Your ideal poker convention

Completely hypothetical question, of course...

Let's say you bought tickets to a weekend poker convention. What sort of things would you expect or like to do for the weekend? What would make it a good weekend for you?

Would having it in Kitchener/Waterloo be a detractor because you're not close to real casinos?

Comments

  • Oh sweet Jesus.... what are you planning?

    Are you talking about like an educational / training thing or a weekend of poker goodness?

    Mark
  • Are you talking about a traditional convention, complete with pros and seminars and trade show?

    Poker convention must/should have mulitple playing tables for each discipline; low buyin kind of stuff

    Some "Talk to the Pros" seminars/consultation areas

    Availability of learning materials and supplies

    This sounds REALLY intriguing. What's on your mind Zithal??
  • Damn you Mark...you beat me to it...lol
  • mo1.gif

    'Nuff said
  • All girlfriend's parents would have to be banned.
  • Remember that convention that was supposed to happen a few years ago? :)
  • actyper wrote: »
    Remember that convention that was supposed to happen a few years ago? :)

    Yeah. I'd like to contact the guy to see what really happened. Perhaps Dave Scharf knows as he was scheduled to be one of the guest speakers.

    For everyone else's reference, think legal and more along the lines of an educational con; seminar, trade show, venders, Q&A,etc. Any poker played would need to be legal.
  • Hrmm.... I was hoping for something more gamey, but okay...

    Seminars:

    - Personally, I'd like a workshop type approach to train oneself to pay attention to the table / tells of other players, best practices on how to look for, catalog, and remember tells

    - Tracking - what to keep track of, how to, and where to, and when and where it can best be applied to improve your game

    - Money management strategy workshop: How to build a bankroll, when to move levels etc. etc.

    Vendors:

    - Best bet would be specialized manufacturers. KEM/COPAQ etc cards, specialty poker tables would be of most interest to me. I've got a set of chips that works for me, but maybe one of those.

    - Possibly something along the lines of "weekend poker dreams". Almost like a poker themed travel deal?

    Q&A:

    - Clearly it'd be great to get a professional or two down. I think I'd love a chance to sit down and pick Mike Caro's brain for an hour or so 1:1...

    Mark
  • I would think a format similar to the WPT Boot Camp would be the most feasible. Daniel Negreanu held a boot camp in Toronto last year and it got good reviews.

    Famous poker authors can have book signings. Local vendors can sell their poker supplies. Poker sites can offer promotions. The best time would be in late October when a lot of the poker professionals would be in town anyway for the WPT NAPC.

    In terms of poker games, a legal charity game can be held. For example, I was a dealer at the Auto Show shootout tournament where the player's donation went to Ronald McDonald's House. Another option is to have fun tournaments with no money involved to keep it legal.
    Zithal wrote: »
    For everyone else's reference, think legal and more along the lines of an educational con; seminar, trade show, venders, Q&A,etc. Any poker played would need to be legal.
  • DrTyore wrote: »
    Hrmm.... I was hoping for something more gamey, but okay...

    Seminars:

    - Personally, I'd like a workshop type approach to train oneself to pay attention to the table / tells of other players, best practices on how to look for, catalog, and remember tells

    - Tracking - what to keep track of, how to, and where to, and when and where it can best be applied to improve your game

    - Money management strategy workshop: How to build a bankroll, when to move levels etc. etc.

    Vendors:

    - Best bet would be specialized manufacturers. KEM/COPAQ etc cards, specialty poker tables would be of most interest to me. I've got a set of chips that works for me, but maybe one of those.

    - Possibly something along the lines of "weekend poker dreams". Almost like a poker themed travel deal?

    Q&A:

    - Clearly it'd be great to get a professional or two down. I think I'd love a chance to sit down and pick Mike Caro's brain for an hour or so 1:1...

    Mark


    Come on now.....you mean 1:0.75 right Mark?
  • No 'fun' tournament..charity game is the way to go, maybe play to a buy in a casino tourney or something like that. I also think it is more fun to make it a weekend event instead of a one day 'fair' (possibly a two-prong event..Two night convention with tourney/more lectures and an open admission Sunday afternoon fair - for the less devoted...catches everyone.)

    The series of lectures at varying skill levels is good..from learn to play -to the Navarro-like tells. (One I would love to see is POKER ETTIQUETTE)

    You're right about the practical and novelty items for sale.

    and lastly MO NAKED HOES

    Very interesting idea Rob, hope you're actually considering doing this-you're definately the guy to pull it off!
  • Kristy_Sea wrote: »

    and lastly MO NAKED HOES

    Yup....

    I think if you were to do a Poker Convention you would have to try and get a location closer to Toronto (or in Toronto) so you could get more "walk-in" traffic.

    If it was out the K/W area people in Toronto and East of Toronto would have to make it a day and would have to plan to attend several days in advance and so on.

    But if it was in the Toronto area you would get more people that heard about it last minute and drop by plus still get the plan to attend people from the areas outside of Toronto.
  • i think this is a great idea. i would attend for sure. although i agree it would have to be geared more away from just playing poker to all other sorts of aspects, i'm sure some actual poker games would creep in anyway. you can't get a convention full of poker players and not expect a game to start up sometime ;)
  • seminars on the other poker games

    omaha hi/lo
    7 card stud
    razz
    horse

    just a suggestion
  • Excellent suggestions in there and lots to think about. Keep 'em coming.
  • SteveKerr wrote: »
    seminars on the other poker games

    omaha hi/lo
    7 card stud
    razz
    horse

    just a suggestion

    I like this one. Stud 8/b (Stud Hi/Lo) is missing from the list.
  • If it was in Toronto I would be there 100%.
  • Bumbaclat wrote: »
    If it was in Toronto I would be there 100%.

    It's not like KW is in another province. It's an hour's drive. Most from TO travel that far to a casino.
  • STR82ACE wrote: »
    It's not like KW is in another province. It's an hour's drive. Most from TO travel that far to a casino.

    Yeah but people from KW could drive to Toronto.

    Plus population of Toronto is approx. 3 Million, K/W is about 400,000.

    So the greater chance of some one just dropping in is a lot larger for Toronto
  • STR82ACE wrote: »
    It's not like KW is in another province. It's an hour's drive. Most from TO travel that far to a casino.

    if it is KW I'm going 50%. just giving the odds, everybody here should appreciate that. :p
  • Great ideas....others....

    -have tables for sale, or have workshops on how to build, tips plans etc...

    -a booth about online poker, how the laws are effecting Canadians

    -info on how to reclaim %30 or your $ won in USA.

    -reps from the ontario casinos to explain what tourney they run or could run, and what kinds of games/limits they run.
  • I attended the WSOP Acadamy this year in Vegas. 160 showed up at $2,200 for a 3-day event. A few Pro's conducted the seminars (Greg Raymar, Scott Fishmann, Hachem, etc and even Hellmuth showed up for an hour). They have a lot of these events in differant places in the US now, but they are held at casinos for legal play. (Hachem has an invite for a 3-day private session with him in December for $2,000). We even had a couple of small tourney's. The table hands were the least favorite to me as they devolve to the lowest level of question as most players were not that good. The key benefit is the seminar structure with a manual of the slides and the ability to take a lot of notes. The material is broad ranging so you get a lot of input regardless of your skill level and the pros are there to answer all your questions during the seminar and at the breaks. It definitely improved my game and I was able to fix some errors that I thought I was playing correctly. The interesting thing was that by the end the pros were arguing over various plays which devolved from stylistic differances around correct play, which was interesting but confusing for me at my level. For example, Hellmuth and Raymar argued over a question I had about going all-in with AA. Raymar felt that anytime you go all-in with the best of it you are a winner and Hellmuth disagreed insisting that during a tournament of thousands even if you have AA on every hand and call all-in against one other opponent you will be busted in short order. Raymar agreed to that, which brought up the key requirement to make on-going assessment of stack sizes, which is easy on-line but more difficult in a tournament. Many players are too tired or inexperienced to do it, but for a pro it's an almost automatic thing.

    I could go on and on, but if you are serious poker, as many on this site are, I would highly recommend something like this. Bear in mind the best teachers I found were not necessarily the "name" pros, but the ones that were willing to spend the time with you to teach rather than just toot their horn (like Hellmuth). Also the more pro's you have the better, just so you can see the variations in style and you can better connect with someone who plays your type of game. Hachem and Fishman admitted to me in private that he didn't feel they were teaching people who were going to be competitors and that while you could make money as an amateur it's very difficult to learn to be a pro on a part-time basis (I have two kids and I need job to pay bills) and certainly the pro's I met (there were over a dozen, most you have never heard of) were all either young (Scott plays on-line 12 hours a day, has no girlfirend or hobbies) or much older, but grew up with it (i.e. never really entered the real work force), no one really like me (except Raymar, maybe), someone who picked up the game at middle age. One of the depressing things I learned is how right they are, I have a long, long way to go to get to even approaching their level.

    Sorry for the long post...still get caught up in it when I think back....
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