For the $1,000 SNG, the same structure as the WPT Step B satellite would be good - 2,500 starting chips and 30-minute blinds. With 25,000 chips in play, it will probably finish in level 10 ($600/1200 + 200). This would mean that the SNG would last an average of 5 hours or less, which would achieve your business objective of making at least $100/hour. The "Patience Factor" is 5.18, with a Skill Level of 3.
While inserting a 100/200 level before the 100/200+25 level makes a lot of sense, I am sad that it was done at the expense of removing the initial 25/25 level. While this is fine for the main tournaments with 10,000-20,000 starting chips, this change makes it worse for players in the tournaments with lower starting chips. For example, the Step B satellite had a Patience Factor of 5.97 with the old blind schedule that had 25/25, while it will now have a lower Patience Factor of 5.18 with the new schedule.
I will try to find the time later to analyze the other tournaments and suggest some structures.
[*]Saturday - $1000 (950+50) SNG - Noon to Midnight
Show me what you believe to be a reasonable structure for both parties (casino and players), based on revenue of $100-$200 per hour, per table. I will post what I have on Tuesdayor Wednesday, should be interesting.
For the $1,000 SNG, the same structure as the WPT Step B satellite would be good - 2,500 starting chips and 30-minute blinds. With 25,000 chips in play, it will probably finish in level 10 ($600/1200 + 200). This would mean that the SNG would last an average of 5 hours or less, which would achieve your business objective of making at least $100/hour. The "Patience Factor" is 5.18, with a Skill Level of 3.
While inserting a 100/200 level before the 100/200+25 level makes a lot of sense, I am sad that it was done at the expense of removing the initial 25/25 level. While this is fine for the main tournaments with 10,000-20,000 starting chips, this change makes it worse for players in the tournaments with lower starting chips. For example, the Step B satellite had a Patience Factor of 5.97 with the old blind schedule that had 25/25, while it will now have a lower Patience Factor of 5.18 with the new schedule.
I will try to find the time later to analyze the other tournaments and suggest some structures.
what's the formula to calculate patience level and skill level?
for home games, what's the best balance?
For clubs and casinos, profit per hour comes into play. Casino Windsor may currently have the best-value regular tournament among the Ontario casinos. Its monthly $500+$50 tournament has a Skill Level of 5.
BlondeFish - While I appreciate your analysis, you can not go entirely on the spreadsheet you have provided. The spreadsheet you use is from Arnold Snyder (who by the way has a new book out call "The Poker Tournament Formula" - just starting it, I'll give you a review), this spreadsheet does not differentiate between SNG and MTT tournaments which is an extremely important factor. I am quite interested specifically in what yourself and Zithal come up with, that works in those guidelines. The $1000 SNG I do have the same structure as the Step B satellites. The removal of the 25-25 was due to the addition of the 100-200 (no ante), as I've said before I intend to use one blind structure for ALL tournaments, and simply alter starting stacks and blind level times - something had to give.
Johnny Appleseed - In order to be hired as a dealer you must have blackjack and at least one other game (can be poker) prior to application, pass a written test, pass a table test, have an interview, then apply for a gaming license in the province. Dealing is a great job (like any job it has it's bad days), highly regulated, good money, I highly recommend it. Dealing is often a sought after position within the casino, what some people do is to get hired at a casino in any position, then transfer internally when opportunities arise. Many great players have started as dealers (Scotty Nguyen, Huck Seed, Gavin Smith) and many of our staff do very well when they play (not 13Cards).
ChuckieLand - If I receive approvals, yes I do intend to offer MTT's T/W/T twice daily, at 2pm and 9pm. Registration can not be done over the phone, you must do it in person, it simply does not work with phone ins.
Westside8 - My original post stated that I have submitted for super satellites, I agree completely that there was demand. I posted the blind structure to see if anyone would like the opportunity to try their hand at organizing a structure, if anything striking stands out, I may use it!
Actyper - no special tournies for New Years, just hoping that these are running by then.
Steve Kerr - Payouts for the SNG will be top two for the $60 and $200, top three for the $500 and $1000.
I"m thinking of coming down to play between christmas and new years. What SNG's are you offering at this point and how frequently do they go? I"m assuming they are 10 handed if your paying out 2.
Jason, how many hours do you want each of the 3 MTTs to last? After numerous trials, I came up with a structure for the $200 MTT that would be decent enough for customers like me to play, but it would still take around five hours for a 50-person tournament to finish. I have a feeling that you don't want the 2 PM and 9 PM tournaments to last that long.
Tuesday - $60 (50+10) multi, 50 max - 2pm and 9pm
Wednesday - $100 (90+10) multi, 50 max - 2pm and 9pm
Thursday - $200 (180+20) multi, 50 max - 2pm and 9pm
What about a $500+ MTT, just like Casino Windsor's monthly $550 (Skill Level 5), Brantford Charity Casino's $540 (Skill Level 6) and Casino Rama's $1,100 (Skill Level 5) tournaments?
Friday - $500 (460+40) SNG - Noon to Midnight
A reasonable structure would be: $1,800 starting chips and 30-minute blinds. This SNG would last around 4 hours or less. The Patience Factor would be 4.3 with a Skill Level of 2.
Jason, how many hours do you want each of the 3 MTTs to last? After numerous trials, I came up with a structure for the $200 MTT that would be decent enough for customers like me to play, but it would still take around five hours for a 50-person tournament to finish. I have a feeling that you don't want the 2 PM and 9 PM tournaments to last that long.
What about a $500+ MTT, just like Casino Windsor's monthly $550 (Skill Level 5), Brantford Charity Casino's $540 (Skill Level 6) and Casino Rama's $1,100 (Skill Level 5) tournaments?
A reasonable structure would be: $1,800 starting chips and 30-minute blinds. This SNG would last around 4 hours or less. The Patience Factor would be 4.3 with a Skill Level of 2.
one question
skill level, the higher the more skill or the lower the more skill?
For the $500 SNG I actually have 2000 in starting chips with thirty minute blinds, the $1000 SNG starts with 2500 in chips and thirty minute blinds.
For the MTT's, five hours is about the maximum length that I had planned for them to last, like I said I'm a proponent of fair poker, not Bingo. Let me know your structure, but I think our numbers will be "off" for the MTT's. Keep in mind, these are $60, $100, and $200 buy-in MTT, not $500 and $1100 buy-ins.
All tables are ten-handed, the lower buy-in SNG's will pay two spots, the higher ones will pay three.
Chuckieland - the higher the skill, the more play, generally. A higher skill level assumes that skillful players will have a better chance of doing well, lower skill level would require more coin flips.
I tried various structures that would have a Skill Level of 3, just like Casino Rama's 2,500-chip bi-weekly tournament with 25-minute blinds. The only way I could do this while keeping the length to around five hours was to have longer blinds for the first few levels. Here are some structures for the $200 MTT with Skill Level 3:
1) $3,000 chips, 25 minutes for at least the first 3 blind levels, 20 minutes thereafter. This would have a Patience Factor of 4.52. The Tournament Director can have the option of reducing the late blind levels to 15 minutes if it looks like the tournament will last much longer than five hours.
2) $3,200 chips, 25-minute blinds for at least the first 3 levels, 20 minutes for at least the next 3 levels, then 15 minutes thereafter. The Patience Factor would be 4.73. Assuming the tournament will take 15-16 levels, the total time will be around 4 1/2 hours [(25 * 3) + (20 * 3) + (15 * 9) = 270 minutes].
3) $2,500 chips. 30-minute blinds for at least the first 3 levels, 15 minutes thereafter. The Patience Factor would be 4.60. The tournament will last up to 4 1/2 hours [(30 * 3) + (15 * 12) = 270 minutes].
For the MTT's, five hours is about the maximum length that I had planned for them to last, like I said I'm a proponent of fair poker, not Bingo. Let me know your structure
For clubs and casinos, profit per hour comes into play. Casino Windsor may currently have the best-value regular tournament among the Ontario casinos. Its monthly $500+$50 tournament has a Skill Level of 5.
What's the forumula for calculating patience factor?
The website just seem to say buy my book it's explained in 20 pages...
just thought i'd mention something about the formula.
the formula favours the early levels. it just calculates the total amount of time required to blind off (and ante off, if there are antes) your stack assuming you don't play a hand.
it then assigns a patience factor (according to the formula) and a skill level is assigned.
if your blinds is nice and slow until your initial stack is blinded off, you get a high skill level.
if you then increase the blinds after that at an enormous pace, you still get the same high skill level.
the formula is a great guideline and starting point, but one must be mindful of the levels beyond those that the formula looks at.
A reasonable structure would be $2,000 starting chips with 15-minute blinds. This SNG will take around 2 hours or less. The Patience Factor is 1.9, with a Skill Level of 1.
Monday - $60 (50+10) SNG - Noon to Midnight
With a 17% rake, a reasonable structure would be $1,200 starting chips with 10-minute blinds. This SNG will take around 1 hour or less. The Patience Factor would be less than 1, with a Skill Level of 0.
Fallsview Casino can facilitate deals so that most tournaments will end early. If a player asks, the casino can recommend a mathematically fair multi-way deal (per David Sklansky's methodology).
Yay! Designing tournaments. Fun stuff, though I haven't played around with the Patience Factor / Skill Level numbers enough to know what they mean, so I'll base my ideas on gut feel.
As a business, I think you need to base your schedule on the juice that's taken, rather than the actual buy-in. That said, the profits of your proposed structures would be, and the time you'd like a SnG to last based on $1-200 hour. I'm going to stick to roughly 45min / $100 in profit to land in the middle of your range. i.e and my first recommendations are based entirely on your set of parameters. Later, I'm offing up a section called, "what I do differently"
Multi (50 max, assuming 40 to calculate profit to reduce risk):
$10 = $400 (3 hours)
$20 = $800 (6 hours)
For each tournament, I'd prefer to keep blind times the same, to make it simpler for the house and for the average player.
Your hardest decision, and the one I'm struggling with is to give more chips or longer blind levels. For example, if you keep the $10 SnG at 20 min. blinds, each player would only get 400 chips in order to keep the time under an hour. If you reduce the time to 10 minute levels, you can likely go to 800. 800 sounds nicer as it gives the illusion of more play. I'd lean towards 800 chips with 10 minute levels. (PS, I'm basing my number on the general rule that a SnG ends when there are ~20 BB's left in play.)
This will likely last up to and possibly slightly over the 1 hour, but taking a hit here may not be a bad thing, *if* you can show that these low buy-in tournaments are a gateway to get players to spend more money elsewhere.
I think players that care have to just accept the fact that the $60 SnG's will be bingo.
Without going through the rest of the calculations, and based on the parameters you set out, I'd run the rest of the SnG's like this...
SnG:
$20 juice: 15 minutes, $1,500 in chips
$40 juice: 20 minutes, $2,000 in chips
$50 joice: 25 minutes, $2,500 in chips
For the multi's:
Getting through 50 people for the $60+$10 is damn scary. Assuming a reasonable 15 minute blinds, (I'd want a little more time in each blind level to handle table breaks and balancing) this means we'd want our tournament to end at the 1000-2000(300) level. Once again, assuming 20 BB's in play, you'd have to have a total of $40000 in play, meaning each player gets 800.
The $90 + $10 is the same juice as the $50+$10, so you'd have to keep the schedule the same.
For the $180 + $20, you now have some room to breath and can return to $1,500 in starting chips. With 50 players, you'd expect the tournament to end at level 14: 2k-4k(500), meaning you can run levels that are 25 minutes long.
What I'd Do Different:
The above answers your questions based entirely on the parameters you set out. That's said, here's how I'd do things differently...
A) Personally, I think $60 is a little too low a buy-in for your lowest SnG's. I'd scrap those and instead go no lower than $100 ($85 + $15). This is *slightly less* juice than $50+$10, and gives $150 in profit to you, meaning that we'd probably feel comfortable going to an hour and half. We could go to 15 minute levels and work towards having our tournament end at level 6, meaning people start with $1,000 in starting chips.
Still, I've done no market research into what demand there is for an entry level tournament, so the real question is if you could run $60 in a better ratio than 3:2 against the $100 ones.
I'd change the $950 + $50 to $940 + $60, and extend the tournament to five hours): $2,500 / 30 minute blinds sound right. $60 juice on a $1000 entry is still a great deal, I looked at it and thought $50 was almost too good, but I'm not sure what the industry standard is.
C) Once again, I'd be very tempted to change the lowest MTT to $85+$15, giving you a max profit of $750, and a 40 person profit of 600. We could move the tournament to 4 hours long and maintain a $150/hr profit. Assuming starting chips of $1,000 (to match the SnG), this means we'd have $50,000 in play and plan for the tournament to end at the 1,000-2,000(300) level which means we could make the blinds 20 minutes long.
D) If you keep the $60, $100 and $200 MTT's, change the $100 as above. High buy-in should equal less juice.
E) Grandious vision. Run a monthly $1000 ($950 + $50) MTT tournament, 100 max on the final Sat. of each month and run sat's to it to fill it up.
You have a potential profit of $5,000 and, making it last a very reasonable 10 hours, (which I think is exceedingly doable with $5,000 in starting chips and 1/2 hour blinds) you're not only earning $500 an hour, but you're also double juicing a lot of the entries (once for the sat and once for the tournament itself.)
Since your earning so much in these, set aside 20% of the profit ($1,000 per month) and invite the Top three players each month for a special once a year free roll, that takes place during the WPT (as you wouldn't want to compete with that tournament). 3 x 11 months = 33 players competing for a prize pool of $12,000. (I'm adding in another 1K to make numbers easier. Feel free to reduce to 10,000 to add more profit. The free-roll would pay $6k, $3, $1.8, 1.2K for the top 4 spots.
Of course, you'd offer up a weekend stay at the resort as part of the prize package as this (almost) guarantees that the three top money winners each month return to the casino to re-spend more money throughout the weekend.
Offering up incidental "fame" bonues, (tracking a yearly, visible, winners list; creating a hall of fame; publicizing the final table of the freeroll, etc.) offers incentives for players to continue returning to the casino.
F) I'd be very tempted to bring back the 25/25 (still including the 100/200, no ante, level) and re-think your structures based on this. This adds A LOT of early play for an additional 20 minutes to any one tournament. I think choosing to have one schedule (which would match the WPT schedule), cripples some of your creativity. I don't think there's anything wrong in having one schedule for Fallsview and one for the WPT.
Once again, sorry for the length, but I should end here as it's time for Xmas dinner!!
Happy Holidays to everyone. I would really like to thank Zithal and Blondefish for their efforts, outstanding. Below is what I have come up with for each tournament, I’ll detail further below:
Sunday
$180 + $20 Single Table – 1st place $1300, 2nd place $500
1000 chips, 20 minute blinds
Approximately 2-3 hours
Monday
$50 + $10 Single Table – 1st place $350, 2nd place $150
800 chips, 15 minute blinds
Approximately 1-1.5 hours
Tuesday
$50 + $10 Multi-Table (50 maximum) – See schedule for payout structure
800 chips, 15 minute blinds
Approximately 2-3 hours when full
Wednesday
$90 + $10 Multi-Table (50 maximum) – See schedule for payout structure
1000 chips, 15 minute blinds
Approximately 3-4 hours when full
Thursday
$180 + $20 Multi-Table (50 maximum) – See schedule for payout structure
1000 chips, 20 minute blinds
Approximately 4-5 hours when full
Friday
$460 + $40 Single Table – 1st place $2500, 2nd place $1500, 3rd place $600
2000 chips, 30 minute blinds
Approximately 3-4 hours
Saturday
$950 + $50 Single Table – 1st place $5000, 2nd place $3000, 3rd place $1500
2500 chips, 30 minute blinds
Approximately 4-5 hours
Formula - I agree with 4ceps about the formula, you can’t use the formula as the absolute guiding light; it just does not factor in enough variables. More on this below.
Chip/Blind levels - I wanted to keep the chip/blind levels the same for the tournaments that had the same buy-in (SNG vs. MTT). There are some drawbacks to this theory, as well as the same blind structure throughout theory, but consistency is equally as important in a lot of areas, notably communication.
Overall structure - As for structures, you simply can not have more chips for lower buy-in events than you have for a tournament that has a greater buy-in – just from a perception standpoint it would hurt each one.
Blind level times - I have toyed with the idea of having different times for different levels, but it is actually the opposite of what Blondefish proposed, that is where I see a huge fault with the formula. I believe that it would be of greater benefit, and fairness to extend the levels later in a tournament – when the money is on the line. This would obviously add to the complication of managing a tournament, therefore, I have only considered it while planning larger ones, not daily tournaments. I went with 15 minute levels as the lowest, as opposed to ten minute levels. I believe ten minutes is just too short, and often is not even one puck rotation.
Deals – I’m not a fan, and certainly not something that the casino and/or staff could facilitate or advise. We do not recognize deals, and therefore, each tournament must play out to its conclusion. Deals create problems and allow for collusion. If I was a fan of deals, 13Cards would not have to refer to me as “The Champ” in all conversations. We settled our dispute on the felt; he was first loser in the tournament.
$60 tournament – Agreed, it is low, but that is only offered through the week to bring in patrons on those days. I believe that the lower limit ones will eventually be a very active tournament. And yes, for $60, you need to expect to see donks.
$500/$1000 – I’m not sure how these will go. From the responses, I believe that they are an extremely fair structure, which should help their demand. To be honest, if there is not enough demand, there is always a ridiculous demand for live games on those days (that was a factor).
Freerolls – I’ve also looked at these, but from a different angle, read below.
High Hand Jackpots (HHJ) – What are your thoughts on these? I am leaning towards applying for this type as opposed to a Bad Beat jackpot (BBJ). For those of you that don’t know, a BBJ is a progressive jackpot that climbs to a number that can be a couple hundred thousand dollars, usually won by a losing Aces over, or a four of a kind. A HHJ is a jackpot that pays out for each individual hand of four 2’s and up (26 total jackpots). Obviously the hit frequency is greater with the HHJ, which would reward regulars, which is always our goal. For each of these, an extra dollar is raked from each pot in excess of $10. Each days rake is divided by 26, and each jackpot goes up by that amount, nothing goes to the house. Some refer to this as a “tourist tax” as regulars should hit these much more than tourists. Along with that, I have thought of allocating a percentage of this rake towards a monthly/quarterly/annual freeroll, which would again benefit regulars. This would be a looong approval process, realistically six months minimum. Please give me your thoughts.
Daily tournament start date – I’m doing what I can, let’s hope for early January.
Degree Poker Championships – I’ll have more on this soon…..
i was just calculating your revenue expectations for each of those tourneys.
all the stt's seem to hit your threshold of $100/hr, but i'm hitting a roadblock with the mtt's.
how many hours of dealing do you predict for a full mtt of 50 players? i'm calculating revenue/hr/table assuming a dealer at each of the five tables for the whole duration of the tourney. that's obviously wrong.
so how many actual hours of dealers would you need for the mtt's if you expect it to last (assuming 5 full tables):
2-3h
3-4h &
4-5h?
are the expected times (including the stt's) from your practical experience? using my "theoretical", non-commercial experience at home games, some of your tourneys wouldn't last as long as you mentioned.
Any word on what's happening. I would like to know what's going on is the AGCO going to approve these? I'ts w 2 hour drive for me so please let me know.
using my "theoretical", non-commercial experience at home games, some of your tourneys wouldn't last as long as you mentioned.
I agree. My estimate is that the $200 MTT would last approximately 3½ hours - 4 hr. & 20 min. It has a Patience Factor of 1.7 and a Skill Level of only 1.
For the $100 MTT, my estimate is 2½ hours - 3 hr. & 15 min. Patience Factor = 1.1 and Skill Level = 0.
For the $60 MTT, my estimate is 1½ - 2 hours. The Patience Factor is less than 1 and Skill Level is 0.
Judging from the reaction, there seems to be satisfaction with the SNG's, and as expected, concern with the MTT's. As I set out the issues involving making a fair MTT to both sides, Zithal (in his excellent analysis) pointed out the limitations to make these tournaments "acceptable" to both sides. 4ceps you are correct in pointing out that the MTT's do not hit the target revenue threshold for the casino, that is the area that I decided to sacrifice in order to help make these attractive to players. In essence, midweek I am looking at somewhat of a loss-leader in order to create traffic.
Blondefish, what did you do before the formula? You seem to have spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with different outlines, but were unable to come up with anything that worked reasonably, and looked good against the formula. Three different timed levels, and more starting chips in lower tournaments just doesn't make sense. Please look at the entire picture, there is more to managing than just the formula, both sides need to be taken into consideration. I appreciate your efforts, but please post constructively. I have no problem whatsoever with criticism of any kind (I wouldn't be on the forums), but please post ways to improve, not just negativity. Zithal's post was excellent, as he took both sides into consideration very effectively.
As for the length that the MTT's will last, I believe your estimations are simply too short based on my experience, and from others. The $100 MTT when full would have T50,000 in play and a $4,500 prize pool. To compare, the $640 WPT satellites were structured to last 3-4 hours, the quickest was 2.5 hours and the longest was 5 hours. As you know, these were two tables, 20 minute blinds, and had T40,000 in play. The average $640 satellite lasted 3.5 hours. I believe the $100 MTT will fall into this range, but some will be 2.5 hours and some will undoubtedly be 5 hours. There are many factors, one person steamrolls with a large stack obviously shortens the time, two tight players end up heads up with even stacks obviously lengthens it.
As in most things in life, the more money it costs, the more you get.
I've given quite a bit of internal information to try and shed light from the "other side" of the table, the business side of things. Still no idea on timeframes, I would expect mid-January at best.
if this thread isn't just for discussion of the tourney structure, i'll give you some quick feedback on my trip to fallsview on saturday.
i knew it would be a busy weekend so i called at 7:45 to get my name on the list for 1/2, 2/5 and 5/5. i figured i'd play anything that came up and move to 5/5 when it came open.
when i got to the room at 9pm, there was no record of me ever having been on the lists. so they put me on the lists again. the electronic board was handy. i could see my name working its way up the lists but then i mysteriously disappeared again after about an hour. i guess it is possible my name made it to the top of the lists and i got bumped when i didn't hear the call (it was deafening in there. no pagers, either) the manager offered no help at all. i went back on the lists again but didn't even see my name appear after an hour and the man on the desk didn't want to check to see how far down it was. so my 2+ hours standing around your poker room would not go down in my list of positive experiences.
i understand your place was busy that particular night but your system is flawed. (the pagers at niagara are great, although their range should be severely extended.) i would suggest you place a terminal or 2 for the players to check their status and provide pagers so they can enjoy the casino while they are waiting. also, some kind of idea of how fast the list is moving would be invaluable (not an exact science but something could be worked out).
in the end i went to casino niagara and got on a table in about 90 minutes. thank god the donkeys still go to niagara.
I was there on sunday, and I guess I had an opposite experience. A table opened up pretty much when I got there. Played 1/2NL. I didn't like the $100 max, so I switched over to 2/5NL. Play was ok. I'd prefer a pot rake but oh well. Tried to go back and play some 3am drunken poker but there were some huge waits. Too bad the tournies wernt ready yet.
I was with Greg on Saturday, and I must say, after playing live games in Vegas for 6 months straight, it was a joke. From what I saw there was no order, no answers made available and no attempt to offer at least decent customer service. How can a casino not afford pagers? The friggin Keg can! Also, I get the whole corporate attitude that there are 100's of others who want to play so we don't need your business. I saw the place, there were in fact 100's of others who would gladly see us get frustrated and leave so they can start burning through their roll 5 minutes earlier.
I have no idea who '13CARDS' is or who 'fallsview' is, but if you were there I would like to know what was going on.
How can you give someone a time of 90 minutes to check back in only to have the list lose them after 70 minutes and not offer to help them?
Why have a call ahead system if you aren't even organized enough to deal with the walk ups properly?
How can a business employ people who tell you they are 'too busy' to see how many names are on the list in front of you?
What are we supposed to do? Stand there like a heard of sheep for hours, in front of a bar playing host to some shitty cover band? With no idea how many are on the list or if the end is near.
I believe that you are poker players yourself, and so, I think you must be doing everything you can. But the reality is, your best is far from good enough. And I refuse to accept the statement, 'we were busy' as an excuse. There is a way to treat people and there is a way not to. Saturday afternoon/night was not the way you treat paying customers.
Also, I know this is blunt, but it needs to be. Greg, Kristy and I talked to many other people who were expressing these same concerns. If the US border was as lax as it was 10 years ago, you would clean up your act then. But for the poker player who can't afford to gamble on getting arrested at a club the Niagara Casinos (and other poorly run rooms) are the only option.
FYI:
Buzzed head asian employee at the front and Buzzed head tall white guy at the front were both horrible to deal with. They were condesceding, patronising and even earlier in the evening when there was no line, would not give me the time of day. I don't want to be treated like shit while asking why if I called an hour ago, where my name was currently on the list.
1. On any Saturday night, the poker room is going to be busy. On the last Saturday night of the year (one day before New Year's Eve), the poker room is going to be VERY busy. Anyone going to the casino on that Saturday night and does not think there will be HUGE lines and waits of 3+ hours for any game is not being reasonable.
2. Fallsview DOES have pagers. All you have to do is ask. They are not usually offered to players as there is obviously only so many to go round. If they were given to everyone, only the first 50 people would get them. At the peak on Saturday night, there was 285 names on the wait-list. Again, you have to be reasonable. We are more than willing to accomodate your needs.
3. The board is great at Fallsview. It has made the room "work" much smoother. People are seated faster. Table changes are made more efficiently. But the board is also there to eliminate people coming to the brush multiple times. Of course we want to try and answer as many questions as possible from as many players as possible. When it comes to customer service, however, it is not reasonable to let people on hold on the phone wait and the 20-30 people in line all night wait so the brush can look through a list of 285 names and try and find where someone is on the 1-2 list. Sometimes a sacrifice must be made. On behalf of the room, I apoligize if you feel you were "pushed aside"; it was not personal.
4."How long do you think it will be until I can play?" This question is asked a million times a night every weekend at the poker room. As you have pointed out that I am also a poker player, I can personally tell I NEVER ask this question at a poker room. Why? Because to me it is not reasonable. If there are 56 people ahead of you on the list and there are 5 tables of that game going, how can you calculate the wait time? There is no way to know how long any individual player will play so no way to know how long 56 other people will play ahead of you. As experienced poker players, your guess will be as good as anyone in the poker room.
5. The call in list is automted and is strictly 90 minutes. If you call in, the time you call is beside you name on the list. At EXACTLY 90 MINUTES, if you have not checked in, your name will be erased. The brush has no interest in removing people from the list or "screwing them" out of their spot in line. Every effort is made to maintain the list as best as can be. If you experience something unusual, just ask the brush. But please be reasonable; there is no need to shout, swear, insult, etc..
6. If a seat becomes available for you, your name will be at the top of the list, it will flash red and your name will be called on the mic. On a Saturday night (especially Dec 30th), your name will most likley only be called ONCE. Why? Because it is reasonable to think that you have been checking the list and know when you are getting near the top. You should be nearby and hear you name on the first call. If your name is called and you do not respond, your name will be removed and the next name will be called. On a busy night, it is not reasonable to put your name back on the list at the top; the rest of the people on the list have been waiting (almost) as long as you and deserve a chance to play, too.
7. Please purchase your chips from the Cashier BEFORE your name gets to the top of the list.
Comments
While inserting a 100/200 level before the 100/200+25 level makes a lot of sense, I am sad that it was done at the expense of removing the initial 25/25 level. While this is fine for the main tournaments with 10,000-20,000 starting chips, this change makes it worse for players in the tournaments with lower starting chips. For example, the Step B satellite had a Patience Factor of 5.97 with the old blind schedule that had 25/25, while it will now have a lower Patience Factor of 5.18 with the new schedule.
I will try to find the time later to analyze the other tournaments and suggest some structures.
for home games, what's the best balance?
I can send you my spread sheet which calculates all these things just pm me.
For clubs and casinos, profit per hour comes into play. Casino Windsor may currently have the best-value regular tournament among the Ontario casinos. Its monthly $500+$50 tournament has a Skill Level of 5.
Johnny Appleseed - In order to be hired as a dealer you must have blackjack and at least one other game (can be poker) prior to application, pass a written test, pass a table test, have an interview, then apply for a gaming license in the province. Dealing is a great job (like any job it has it's bad days), highly regulated, good money, I highly recommend it. Dealing is often a sought after position within the casino, what some people do is to get hired at a casino in any position, then transfer internally when opportunities arise. Many great players have started as dealers (Scotty Nguyen, Huck Seed, Gavin Smith) and many of our staff do very well when they play (not 13Cards).
ChuckieLand - If I receive approvals, yes I do intend to offer MTT's T/W/T twice daily, at 2pm and 9pm. Registration can not be done over the phone, you must do it in person, it simply does not work with phone ins.
Westside8 - My original post stated that I have submitted for super satellites, I agree completely that there was demand. I posted the blind structure to see if anyone would like the opportunity to try their hand at organizing a structure, if anything striking stands out, I may use it!
Actyper - no special tournies for New Years, just hoping that these are running by then.
Steve Kerr - Payouts for the SNG will be top two for the $60 and $200, top three for the $500 and $1000.
now?
What about a $500+ MTT, just like Casino Windsor's monthly $550 (Skill Level 5), Brantford Charity Casino's $540 (Skill Level 6) and Casino Rama's $1,100 (Skill Level 5) tournaments?
A reasonable structure would be: $1,800 starting chips and 30-minute blinds. This SNG would last around 4 hours or less. The Patience Factor would be 4.3 with a Skill Level of 2.
skill level, the higher the more skill or the lower the more skill?
For the MTT's, five hours is about the maximum length that I had planned for them to last, like I said I'm a proponent of fair poker, not Bingo. Let me know your structure, but I think our numbers will be "off" for the MTT's. Keep in mind, these are $60, $100, and $200 buy-in MTT, not $500 and $1100 buy-ins.
All tables are ten-handed, the lower buy-in SNG's will pay two spots, the higher ones will pay three.
Chuckieland - the higher the skill, the more play, generally. A higher skill level assumes that skillful players will have a better chance of doing well, lower skill level would require more coin flips.
1) $3,000 chips, 25 minutes for at least the first 3 blind levels, 20 minutes thereafter. This would have a Patience Factor of 4.52. The Tournament Director can have the option of reducing the late blind levels to 15 minutes if it looks like the tournament will last much longer than five hours.
2) $3,200 chips, 25-minute blinds for at least the first 3 levels, 20 minutes for at least the next 3 levels, then 15 minutes thereafter. The Patience Factor would be 4.73. Assuming the tournament will take 15-16 levels, the total time will be around 4 1/2 hours [(25 * 3) + (20 * 3) + (15 * 9) = 270 minutes].
3) $2,500 chips. 30-minute blinds for at least the first 3 levels, 15 minutes thereafter. The Patience Factor would be 4.60. The tournament will last up to 4 1/2 hours [(30 * 3) + (15 * 12) = 270 minutes].
What's the forumula for calculating patience factor?
The website just seem to say buy my book it's explained in 20 pages...
the formula favours the early levels. it just calculates the total amount of time required to blind off (and ante off, if there are antes) your stack assuming you don't play a hand.
it then assigns a patience factor (according to the formula) and a skill level is assigned.
if your blinds is nice and slow until your initial stack is blinded off, you get a high skill level.
if you then increase the blinds after that at an enormous pace, you still get the same high skill level.
the formula is a great guideline and starting point, but one must be mindful of the levels beyond those that the formula looks at.
With a 17% rake, a reasonable structure would be $1,200 starting chips with 10-minute blinds. This SNG will take around 1 hour or less. The Patience Factor would be less than 1, with a Skill Level of 0.
Fallsview Casino can facilitate deals so that most tournaments will end early. If a player asks, the casino can recommend a mathematically fair multi-way deal (per David Sklansky's methodology).
is it still on at fallsview in 2007?
Yay! Designing tournaments. Fun stuff, though I haven't played around with the Patience Factor / Skill Level numbers enough to know what they mean, so I'll base my ideas on gut feel.
As a business, I think you need to base your schedule on the juice that's taken, rather than the actual buy-in. That said, the profits of your proposed structures would be, and the time you'd like a SnG to last based on $1-200 hour. I'm going to stick to roughly 45min / $100 in profit to land in the middle of your range. i.e and my first recommendations are based entirely on your set of parameters. Later, I'm offing up a section called, "what I do differently"
SnG:
$10 = $100 (< 1 hour)
$20 = $200 (1.5 hours)
$40 = $400 (3 hours)
$50 = $500 (4 hours)
Multi (50 max, assuming 40 to calculate profit to reduce risk):
$10 = $400 (3 hours)
$20 = $800 (6 hours)
For each tournament, I'd prefer to keep blind times the same, to make it simpler for the house and for the average player.
Your hardest decision, and the one I'm struggling with is to give more chips or longer blind levels. For example, if you keep the $10 SnG at 20 min. blinds, each player would only get 400 chips in order to keep the time under an hour. If you reduce the time to 10 minute levels, you can likely go to 800. 800 sounds nicer as it gives the illusion of more play. I'd lean towards 800 chips with 10 minute levels. (PS, I'm basing my number on the general rule that a SnG ends when there are ~20 BB's left in play.)
This will likely last up to and possibly slightly over the 1 hour, but taking a hit here may not be a bad thing, *if* you can show that these low buy-in tournaments are a gateway to get players to spend more money elsewhere.
I think players that care have to just accept the fact that the $60 SnG's will be bingo.
Without going through the rest of the calculations, and based on the parameters you set out, I'd run the rest of the SnG's like this...
SnG:
$20 juice: 15 minutes, $1,500 in chips
$40 juice: 20 minutes, $2,000 in chips
$50 joice: 25 minutes, $2,500 in chips
For the multi's:
Getting through 50 people for the $60+$10 is damn scary. Assuming a reasonable 15 minute blinds, (I'd want a little more time in each blind level to handle table breaks and balancing) this means we'd want our tournament to end at the 1000-2000(300) level. Once again, assuming 20 BB's in play, you'd have to have a total of $40000 in play, meaning each player gets 800.
The $90 + $10 is the same juice as the $50+$10, so you'd have to keep the schedule the same.
For the $180 + $20, you now have some room to breath and can return to $1,500 in starting chips. With 50 players, you'd expect the tournament to end at level 14: 2k-4k(500), meaning you can run levels that are 25 minutes long.
What I'd Do Different:
The above answers your questions based entirely on the parameters you set out. That's said, here's how I'd do things differently...
A) Personally, I think $60 is a little too low a buy-in for your lowest SnG's. I'd scrap those and instead go no lower than $100 ($85 + $15). This is *slightly less* juice than $50+$10, and gives $150 in profit to you, meaning that we'd probably feel comfortable going to an hour and half. We could go to 15 minute levels and work towards having our tournament end at level 6, meaning people start with $1,000 in starting chips.
Still, I've done no market research into what demand there is for an entry level tournament, so the real question is if you could run $60 in a better ratio than 3:2 against the $100 ones.
C) Once again, I'd be very tempted to change the lowest MTT to $85+$15, giving you a max profit of $750, and a 40 person profit of 600. We could move the tournament to 4 hours long and maintain a $150/hr profit. Assuming starting chips of $1,000 (to match the SnG), this means we'd have $50,000 in play and plan for the tournament to end at the 1,000-2,000(300) level which means we could make the blinds 20 minutes long.
D) If you keep the $60, $100 and $200 MTT's, change the $100 as above. High buy-in should equal less juice.
E) Grandious vision. Run a monthly $1000 ($950 + $50) MTT tournament, 100 max on the final Sat. of each month and run sat's to it to fill it up.
You have a potential profit of $5,000 and, making it last a very reasonable 10 hours, (which I think is exceedingly doable with $5,000 in starting chips and 1/2 hour blinds) you're not only earning $500 an hour, but you're also double juicing a lot of the entries (once for the sat and once for the tournament itself.)
Since your earning so much in these, set aside 20% of the profit ($1,000 per month) and invite the Top three players each month for a special once a year free roll, that takes place during the WPT (as you wouldn't want to compete with that tournament). 3 x 11 months = 33 players competing for a prize pool of $12,000. (I'm adding in another 1K to make numbers easier. Feel free to reduce to 10,000 to add more profit. The free-roll would pay $6k, $3, $1.8, 1.2K for the top 4 spots.
Of course, you'd offer up a weekend stay at the resort as part of the prize package as this (almost) guarantees that the three top money winners each month return to the casino to re-spend more money throughout the weekend.
Offering up incidental "fame" bonues, (tracking a yearly, visible, winners list; creating a hall of fame; publicizing the final table of the freeroll, etc.) offers incentives for players to continue returning to the casino.
F) I'd be very tempted to bring back the 25/25 (still including the 100/200, no ante, level) and re-think your structures based on this. This adds A LOT of early play for an additional 20 minutes to any one tournament. I think choosing to have one schedule (which would match the WPT schedule), cripples some of your creativity. I don't think there's anything wrong in having one schedule for Fallsview and one for the WPT.
Once again, sorry for the length, but I should end here as it's time for Xmas dinner!!
Rob.
Sunday
$180 + $20 Single Table – 1st place $1300, 2nd place $500
1000 chips, 20 minute blinds
Approximately 2-3 hours
Monday
$50 + $10 Single Table – 1st place $350, 2nd place $150
800 chips, 15 minute blinds
Approximately 1-1.5 hours
Tuesday
$50 + $10 Multi-Table (50 maximum) – See schedule for payout structure
800 chips, 15 minute blinds
Approximately 2-3 hours when full
Wednesday
$90 + $10 Multi-Table (50 maximum) – See schedule for payout structure
1000 chips, 15 minute blinds
Approximately 3-4 hours when full
Thursday
$180 + $20 Multi-Table (50 maximum) – See schedule for payout structure
1000 chips, 20 minute blinds
Approximately 4-5 hours when full
Friday
$460 + $40 Single Table – 1st place $2500, 2nd place $1500, 3rd place $600
2000 chips, 30 minute blinds
Approximately 3-4 hours
Saturday
$950 + $50 Single Table – 1st place $5000, 2nd place $3000, 3rd place $1500
2500 chips, 30 minute blinds
Approximately 4-5 hours
Formula - I agree with 4ceps about the formula, you can’t use the formula as the absolute guiding light; it just does not factor in enough variables. More on this below.
Chip/Blind levels - I wanted to keep the chip/blind levels the same for the tournaments that had the same buy-in (SNG vs. MTT). There are some drawbacks to this theory, as well as the same blind structure throughout theory, but consistency is equally as important in a lot of areas, notably communication.
Overall structure - As for structures, you simply can not have more chips for lower buy-in events than you have for a tournament that has a greater buy-in – just from a perception standpoint it would hurt each one.
Blind level times - I have toyed with the idea of having different times for different levels, but it is actually the opposite of what Blondefish proposed, that is where I see a huge fault with the formula. I believe that it would be of greater benefit, and fairness to extend the levels later in a tournament – when the money is on the line. This would obviously add to the complication of managing a tournament, therefore, I have only considered it while planning larger ones, not daily tournaments. I went with 15 minute levels as the lowest, as opposed to ten minute levels. I believe ten minutes is just too short, and often is not even one puck rotation.
Deals – I’m not a fan, and certainly not something that the casino and/or staff could facilitate or advise. We do not recognize deals, and therefore, each tournament must play out to its conclusion. Deals create problems and allow for collusion. If I was a fan of deals, 13Cards would not have to refer to me as “The Champ” in all conversations. We settled our dispute on the felt; he was first loser in the tournament.
$60 tournament – Agreed, it is low, but that is only offered through the week to bring in patrons on those days. I believe that the lower limit ones will eventually be a very active tournament. And yes, for $60, you need to expect to see donks.
$500/$1000 – I’m not sure how these will go. From the responses, I believe that they are an extremely fair structure, which should help their demand. To be honest, if there is not enough demand, there is always a ridiculous demand for live games on those days (that was a factor).
Freerolls – I’ve also looked at these, but from a different angle, read below.
High Hand Jackpots (HHJ) – What are your thoughts on these? I am leaning towards applying for this type as opposed to a Bad Beat jackpot (BBJ). For those of you that don’t know, a BBJ is a progressive jackpot that climbs to a number that can be a couple hundred thousand dollars, usually won by a losing Aces over, or a four of a kind. A HHJ is a jackpot that pays out for each individual hand of four 2’s and up (26 total jackpots). Obviously the hit frequency is greater with the HHJ, which would reward regulars, which is always our goal. For each of these, an extra dollar is raked from each pot in excess of $10. Each days rake is divided by 26, and each jackpot goes up by that amount, nothing goes to the house. Some refer to this as a “tourist tax” as regulars should hit these much more than tourists. Along with that, I have thought of allocating a percentage of this rake towards a monthly/quarterly/annual freeroll, which would again benefit regulars. This would be a looong approval process, realistically six months minimum. Please give me your thoughts.
Daily tournament start date – I’m doing what I can, let’s hope for early January.
Degree Poker Championships – I’ll have more on this soon…..
i was just calculating your revenue expectations for each of those tourneys.
all the stt's seem to hit your threshold of $100/hr, but i'm hitting a roadblock with the mtt's.
how many hours of dealing do you predict for a full mtt of 50 players? i'm calculating revenue/hr/table assuming a dealer at each of the five tables for the whole duration of the tourney. that's obviously wrong.
so how many actual hours of dealers would you need for the mtt's if you expect it to last (assuming 5 full tables):
2-3h
3-4h &
4-5h?
are the expected times (including the stt's) from your practical experience? using my "theoretical", non-commercial experience at home games, some of your tourneys wouldn't last as long as you mentioned.
I agree. My estimate is that the $200 MTT would last approximately 3½ hours - 4 hr. & 20 min. It has a Patience Factor of 1.7 and a Skill Level of only 1.
For the $100 MTT, my estimate is 2½ hours - 3 hr. & 15 min. Patience Factor = 1.1 and Skill Level = 0.
For the $60 MTT, my estimate is 1½ - 2 hours. The Patience Factor is less than 1 and Skill Level is 0.
I have the week off and would love to play in some of them
Blondefish, what did you do before the formula? You seem to have spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with different outlines, but were unable to come up with anything that worked reasonably, and looked good against the formula. Three different timed levels, and more starting chips in lower tournaments just doesn't make sense. Please look at the entire picture, there is more to managing than just the formula, both sides need to be taken into consideration. I appreciate your efforts, but please post constructively. I have no problem whatsoever with criticism of any kind (I wouldn't be on the forums), but please post ways to improve, not just negativity. Zithal's post was excellent, as he took both sides into consideration very effectively.
As for the length that the MTT's will last, I believe your estimations are simply too short based on my experience, and from others. The $100 MTT when full would have T50,000 in play and a $4,500 prize pool. To compare, the $640 WPT satellites were structured to last 3-4 hours, the quickest was 2.5 hours and the longest was 5 hours. As you know, these were two tables, 20 minute blinds, and had T40,000 in play. The average $640 satellite lasted 3.5 hours. I believe the $100 MTT will fall into this range, but some will be 2.5 hours and some will undoubtedly be 5 hours. There are many factors, one person steamrolls with a large stack obviously shortens the time, two tight players end up heads up with even stacks obviously lengthens it.
As in most things in life, the more money it costs, the more you get.
I've given quite a bit of internal information to try and shed light from the "other side" of the table, the business side of things. Still no idea on timeframes, I would expect mid-January at best.
i knew it would be a busy weekend so i called at 7:45 to get my name on the list for 1/2, 2/5 and 5/5. i figured i'd play anything that came up and move to 5/5 when it came open.
when i got to the room at 9pm, there was no record of me ever having been on the lists. so they put me on the lists again. the electronic board was handy. i could see my name working its way up the lists but then i mysteriously disappeared again after about an hour. i guess it is possible my name made it to the top of the lists and i got bumped when i didn't hear the call (it was deafening in there. no pagers, either) the manager offered no help at all. i went back on the lists again but didn't even see my name appear after an hour and the man on the desk didn't want to check to see how far down it was. so my 2+ hours standing around your poker room would not go down in my list of positive experiences.
i understand your place was busy that particular night but your system is flawed. (the pagers at niagara are great, although their range should be severely extended.) i would suggest you place a terminal or 2 for the players to check their status and provide pagers so they can enjoy the casino while they are waiting. also, some kind of idea of how fast the list is moving would be invaluable (not an exact science but something could be worked out).
in the end i went to casino niagara and got on a table in about 90 minutes. thank god the donkeys still go to niagara.
best of luck with all your plans, jason.
I have no idea who '13CARDS' is or who 'fallsview' is, but if you were there I would like to know what was going on.
How can you give someone a time of 90 minutes to check back in only to have the list lose them after 70 minutes and not offer to help them?
Why have a call ahead system if you aren't even organized enough to deal with the walk ups properly?
How can a business employ people who tell you they are 'too busy' to see how many names are on the list in front of you?
What are we supposed to do? Stand there like a heard of sheep for hours, in front of a bar playing host to some shitty cover band? With no idea how many are on the list or if the end is near.
I believe that you are poker players yourself, and so, I think you must be doing everything you can. But the reality is, your best is far from good enough. And I refuse to accept the statement, 'we were busy' as an excuse. There is a way to treat people and there is a way not to. Saturday afternoon/night was not the way you treat paying customers.
Also, I know this is blunt, but it needs to be. Greg, Kristy and I talked to many other people who were expressing these same concerns. If the US border was as lax as it was 10 years ago, you would clean up your act then. But for the poker player who can't afford to gamble on getting arrested at a club the Niagara Casinos (and other poorly run rooms) are the only option.
FYI:
Buzzed head asian employee at the front and Buzzed head tall white guy at the front were both horrible to deal with. They were condesceding, patronising and even earlier in the evening when there was no line, would not give me the time of day. I don't want to be treated like shit while asking why if I called an hour ago, where my name was currently on the list.
MAN UP!
Let me try to make some reply to your experience.
1. On any Saturday night, the poker room is going to be busy. On the last Saturday night of the year (one day before New Year's Eve), the poker room is going to be VERY busy. Anyone going to the casino on that Saturday night and does not think there will be HUGE lines and waits of 3+ hours for any game is not being reasonable.
2. Fallsview DOES have pagers. All you have to do is ask. They are not usually offered to players as there is obviously only so many to go round. If they were given to everyone, only the first 50 people would get them. At the peak on Saturday night, there was 285 names on the wait-list. Again, you have to be reasonable. We are more than willing to accomodate your needs.
3. The board is great at Fallsview. It has made the room "work" much smoother. People are seated faster. Table changes are made more efficiently. But the board is also there to eliminate people coming to the brush multiple times. Of course we want to try and answer as many questions as possible from as many players as possible. When it comes to customer service, however, it is not reasonable to let people on hold on the phone wait and the 20-30 people in line all night wait so the brush can look through a list of 285 names and try and find where someone is on the 1-2 list. Sometimes a sacrifice must be made. On behalf of the room, I apoligize if you feel you were "pushed aside"; it was not personal.
4."How long do you think it will be until I can play?" This question is asked a million times a night every weekend at the poker room. As you have pointed out that I am also a poker player, I can personally tell I NEVER ask this question at a poker room. Why? Because to me it is not reasonable. If there are 56 people ahead of you on the list and there are 5 tables of that game going, how can you calculate the wait time? There is no way to know how long any individual player will play so no way to know how long 56 other people will play ahead of you. As experienced poker players, your guess will be as good as anyone in the poker room.
5. The call in list is automted and is strictly 90 minutes. If you call in, the time you call is beside you name on the list. At EXACTLY 90 MINUTES, if you have not checked in, your name will be erased. The brush has no interest in removing people from the list or "screwing them" out of their spot in line. Every effort is made to maintain the list as best as can be. If you experience something unusual, just ask the brush. But please be reasonable; there is no need to shout, swear, insult, etc..
6. If a seat becomes available for you, your name will be at the top of the list, it will flash red and your name will be called on the mic. On a Saturday night (especially Dec 30th), your name will most likley only be called ONCE. Why? Because it is reasonable to think that you have been checking the list and know when you are getting near the top. You should be nearby and hear you name on the first call. If your name is called and you do not respond, your name will be removed and the next name will be called. On a busy night, it is not reasonable to put your name back on the list at the top; the rest of the people on the list have been waiting (almost) as long as you and deserve a chance to play, too.
7. Please purchase your chips from the Cashier BEFORE your name gets to the top of the list.