Wynn Poker’s Dynamic Duo Embraces All Gas, No Breaks Approach

There are two people in particular who you can thank for the quality of tournament poker that’s set to take place during the 2024 edition of the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas – a dynamic duo that has made it all possible for the better part of a decade.

Ryan Beauregard, the Executive Director of Poker Operations at Wynn Las Vegas, and Ray Pulford, Tournament Director for Wynn Poker, have helped build up the poker events that run at Wynn into can’t-miss experiences. Tournaments at Wynn Las Vegas, from their annual Summer Classic to the WPT spectacle each December – have gained a reputation as some of the most player-friendly events in the world for good reason.

Their Jordan and Pippen-esque partnership has been built upon the combined strength of their respective experiences in poker that encompass decades in the industry. Beauregard has been with Wynn Poker from Day 1. After working in a variety of jobs after college including the management of a golf course in Texas, he moved to Las Vegas in 2004 and broke in as a dealer at The Orleans. When Wynn Las Vegas opened its original poker room in 2005 Beauregard was one of the first people pitching cards.

“A few years after starting as a dealer, I put my hand up to go to Macau,” said Beauregard. “They were looking for two people to go and be the room managers in Macau. So I was one of those fortunate people that was selected because I had a little bit of a background in a corporate experience. What was supposed to be a year-and-a-half in Macau turned into almost seven years. I decided it was time to come home, and the Director of Poker job here at Wynn Las Vegas had just opened up.”

Pulford’s path was that of a poker player first. For the better part of a decade in Las Vegas, Pulford made a living as a poker player, primarily in cash games. He managed to make two notable tournament runs as well, finishing fourth in the 2012 World Series of Poker Casino Employees event and narrowly missing out on an official WPT Main Tour final table with a ninth-place finish in the 2017 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

By the time he made that WPT run in 2017, Pulford had already begun his work at Wynn.

“I ended up getting pulled into the supervising side of things, so I almost skipped the dealer part at first, but then I backed into dealing, too,” said Pulford. “I eventually got my chance to move into the tournament side of things, and then Ryan promoted me to Tournament Director about six years ago.”

“Ray was one of the A+ tournament supervisors under our previous tournament director,” added Beauregard. “So when I came back from Macau, he was already well on the radar, as far as being one of the most knowledgeable and proficient operators that we had. When the previous tournament director decided that he wanted to move away from poker and get out of the business, Ray was the natural selection to step up.”

As the Wynn Las Vegas staff tackles all the challenges that lie within the final preparations for the upcoming WPT World Championship festival, Pulford enters each day with a well-earned confidence that the system in place is ready to handle whatever lies ahead.

“Our work relationship compliments each other extremely well,” said Pulford. “Where I get headstrong, he reigns me back. I push, he pulls. It’s a really awesome relationship that we have, and it helps us as far as how to expand what we offer and how we can be creative.”

Pulford and Beauregard are also quick to point out the important role filled by Andy Ormsby, the Operations Manager of the Wynn Poker Room who sits in that office – a Rodman to their Jordan-Pippen combination as they take each poker festival from idea, to a laid out schedule, to a successfully executed event.

Outside of their collective executive experience and the back-and-forth inside the office, Pulford points to one other key dynamic that has allowed them to infuse Wynn’s player-friendly reputation.

“First and foremost, you have to look at it from a player standpoint,” said Pulford. “If you don’t give them something exciting to play, it will all just blend together. There are so many festivals around the country, around the world, so many events that people can play. We have to make them choose ours. We love poker – the three of us are all poker players. We spend our free time playing the game, which gives us a better insight, I feel, than some of the other operators. I would say that our care and our passion is pretty clear.”

“I tend to run under the radar a little bit more,” said Beauregard. “I really love going to events, putting a hat on and putting my head down and just listening to players talk, because that’s how I get my best feedback. Sometimes when our events come up, I’m happy to hear both the good and the bad about what people have to say before they necessarily recognize who I am, or I or I let them in on the secret. I love doing that, because generally the feedback is always positive, and then every once in a while there’s a little nugget of information there that helps us to improve the guest experience.”

The results over the last six years speak for themselves. Since Wynn opened its new room on the Encore side of the property, guarantees have multiplied several times over and players continue to turn out in droves, especially for their two biggest festivals of the year.

With the third edition of the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas set to kick off in a few short weeks, the demands of the job that Beauregard and Pulford do have increased to the point where neither enjoys much downtime.

“The summer has always been the busiest time because that festival runs for six or seven weeks,” said Beauregard. “You would have to prep for that, between hiring and getting everything ready, for a few months prior. In the old days, we would have a little bit of a reprieve after the summertime. But now, the planning aspect for the WPT World Championship, it’s just so extensive. It’s really a four or five month project, and it takes us all the way to December.”

The logistics can be daunting with everything that has to be locked down over the next few weeks. Each ballroom in use has to account for every last inch of space. Wynn will employ its roster of 700 dealers on staff as its tested to its limits with 260 tables in play for 12 hours or more each day. The fruits of that labor will be found in the big moments to come on that stage – the $5 million Club WPT Gold freeroll, the WPT Prime Championship and the WPT World Championship itself.

At this point, Beauregard and Pulford take it all in stride – leading a dynamic 1-2 atop a team rivaling the 90s Chicago Bulls at Wynn Las Vegas that comes together to make it all happen. When the cards finally go into the air in December, their months of hard work are realized in the final experience that the players get to enjoy.

“The thing I look forward to most is seeing 10,000 of my friends come join us for the WPT Prime Championship, because of the sheer volume of that many people here to support it,” said Pulford. “They come together and battle for massive amounts of money, and that’s what’s exciting to me about poker – the life changing ability of the game.”

“I think that as it approaches every year, I get more and more excited, and more and more nervous until that first day where we kick off in the ballroom space,” said Beauregard. “There’s always a point where Adam Pliska jumps on stage and welcomes everybody and that’s always a special time for us, because we made it – the tournament’s running. We’re here. All we have to do now is run a poker tournament, and that’s always the most fun for me.”