#3 Bitcointalk Poker Series (0.05 BTC & BIG BTC Ticket sponsored by SwC Poker)

[efialtis]

#3 Bitcointalk Poker Series is here!

I am very happy to announce that our 3rd Bitcointalk Poker Series @ SwC is real! The first qualifier will be played on Sunday. SwC is once again hosting and sponsoring us with amazing prizes: 0.05 BTC guaranteed Freeroll for the Finalists, BIG BTC Ticket worth 0.01 BTC & a lovely SwC Flexfit Hat!

The tournaments are already available in SwC's tournament lobby so we are good to go - I feel that little "break" between end of series #2 and now might add to the excitement!  

Please note that this series will come with a few changes that will make the Series even more interesting such as a lottery for additional prizes even if you don't manage to qualify for the Grand Final! Read on to learn everything you need to know (thanks @ tyKiwanuka!).

Looking forward to playing with all you guys and having a good time - see you at the tables!


Index

• General Information & Series Structure
• Entry Fees & Passwords
• The Qualifier Tournaments
• Internal Point Structure
• The Grand Final
• The Small Final
• The Lottery
• The Spreadsheet
• Miscellaneous

General Information & Series Structure

The Bitcointalk Poker Series sponsored by SwC Poker can be joined by any interested poker player with a Bitcointalk account. If you don't have a Bitcointalk account yet, feel free to make one. We would be happy, if you engage in discussions about the series and/or Poker, but it's not mandatory. We welcome players of any skill level, any age, any gender, any colour. The tournaments will be played on Sundays 5PM GMT.

The series will feature 8 qualifier tournaments, a Grand Final, a Small Final, a lottery and hopefully lots of fun and suckouts. There is an internal points structure, where you accumulate points to qualify for the Grand Final. Every participation will also give you tickets to the lottery. If you are a regular player, you will automatically qualify for the Small Final.

We play Texas No Limit Hold'em, the starting stacks are 5,000 chips, blind levels are 10 minutes and there is no late registration available.

You might also want to join the Bitcointalk Poker Community Server on Discord: Join here.

The first two series:
Series #1
Series #2

Entry Fees & Passwords

The entry fee per tournament is 1,400 Chips or 0.0014 BTC.
1,000 chips you pay for registering for the tournaments directly at SwC.
400 chips you send to the SwC account "youcantwin" via P2P transfer. 200 of those chips go towards the prize pool for the Grand Final, the other 200 chips towards the lottery.

There are no entry fees for the Grand Final and the Small Final.

The tournaments are password protected, you will get the passwords via Personal Message (PM) in this forum, after you have sent the 400 chips per tournament to youcantwin. If you intend to join all 8 qualifier tournaments, it would be helpful, if you send all extra fees (3,200 chips) upfront.

The Qualifier Tournaments

A total of 8 qualifier tournaments will be played inside 8 weeks, Sundays 5PM GMT. If possible, register as early as possible, since there is no late registration available. Just send 400 chips to youcantwin, get the password and register for the tournament for a fee of 1,000 chips.

Q#1: 06/28/2020
Q#2: 07/05/2020
Q#3: 07/12/2020
Q#4: 07/19/2020
Q#5: 07/26/2020
Q#6: 08/02/2020
Q#7: 08/09/2020
Q#8: 08/16/2020

Internal Point Structure

To determine who will qualify for the Grand Final, we have an internal point structure, where you get a number of points for each tournament, when you finished inside the Top10.

10th = 1 Point
9th = 2 Points
8th = 3 Points
7th = 4 Points
6th = 5 Points
5th = 6 Points
4th = 7 Points
3rd = 8 Points
2nd = 9 Points
1st = 10 Points

If two or more players have the same amount of points after 8 tournaments, the average finishing position in all tournaments participated will be the tie-breaker.

The Grand Final

The 9 players with the most points from our internal point system will be eligible to play the Grand Final, which will take place on 08/23/2020. You will automatically get registered for this tournament and don't have to pay an entry fee. As in the past, SwC is sponsoring 0.05 BTC among other things for this tournament and the 200 chips per tournament and participant from the qualifiers will be part of the prize pool as well. This additional prize money for the Top3 will get sent to you via P2P transfer on SwC.

1st: 50% of Prize Pool + BIG BTC Ticket worth 0.01 BTC & a lovely SwC Flexfit Hat
2nd: 30% of Prize Pool
3rd: 20% of Prize Pool

The Small Final

Every player who joined at least 5 of the 8 qualifying tournaments, will be eligible to play in the Small Final, no matter how many points they accumulated. Players that didn't finish in the money (i.e. outside Top3) in the Grand Final, will be eligible to play in the Small Final as well. You will automatically get registered for this tournament and don't have to pay an entry fee.

The date and prize money is TBA.

The Lottery

To give anyone the chance to win some money, we introduced a lottery for the third series, which will be funded from the extra fees you send to youcantwin. With each participation you will get 10 tickets for the lottery. For every point you get via the internal point system, you will get one additional ticket. So if you played 6 tournaments and accumulated 18 points, you will have 78 tickets for the lottery. If you played only one tournament and did get no points, you will have 10 tickets. Etc.

After those 8 qualifying tournaments, the draw from a trusted member will take place via a random number generator. Each player can only win one prize from this lottery, so if you win a prize in first draw, the rest of your tickets will get voided. The number of prizes depends on the amount collected for the lottery. For every 10,000 chips, there will be one prize. If the total pool is 18,000 chips, there will be two prizes of 9,000 chips each. If the total pool is 24,000 chips, there will be three prizes of 8,000 chips each. Etc.

The prizes will get sent to your SwC account via P2P transfer. The date of the lottery is TBA.

The Spreadsheet

You can follow and monitor all happenings in the spreadsheet: Bitcointalk SwC Poker Championship Series

If you have any questions or find any mistakes, feel free to mention it in the dedicated threads or PM @efialtis or @tyKiwanuka.

Miscellaneous

If you paid extra fees upfront, but aren't able to participate in a tournament for whatever reason, the extra fee will be considered a donation, unless you request a refund. You won't get any tickets for the lottery, if you don't participate in a tournament, even if you donate the extra fee.

Any dispute should get resolved via majority decision.

[figmentofmyass]

i'm excited to see our third series kicking off!

i'll definitely be there. if i miss any game, consider the extra fees a donation. no late registration---noted. i'm gonna try to pre-register in case i sleep late. it's been known to happen.

big thanks to SwC for dropping 0.06 BTC in prizes on us! see everyone on sunday!

[Globb0]

Wow its all starting to look so slick.

Thanks once again Efialtis for the arranging and liaising.

Here following this new thread now.

Thanks,

[efialtis]

Guys, I will once again send the regulars all passwords in advance (later today) so we save us all a bit of the hassle - can't wait for Sunday!

This time youcantwin for real, I mean for real!

[Betwrong]

Guys, I will once again send the regulars all passwords in advance (later today) so we save us all a bit of the hassle - can't wait for Sunday!

This time youcantwin for real, I mean for real!

Thanks for what you are doing , @efi!

I can't believe our #3 Bitcointalk Poker Series is starting in 2 days! I'm so excited!

400 chips sent to "youcantwin". Definitely playing this Sunday!

Regarding the "youcantwin for real" statement, I'm too in a fighting mood this time, so we'll see.

[cryptofrka]

Possibly interested again in this one because I will mostly have a free summer, so some poker with a beer sounds like a good time.

I won't play all of them for sure so I'll PM you for the password for the ones I decide to hop on to.

Happy to see this is becoming a regular thing, and good luck to all in this series.

[morvillz7z]

Finally! 

I have a flexible schedule on the weekends so i will try to play all qualifiers --> 3200 chips sent to youcantwin (id:51609890)

I wish we could at least sustain the average number of participants from the previous series, though i'm not really optimistic about that.

Cya Sunday! Looking forward for some great river suckouts and bad beats, because that's how we roll. 

[CryCrptoCry]

No offence but you need to shift it to either Tuesday or  Wednesday. Sunday is very busy for regular players like me because of big tourneys on poker stars.
Prize pool is simply not enough for me to shift my focus from those big ones.
 

[SyGambler]

oh many things have changed since I went inactive but I do really like these new changes
should be able to play all the games this series since I have much more time now , will load my swc account and send the fees tonight

BTW I didn't understand the no tickets if you don't participate thing , if someone paid the fee and registered in the game but was inactive the whole game does he get the tickets ? or is it only for people who don't register the game at all ? 

[webtricks]

BTW I didn't understand the no tickets if you don't participate thing , if someone paid the fee and registered in the game but was inactive the whole game does he get the tickets ? or is it only for people who don't register the game at all ? 

If someone pays the fees and registers, he is eligible for the tickets. I remember in Second Series, you registered for one of the tournament but didn't play. In that tournament, you somehow got the 9th position. So as per rules, you should get 12 tickets in such situation.

If you pay the fees but don't register then you are ineligible for tickets which I think is fair because you have a authority to claim refund so people may try to get free tickets this way.

[tyKiwanuka]

No offence but you need to shift it to either Tuesday or  Wednesday. Sunday is very busy for regular players like me because of big tourneys on poker stars.

Problem is, there are players from very different time zones and weekdays a lot of people have to work. But I get your point Saturdays would maybe be better in that regard, but a lot of people go out on Saturday evenings/nights. There is a reason, why PokerStars has their big tourneys on Sundays

If you pay the fees but don't register then you are ineligible for tickets which I think is fair because you have a authority to claim refund so people may try to get free tickets this way.

Even if you don't request a refund, it would make no sense to award (the 10 participation) tickets, because then I could just send 3,200 chips to efialtis and have 80 tickets for lottery, where I could win double the amount or more. So the tickets need to always be tied to actual participations imo. It's not 100% perfect, but it's very rare, that a player pays the extra fees and doesn't join then. And we can always shift it to the next tournament then (unless the player paid for all 8 tournaments upfront).

[arallmuus]

No offence but you need to shift it to either Tuesday or  Wednesday. Sunday is very busy for regular players like me because of big tourneys on poker stars.

Im sure that you are a great player however it has been decided by the majority as a community that we will do this every weekend in HERE . If you want to try out something new while there isnt many tourneys on Poker Stars then you are welcome to join us

Prize pool is simply not enough for me to shift my focus from those big ones.

Prizepool is decent and if there are more people that join then the prizepool will increase. However I'd like to point out that this is more like a community gathering in poker games then simply just 'money'

It's not 100% perfect, but it's very rare, that a player pays the extra fees and doesn't join then. And we can always shift it to the next tournament then (unless the player paid for all 8 tournaments upfront).

Its fine and so far this is the best system out of the all three series that we have and it was all your great idea  


Cant wait for the first game on the 3rd series , See you guys especially you @Crycrptocry if you decided to give this a chance 

[Globb0]

The lottery idea as an incentive for lower players has gone a bit wrong now you made it back into a stealth prize for the same old faces.

Better to just give one ticket  to every player who enters any game, and again each time they do.

A genuine lottery prize. Not 10 tickets for the winner 1 for a loser etc. like that

[efialtis]

The lottery idea as an incentive for lower players has gone a bit wrong now you made it back into a stealth prize for the same old faces.

Better to just give one ticket  to every player who enters any game, and again each time they do.

A genuine lottery prize. Not 10 tickets for the winner 1 for a loser etc. like that

I don't really agree with that since 10 tickets per entry seem absolutely reasonable to me considering anyone will also get additional tickets based on performance. Also, we have had enough time to discuss these things - if we still wanna do that, please let's do so in our discussion thread.

[iv4n]

400 chips sent to you Efi!
Can't wait for Sunday and our first game in third series! As I see others feel the same, it's a nice atmosphere before the game!
Efi thanks for organizing third series!
There's nothing more I can say except "See you at the tables people!".

[tyKiwanuka]

The lottery idea as an incentive for lower players has gone a bit wrong now you made it back into a stealth prize for the same old faces.

Better to just give one ticket  to every player who enters any game, and again each time they do.

A genuine lottery prize. Not 10 tickets for the winner 1 for a loser etc. like that

I think you misunderstood the lottery or I didn't explain properly I posted how it would have looked for series #2:



You joined two tournaments without getting into the (internal) points, so would have gotten 20 tickets for 2,800 fees. If you joined all 8 tournaments without finishing in the points in all of them, you would have gotten 80 tickets. The most tickets for one player were 117, so you having 80 is not too shabby then and gives you a good chance of getting a good portion of your buy-ins back.

And if you join at least 5/8 tournaments, you will not only accumulate some tickets, but also be eligible for small final (if you think your chances for Grand Final are non existent).

[figmentofmyass]

No offence but you need to shift it to either Tuesday or  Wednesday. Sunday is very busy for regular players like me because of big tourneys on poker stars.
Prize pool is simply not enough for me to shift my focus from those big ones.

there aren't many super active MTT regs here, but i do understand where you're coming from.

@CCwatcher420 floated that idea IIRC and it wasn't met with much interest. i think our crowd is pretty casual and more likely to play on the weekend, and between saturday/sunday, sunday was much more popular.

There's nothing more I can say except "See you at the tables people!".

+1. see you on the felt!

[Steamtyme]

Guys, I will once again send the regulars all passwords in advance (later today) so we save us all a bit of the hassle - can't wait for Sunday!
This time youcantwin for real, I mean for real!

Thanks again. Passwordds received, I'll fire off entries as I play for sure.
Just a reminder to all, do not share the passwords, unless you are confident enough someone has paid the fee, or are willing to cover the fee yourself if they didn't.

No offence but you need to shift it to either Tuesday or  Wednesday. Sunday is very busy for regular players like me because of big tourneys on poker stars.
Prize pool is simply not enough for me to shift my focus from those big ones.

Unfortunately that wouldn't work for the vast majority of regulars and potential new players. Weekends are generally a good bet for most people and the timezone thing can work out reasonably. We have some people playing early in the morning while others are late evening. While you may consider the prizepool small, it's actually a pretty decent payout if you can take any down not to mention the shot at the finale, and the lottery tickets.
It is conceivable that the amounts are to far below the stakes you play at but it's a fun relatively short tournament, that can easily be played while multi tabling - the pace isn't crazy.


We would be more than happy to have you in the mix for the whole series but this seems to b the happy medium that is working out for now. Feel free to drop any comments or concerns in the discussion thread so we can hash it out before series #4.

It does look like we still have some general discussion to take place regarding the lottery. So let's all move it over to the discussion thread.

See everyone Sunday going to try and come out strong for the title defense. I tried to prod a few people during the Thursday double, but not sure anyone will come along. I really push the sponsored final but we'll see.

I have a question. Does anyone enjoy or get anything out of me recording the play?? I really don't mind continuing doing it, but wanted to make sure it had some value to others. I could also try and add to it a little, I've considered doing a bit of voice over, but I will need to work out the logistics, as this is set up in the family room lol.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

View on the small Final and the lottery:

I see this is very improved version of the tournament rules. This will significantly reduce the users who do not join the regular tourney when they have enough points they think or when they think they will not make a place for the final.

Count me all in.


@efi: Chips will be sent very soon.

[Betwrong]

~
I have a question. Does anyone enjoy or get anything out of me recording the play?? I really don't mind continuing doing it, but wanted to make sure it had some value to others. ~

I do. And I'm very grateful to you for making them! It's not that I watch every minute of the recording, but some parts are really interesting to reminisce about.

I could also try and add to it a little, I've considered doing a bit of voice over, but I will need to work out the logistics, as this is set up in the family room lol.

And, yeah, a bit of voice over would be great! Thanks for what you are doing, mate!


Registration for the 1st tournament of our #3 Bitcointalk Poker Series done!

Sent 400 chips to „youcantwin“ earlier:



It's good to see that lots of our regulars are going to play tomorrow, and I hope others, who didn't say anything in this thread, will join still.

Please note that there is no late registration this time. Register today!

See you at the tables!