July 5: Lost AC tests players’ patience - World Series of Poker- nbcsports.msnbc.com

Lost AC tests players' patience

By Andy Wang, MSNBC.com contributor
Posted July 6, 3 a.m. ET
Poker players will put up with almost anything — bad customer service, hour-long lines, confusing rulings — for a chance at a seat in the World Series main event, but apparently there's a limit.

Today, I played in the $1,060 1 p.m. mega satellite. All 540 players were put in the tent area outdoors. At 3 p.m., on a day when it was 115 degrees outside, the air conditioning in the tent stopped working.

Players sweated and grumbled, and the tournament staff announced they were working on fixing the problem. (You might expect that the World Series would have multiple backup plans for such a situation, especially after poker pro Eskimo Clark collapsed in the tent and had to be taken away by medical personnel last month.) After a few minutes of players perspiring and panting, poker pro Chris Bigler screamed, loud enough for the entire room to hear, "I don't want to play here anymore. It's too hot!"

My dealer actually made fun of Bigler for complaining, but his voice was heard. We would get a 30-minute break and be moved inside, into the primary tournament area, which was air-conditioned, of course.

This created a new issue, though. There were hundreds of people lined up to buy in for a 4 p.m. mega satellite, and the only place to put them was in the tent. The 4 p.m. satellite was postponed to 6 p.m.

Despite the snafu, the World Series also announced today that it's running mega satellites until almost the very last minute on Monday. There will be multiple megas on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, not to mention a turbo mega on Monday morning for those crazy enough to want to play in the main event moments after they win their seat. It's going to be a busy few days in that tent.

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As for me, I busted out a little after 4 p.m. Nothing really interesting. I had pocket jacks against ace-king and lost a coin flip for all my chips. After what happened today in the tent, I might stay away from the Rio until the to-be-determined day I play the main event. The madness of World Series week is fun, but given the hour-long waits to buy in for anything at the Rio right now, I think there's probably a better — and cooler — place to spend my time.

Andy Wang lives, works, and plays poker in New York.