operations, so I am involved in all tour events under the WSOP banner. There are circuit events in Harrah’s properties all over the United States – I recently got back from one in St Louis – and we strive to make sure the quality at all events is comparable to the Las Vegas showpiece. We also have the WSOP Europe, which means travelling to Europe to get involved in the events in London, which is great fun. I couldn’t get anywhere close to doing all this by myself, though, and I’m lucky to have some great professionals backing me up.

On the personal side, I love poker and I used to play a lot but realistically I don’t have much time to get involved these days – I’m usually at home spending time with my wife and kids when not on the job.

Preparing for the big show must be pretty involved.

Oh yeah! There are a huge number of different departments that need to be co-ordinated to make the whole thing run smoothly. We have meetings year-round to keep everyone on the same page, as changing anything can make a difference to everyone in some way. For example this year we are changing the layout of the main room, expanding into the 58,000 sq foot Pavilion, which will give us another 70 or so tables and bring total gaming floor space for poker to  96,000 sq. Ft. This will have an impact  on every part of the facility. We’re getting pretty good at anticipating the effect changes will have on the traffic and flow of people, but you’re still talking about a huge number of bodies to move around for seating, breaks, food and so on. When 6000 people take a break at the same time, you’d better have food, drink and toilets ready for them!

During the planning process we need to take into account the needs of food and beverage, hotel operations, parking, audiovisual, press, convention and banqueting, IT, Total Rewards and the Cage. The people from Marketing, the maintenance guys who move the rooms around and fit the felts, the surveillance team, the guys who run the waiting list for cash games and so on all have to know what they’re doing, and what each other is doing, to keep things running smoothly. There’s a lot to think about, but we’ve been doing it a while and it’s all about taking advantage when preparation meets opportunity.

We draft in extra staff from other Harrah’s properties, and run with around 2000 temporary employees in all. 1200 of these are dealers or floor supervisors, with every department using their share as well. We have auditions regularly, and in fact if any of your readers have the relevant skills, are legally allowed to work in the US and would like to apply, they can do so at harrahs.com/employment and click on world series of poker.

With the event being so high profile, you must be sensitive to any issues.

Yes, we have over 600 press attending from 115 countries over 55 days, so just keeping them organised and informed is a challenge. With an operation this size there’s no way everything can be run smoothly, but we take the view that when we find areas that need improvement, it is an opportunity to make the whole operation better, and a customer who has their issue resolved can end up happier than before the issue appeared in the first place if it’s done well.

We have a process for customer complaints that goes through the levels of personnel here, ending up with me if others cannot resolve it.

Speaking of escalating processes, it’s very apparent from talking to people who’ve played in the World Series that the game rules are very strictly enforced. Do you find this can be counterproductive ?

It’s true that we have a fairly rigid set of rules, involving warnings, time penalties and eventual exclusion for players that continually cross the line. Most players are respectful, although everyone can make a mistake, and of course there are a few sour apples around. We believe that we have to be pretty structured in these matters, after all there are gigantic sums of money involved and some pretty big egos as well. Having said that, there are always grey areas in poker games and that’s where our experienced team comes into play. It’s all about consistency of enforcement, and players are shown the code of conduct before they play. We’ve been at this a long time and we believe that we have it about right, although we’re always learning with every new situation.

One of the bigger issues we have had was the main event last year, which had four start days. Of course a large proportion of the players left it until the last minute – larger than usual in this case -  and we ended up with more players wanting to register for day four than we could physically accommodate. It was a real shame at the time to have to turn players away, but we weren’t prepared to penalise the players who had registered early by jamming them in around the tables, and feel we made the right decision. This year we have made some logistical changes to help with the situation, and have been even more pronounced in our communication to the players to get signed up for the early days.

You must have seen some strange goings-on over the years of big-field poker tournaments.

That’s right! You have seen some of the meltdowns on TV, but for example we’ve also had a blind guy in the WSOP main event with a card reader to keep him informed. Last year we had a paraplegic gentleman who read his cards and made his bets using only his feet. We also have a player who brings along a Chihuahua dog with him – it’s a medical requirement for him, to control his stress levels.

With a huge number of players, some of them older and in a high-stress environment, it’s also not unknown for major medical problems to occur either, so we have trained people on standby the whole time.

And with a spate of casino robberies in recent times, including the spectacular raid on the EPT event in Berlin during the playing of the tournament, how has this impacted on your security arrangements?

Naturally, we don’t want to discuss them in detail, but we’re pretty comfortable that we have our bases covered. The players generally know to be careful when they’re wandering around with large amounts of cash or high value chips, and many of our buy-ins are done over the wire before arriving at the tournament. It’s already looking like a solid field for the upcoming summer tournament, so if anyone wants to get involved,  click on event registration at wsop.com , download a pre-registration form, follow payment instructions, and get signed up for your favourite event before it’s sold out!