Bitcointalk Poker Series format discussion - Let's keep them all in one place.

[Steamtyme]

This is just a landing page topic to discuss changes and preferences for the tournament series already running on SWC. I will Self-Mod this thread to keep the discussion relevant and between participants. This is separate from discussing specific tournaments and hands.

Hopefully doing it this way will allow us to gather all the ideas in one place and if we can come up with a consensus or majority whatever works best, then we can ask for changes. I would also like to suggest we make changes to a series before it starts and let it run it's course before requesting any other changes.

Bring it all. Seats at the table, Starting chips, Level duration. I thin k there has also been some debate about the overall tournament schedule and point system.

[figmentofmyass]

good idea. it seems like everyone and their grandma has a different plan for how the points system should work. i guess there are lots of game theory considerations.

i posted a link to this thread earlier, where i think a lot of important points are covered.

the #1 goal to keep in mind IMO:

The purpose of any league is to keep players coming back to improve their score.

with that in mind, these are the most common structures:

linear points: (n-r+1) where n = number of entrants and r = rank placed. so for a field of 18 players:

1st place = 18 points
18th place = 1 point

points = ITM: points are based on tournament cashes. this is very top-heavy. the top 16.67% cash in a 30-man tournament on SwC.

what we did: a hybrid take on linear points, where we flattened the payouts on both sides. the top players get less, but the bottom players get none.

i'm seeing people lobbying for both flatter payouts and more top-heavy ones, so i'm not sure we'll end up changing what seems like a reasonable compromise.

if we did implement something more top-heavy---like some of the curve/sqrt based systems, or linear points but only paying out the top x% of the field---we should consider rules that keep the series competitive (nods to the #1 goal stated above). one way some leagues do that is to require a minimum # of games played, with only your top x number of games counting towards points standings. that could help offset variance so people can still recover from a few bad runs.

the most common argument against flat structures (like linear points) is they can encourage points angling. i think it's debatable how much of an edge late registration or sitouts gives there. it's annoying but i dunno if it makes a big difference. one additional way this could be addressed is by awarding points for KOs to induce action. lol, so many angles to consider!

[efialtis]

This is just a landing page topic to discuss changes and preferences for the tournament series already running on SWC. I will Self-Mod this thread to keep the discussion relevant and between participants. This is separate from discussing specific tournaments and hands.

Hopefully doing it this way will allow us to gather all the ideas in one place and if we can come up with a consensus or majority whatever works best, then we can ask for changes. I would also like to suggest we make changes to a series before it starts and let it run it's course before requesting any other changes.

Bring it all. Seats at the table, Starting chips, Level duration. I thin k there has also been some debate about the overall tournament schedule and point system.

Thanks for creating this thread mate - great idea. You guys discuss the future point system etc. and I will obey. I hope everyone is cool with changes being made for the next series though.

[vycl87]

A useful topic created with good thinking. But first, we need to know that. If we can build a community of enough people here, can we make a change? What I want to say is that it's not just a topic that people talk about but has no conclusions.

[iv4n]

The purpose of any league is to keep players coming back to improve their score.

Following this logic I think you can make any point system you like, people will play and try as long as the prize is good!

maybe in the next series the structure should reward the top 3 players based on points , or maybe we should cancel the finale as well and credit the final prizes based on points

Well this sounds very interesting! I think we should add some chips for that, or to cut prizes for grand finale!?

There should be a grand finale, and there should be a prize for point leaders! Of course only one thing is a problem, money! We need to add more money, but cost of each tournament will not be ok with everyone, the same is with adding more chips to Efi (instead 200, it can be 400 or 500). SwC turns to be a great site for us, like a real sponsors of tournament they added chips, hat and from this series a ticket for big btc tournament! Can we find more sponsors?! And how!? If we can do that, then entry and fees can stay the same, and will not be a burden for existing and new players!

Two options for now, we can either lower prizes and spread them, or we can make these tournaments more expensive!

i'm seeing people lobbying for both flatter payouts and more top-heavy ones, so i'm not sure we'll end up changing what seems like a reasonable compromise.

Agree! We will not find a solution that will suit everyone, but as long as majority agrees we can make certain changes! There're good ideas and suggestions, I think only money is holding us back for now (or more players that will add more)! Anyway we have healthy discussions, whatever comes up from that will be good definitely!

[figmentofmyass]

i think Hhampuz might be onto something here:

Now my idea for an implementation would be perhaps one game per week over 2 months as that could theoretically mean less variance and more stability as I know some people can't/don't want to commit both their Saturday and Sunday to play poker, depending on your timezone (I know current timezone makes it harder for any americans to play) it's quite the commitment indeed.

after the current series ends, maybe we should transition to once per week. a sunday poker game maybe? people with less free time to commit are more likely to participate in the league that way.

i'm down to play twice a week myself, but i think we can see from april vs may turnouts that not everyone feels that way.

[Steamtyme]

I agree with the 1 tournament a week. For me it's due to the time they start noon. So I have a house full and 2 kiddos staring at Dad lol.

Not sure how big a deal it is to most but it could help some spread out their budget for playing as well.

[efialtis]

We can definitely discuss playing one game per weekend (Sunday ideally) over the course of two months - makes sense to me and will make my life organizing things easier, too, tbh. Sending out PWs etc. and being "there" each Saturday & Sunday evening/night is quite hard - especially for the people who'd like to spend time with me - surprisingly, there are a few, haha.

[Betwrong]

I agree with one-game-per-week format. I don't know if this format is the ideal one, but if we want to to attract more players to our series, we should at least try it for once.

Of course, the opinions of those who are not participating currently, but would like to join if some changes to the format were made, are the most valuable now, imo.

So, dear potential participants, if you have any suggestions regarding timing, ticket price, frequency etc., please, speak up!

[tyKiwanuka]

- We need to find a way to get rid of that 200 extra chips sending... I do not mean to get rid of the "extra prize pool" but about the hassle of sending those chips... If anyone can come up with an alternative... that would be greatly appreciated!!

I see 3 alternatives:

1) All players send their extra chips after the 8 tournaments have finished according to their number of participations. Problem: You will have players that forget or have gone awol and efialtis will have to run after that money.

2) All players send their chips upfront and get refunded for tournaments they didn't join. If someone joins only at tournament #3 f.e., he would have to send 6x200 = 1200 for remaining ones. Problem: Will turn off newbies, that want to try first and people that just join from time to time for whatever reason.

3) Entry fee gets increased to 1200 chips and SwC puts 200 of those aside and adds them to Grand Final automatically. Problem: Is SwC willing and able to do that on a technical level ?

[Trofo]

3) Entry fee gets increased to 1200 chips and SwC puts 200 of those aside and adds them to Grand Final automatically. Problem: Is SwC willing and able to do that on a technical level ?

This would by far the easiest solution for you guys, and at the same time very fair to all participants. If you guys have good contact at SwC ask them and see what they think about it, how much additional work it adds to them. Maybe they already have some script ready and it is a matter of just using it and configuring to take 200 chips.


I would prefer 1 tournament per week (on Sunday) format as well. I would like to be a part of every tournament but real life is getting more and more demanding....don't know how long I will be able to keep current tempo.

And the series can take as long as it is necessary, we could have it for 2 months to keep current number of tournaments. Or maybe as quarterly thing. One series takes 3 months (10 regular tournaments + big finale and a bit of rest, or casual game to have fun).

[arallmuus]

I would prefer 1 tournament per week (on Sunday) format as well. I would like to be a part of every tournament but real life is getting more and more demanding....don't know how long I will be able to keep current tempo.

And the series can take as long as it is necessary, we could have it for 2 months to keep current number of tournaments. Or maybe as quarterly thing. One series takes 3 months (10 regular tournaments + big finale and a bit of rest, or casual game to have fun).

One thing about dragging the tournament for a much longer period is that it will lose all the hype and tension compare with the current one. However I do agree the needs to make the tournament into one tournament per week due to some real life issue catching up

So instead of still having 8 regular game + 1 Grand Final, probably we could downsize it to 5 regular + 1 grand final which would take up to 6 weeks then we can take a rest for 2 - 4 weeks before proceeding the next one if there will be the next one However the downside with this is that with only 5 regular game, it would be hard for some player to get points

3) Entry fee gets increased to 1200 chips and SwC puts 200 of those aside and adds them to Grand Final automatically. Problem: Is SwC willing and able to do that on a technical level ?

Definitely this is the best option. We could just count the number of player manually in every regular tournament and then notify SWC about the extra 200 chips per player in the prizepool for the grandfinal


Also Posting this here as well for visibility

Im just wondering this, is it possible to add some sort of point for knocking out player in the 3rd series later ( Provided that we have the 3rd series ). So instead of trying to get into top ten to get points, some player could also be getting it after they knock someone out.

Something like half point or for each person knocked out (?)

Might trigger some big action from the start of the game I guess or perhaps putting up some point bounty on random person for more points, probably could make the game much more interesting. I am not sure if this is possible so yeah any other thoughts ??  

[tyKiwanuka]

Definitely this is the best option. We could just count the number of player manually in every regular tournament and then notify SWC about the extra 200 chips per player in the prizepool for the grandfinal

I do track the number of participants per tournament at the very bottom of the main sheet and one could also look at the worst placing in each tournament. The problem is, that SwC has to do some setting in their software, because when the entry fee is increased to 1,200 (including the 200 extra chips) and you have 10 players, the entry fees total 12,000 chips, but the actual prize pool for that tournament is only 10,000 for payout. So these 2,000 chips must not belong to prize pool and I don't know, if this is easily doable for SwC.

Adding these chips to Grand Final should be easy, because they sponsor it anyway and would just have to up the prize pool accordingly.

[arallmuus]

Definitely this is the best option. We could just count the number of player manually in every regular tournament and then notify SWC about the extra 200 chips per player in the prizepool for the grandfinal

I do track the number of participants per tournament at the very bottom of the main sheet and one could also look at the worst placing in each tournament. The problem is, that SwC has to do some setting in their software, because when the entry fee is increased to 1,200 (including the 200 extra chips) and you have 10 players, the entry fees total 12,000 chips, but the actual prize pool for that tournament is only 10,000 for payout. So these 2,000 chips must not belong to prize pool and I don't know, if this is easily doable for SwC.

Adding these chips to Grand Final should be easy, because they sponsor it anyway and would just have to up the prize pool accordingly.

Instead of making the entry fee 1200 chips, perhaps making the entry fee into 1000+200 chips? 1000 goes to the prize poll and 200 goes to swc which will be added to the grand final. Im not sure with how SWC works because I am new in SWC as well but in some other poker apps this could be done usually the buy in fees goes like $10 + $1 whereas $10 goes to prize pool and $1 goes to the website

[figmentofmyass]

1) All players send their extra chips after the 8 tournaments have finished according to their number of participations. Problem: You will have players that forget or have gone awol and efialtis will have to run after that money.

2) All players send their chips upfront and get refunded for tournaments they didn't join. If someone joins only at tournament #3 f.e., he would have to send 6x200 = 1200 for remaining ones. Problem: Will turn off newbies, that want to try first and people that just join from time to time for whatever reason.

3) Entry fee gets increased to 1200 chips and SwC puts 200 of those aside and adds them to Grand Final automatically. Problem: Is SwC willing and able to do that on a technical level ?

i'm sure it could technically be done, but it would create some legwork for SwC. i'm not sure they are willing or whether we should ask it of them. as it is, i dunno how much ROI they are getting from sponsoring our little league.

#1 is always gonna be a problem. nobody wants to chase after people for like 0.0006 BTC.

that leaves #2. the buy-ins themselves are already 0.001 BTC each. i don't think asking for 0.0016 BTC more for league entry up front seems like a big deal at all. it almost seems like an opportunity to round it up to 0.002 BTC. 400 chips is just a single buy-in at the low stakes 2/4 tables. requiring upfront payment for the entire series also creates incentive for players to keep coming back. it's also possible it could deter people who are on the fence from entering at all. anyone who isn't in on day 1 probably won't join later. always so many angles......

[Betwrong]

~
3) Entry fee gets increased to 1200 chips and SwC puts 200 of those aside and adds them to Grand Final automatically. Problem: Is SwC willing and able to do that on a technical level ?

I like this option the most, but there is one problem with it.

Remember that our tournaments are password protected. Suppose you wanted to register, what would be your next move? Even if you are willing to pay 1200 chips for the entry, you can't register without knowing the password, right? And if people who are willing to register will have to ask someone(via PM on this forum) for a password, we'll have the same hassle we want to get rid off.

Here's a solution I'd like to propose. Since we decided earlier to accept anyone, even a just registered newbie, this password thing doesn't have much sense.

So, what we can do is:

1. Get rid off passwords completely;

2. Keep everything as it was, but I will be doing what @efialtis was doing before: a player transfers 200 chips to my account on SwC; asks me for a password via PM on this forum; I check my Transfer history on SwC, and send him/her a password if the transfer was done. I don't mind doing this. In fact, I will be more than happy to make a modest contribution to the organizational process of our series.

I mean, since it's an extra hassle, we can do it in shifts. Thanks, @efialtis for doing it previously! The next two series are on me. (if there are no objections)

[figmentofmyass]

Here's a solution I'd like to propose. Since we decided earlier to accept anyone, even a just registered newbie, this password thing doesn't have much sense.

So, what we can do is:

1. Get rid off passwords completely;

it will become 1/2 populated by SwC tourney regs. maybe that's okay---on average, i would say our players are tougher to beat anyway. this is something to consider though, as it will definitely not feel as much like a "bitcointalk" tourney anymore. a password obviously doesn't keep out a determined outsider (and i don't care enough to stop them anyway) but having one (which forces you to come to bitcointalk to at least get the password) ensures that it's mostly people from our community who stick around.

2. Keep everything as it was, but I will be doing what @efialtis was doing before: a player transfers 200 chips to my account on SwC; asks me for a password via PM on this forum; I check my Transfer history on SwC, and send him/her a password if the transfer was done. I don't mind doing this. In fact, I will be more than happy to make a modest contribution to the organizational process of our series.

I mean, since it's an extra hassle, we can do it in shifts. Thanks, @efialtis for doing it previously! The next two series are on me. (if there are no objections)

i'm fine with that. i can also run it for a future series.

i actually really like the idea of an upfront "league entry fee" instead of per-game, and retaining 1000 chip buy-ins. it means we don't have to worry about dealing with such small amounts for dozens of people, dozens of PMs all the time. if SwC keeps putting up 0.05+ BTC for the championships (i don't know whether that will happen but fingers crossed) then that value more than pays for any missed games.

if we stop doing this "200 chips per game" thing in our heads, the league entry fee starts to make a lot of sense IMO.

[efialtis]

Thanks for all the input guys, highly appreciated! I will have a discussion with SwC shortly and see what we can do!

[Steamtyme]

Im just wondering this, is it possible to add some sort of point for knocking out player in the 3rd series later ( Provided that we have the 3rd series ). So instead of trying to get into top ten to get points, some player could also be getting it after they knock someone out.
Something like half point or for each person knocked out (?)
Might trigger some big action from the start of the game I guess or perhaps putting up some point bounty on random person for more points, probably could make the game much more interesting. I am not sure if this is possible so yeah any other thoughts ??  

I'm not really keen on mixing it into the series itself. I think it would make a cool tournament to run once a month itself. Bounty tournaments are fun and can get pretty wild, so I'd definitely join one for a good time. I think the idea behind a series and a championship lends itself to a points only for finishes format and should be kept that way.
In regards to fees and managing them I can go either way. We definitely should still keep this password protected, and forum member only. Anyone playing there with BTC could easily create an account in a matter of seconds if they are interested. Otherwise it's really just another tournament where I know a few extra people than usual. I play this series for the comradery  and to go over spots later on it would loose a bit of it's fun appeal if it were flooded with Regs. I'd be less inclined to record my plays or even talk at the tables.

I am also of the camp that we should make things as easy as possible on the SWC team, they have gone way above and beyond what one could expect. They legitimately make nothing on our tournaments and toss in huge extras just so we can have a good time.I'm sure they could make it easy and go with the standard format for a tournament[entry+Fee] 1000+200 at registration. In the end they just create the final tournament and add the total from the 200 collected to that prizepool. For me this isn't ideal, as I said I don't want to ask them for more than they do already.

Back to the league entry fee. This can be done a few different ways. If full payment upfront is done we can then before the Championship make refunds for games not played. This can either be the full 200 per game or something like 175/150 if people aren't all in agreement for a full refund/qame missed. This helps people not feel like they are just giving away money, it should also solve any issues of people wanting to join in for a one-off or after a few missed games. It can also be collected in 2 terms first half and second half.

Whoever collects the League fees then provides the passwords for all of the tournaments upon league registration.

@betwrong and @figmentofmyass - Good on you guys offering to handle and hold fees. I have no issues with either of them doing this.

I'm going to spend a little time this week looking into SWC's social media and see if there are places I can post to try and convert some of their regs. I would like to see us build our ranks and maybe bring some people back to the forum even if it's only to hang in what is fast becoming our active poker community. I might try working on a few others on the forum. I don't know them to well but am surprised they aren't participating. It may have been the 2 games a weekend thing.

[CCwatcher420]

I agree that we need to space out the tournies a bit. I think it would be great if we had one mid week tourney, and one sunday tourney. That way, the later half of the weekend is booked. Time zones would be an issue so we would need to tally who is where.