Private pokerforum.ca tournaments
[I'll re-post this here to start a new discussion thread on pokerforum.ca tournaments specifically.]
So far, the only online poker site to offer private online tournaments seems to be a site I've never heard of (great...), iPoker:
http://www.ipoker.net/site/tournaments/private-poker-tournaments.html
On the plus side, you can completely customize the tournament choosing buy-in, type of game, re-buys (if any), and right down to the exact blind structure. Also, buy-ins could be as low as $2. They do accept Neteller (min deposit $25USD) and other deposit methods.
I'm not one to ever recommend non-established poker sites, so even though I wouldn't mind throwing $25USD at this site to give it a try, your participation would be by your own choice. (I.e. if you put in cash it's at your own risk.)
Any thoughts on having pokerforum.ca tournaments at this site for starters? (Why iPoker? It seems to be the only site available.) Let's at least see how much interest there is before throwing in deposits.
And of course, if you have any suggestions on other ways to (or other sites at which we could) do such a tournament (besides me dealing cards at my place and emailing you the results), that would be great too.
ScottyZ
So far, the only online poker site to offer private online tournaments seems to be a site I've never heard of (great...), iPoker:
http://www.ipoker.net/site/tournaments/private-poker-tournaments.html
On the plus side, you can completely customize the tournament choosing buy-in, type of game, re-buys (if any), and right down to the exact blind structure. Also, buy-ins could be as low as $2. They do accept Neteller (min deposit $25USD) and other deposit methods.
I'm not one to ever recommend non-established poker sites, so even though I wouldn't mind throwing $25USD at this site to give it a try, your participation would be by your own choice. (I.e. if you put in cash it's at your own risk.)
Any thoughts on having pokerforum.ca tournaments at this site for starters? (Why iPoker? It seems to be the only site available.) Let's at least see how much interest there is before throwing in deposits.
And of course, if you have any suggestions on other ways to (or other sites at which we could) do such a tournament (besides me dealing cards at my place and emailing you the results), that would be great too.
ScottyZ
Comments
Who knows. I'm certainly not a fan of putting money at un-established sites myself, but currently this iPoker seems to be the only thing out there right now in terms of private tournaments. The two most realistic options at this point seem to be trying out iPoker, or waiting to see if PokerStars establishes some kind of private tournament system.
I don't really see any poker site *ever* offering private freeroll tournaments (or cash games for that matter). Why not? Because they want you to pay them the rake/house drop. If they let people easily get together to play with friends (or whoever) the friends can just play for free and agree on off-line payments to the winners (without the rake), and the site never sees a dime of their money.
ScottyZ
When I get a chance I will check out pokerstars.com, I believe they used to offer private tables..
The pain is coming baby!
(my pre-rehearsed line for use on Phil Hellmuth when he and I get heads up at this year's WSOP).
Dave Scarfboy: you're in big trouble mister!! I'm gonna come at you with everything!! mostly with the nuts... just try and remember to fold. thx.
{/trash talk}
Don't say that in an elevator.
ScottyZ
LOL I just may if it throws him off his game!
Heh. Hardly the WSOP, but I was playing on Ultimate Bet last night and Phil came and sat in on the table I was playing! (.25/.50 no limit)
He won a few big pots, I think his presence at the table automatically put everyone else on TilT, just trying to beat him.
It also drew a lot of spectators and some people just started getting rude and obnoxious, so he left shortly after...
Some people are dinks.
hork.
www.absolutepoker.com
www.alohapoker.com
I wouldn't be surprised in iPoker and Absolute Poker are sister sites, since they had exactly the same interface (which seemed to be a good one, BTW) for setting up private tournaments.
Aloha Poker didn't seem as good, since private tournaments are simply arranged by sending them an email.
As with iPoker, I wouldn't vouch for either of those two sites.
Also, PartyPoker (a place I do trust and play at) refers to "private tournaments" in one of their FAQs, but I couldn't find any specific information on whether or not they offer private tournaments to the general public. I'll email their customer support about it tonight.
ScottyZ
Do you happen to know if PokerRoom arranges private tournaments? When you say "private games", I am guessing you are referring to cash games. I couldn't find any info on their website about private tournaments.
I would consider PokerRoom.com higher up the scale in terms of reliability than the sites (except Party) I suggested already.
ScottyZ
The only thing is the "VIP" of the table (basically the tournament host) has to have accumulated 10,000 ARP's.
(I'm guessing frequent player points of some sort.)
ipoker is beginning to look like the most suitable candidate for our tournament.
That is unless someone out there has an overwhelmingly large number of ARPs!
hork.
Thanks, that pretty much rules out Absolute Poker then since, to the best of my knowledge, I don't have any ARP's. 8)
That's kind of an awkward acronym. Sounds like some kind of mild skin disease or something. "Grampa can't come out with us tonight, his ARP's are acting up again."
So unless Party is a possibility, it looks like iPoker is leading the running at this point.
You have brought to my attention another good point though... I'll have to check carefully that iPoker doesn't have a similar restriction on the tournament host.
ScottyZ
You can for example, have a table of ten, $100-$200 with a 1000 to 10000$ play money buy in. What you do is make a table, and then people have to be invited to sit, if they aren't invited, they can't join. Other than the blind structure, it sounds perfect. And you don't have to deal with the management.
It seems that at iPoker's private tournament registration system is automated, so you don't have to deal with the site directly, but it does take some time (3 days) to create the tournament.
Here are some of my thoughts at trying a private play money table.
Positives:
1. Free to enter, and people don't have to set up a real money account or deposit money where they don't necessarily want to.
2. Puts no money at risk in terms of site integrity.
3. On-site set-up is possible without the need for assistance from the site itself.
Negatives:
1. No automatic increases of the blinds. This can be handled by rescaling the stack sizes downwards, but this would be very cumbersome since it would probably involve everyone manually leaving and re-joining a game with the correct amount of chips every level. This doesn't just slow down the tournament a lot, but also...
2. Inconsistent placement of the blinds. It's probable that when the game is somehow paused at the end of a level that the blinds would no longer be in the correct spot next round. (For example, if the computer "deals for button" again.) While placement of the blinds is not usually a huge deal in cash games, in tournaments, it can be a big disadvantage to pay 2 blinds in a row, or big advantage to get an extra free orbit.
3. Limited to tables of 10. Dynamically re-balancing the tables would simply be too difficult, so this would either cap the tournaments at 10 players, or a larger tournament would have to be in some form of multi-shootout format.
ScottyZ
ScottyZ
The next best choice is probably waiting to see if PokerStars is going to come up with a private tournament system of their own. (See their "Not now, but we're working on it" email I received from PokerStars in the thread Online Poker Talk -> Private/special events at PokerStars)
The only downside is that iPoker a low traffic, unestablished online poker room, so there is a non-trivial risk of the entire site going under and all of us losing our deposit of $25USD (or whatever you choose to deposit, $25USD is just the minimum Neteller deposit they will accept).
Any pokerforum.ca tournament we would run there *for donated prizes* would be at the minimum buy-in, currently $2.
I sent an email to the iPoker customer support to see if there is any requirement (minimum number of raked hands, frequent player points, etc) that needs to be met in order to run a private tournament. If the answer turns out to be that there is such a requirement, it's doubtful we would run tournaments there since I don't plan on playing regular cash games there in the near future.
I also like the idea of having a ($2) practice tournament first, simply to get everyone (including me) used to the software.
Anyway, as soon as I get a response back from iPoker customer support (and if it's the response I'm looking for) I'll be ready to suggest iPoker as the place to hold our tournaments. I'll be sure to give plenty of advance notice (at least 2 or 3 weeks) as to the (proposed) tournamant dates to allow people lots of time to set up iPoker accounts, fund their Neteller accounts, etc if they want to (and are eligible to-- the eligibility requirements to be determined) participate.
ScottyZ
I'm hoping that a site that is affiliated with Neteller would at least be somewhat stable.... I did a little more research into ipoker.net.
Apparently ipoker.net is a skin of Dynamitepoker.com - they both link to the same tables, and Dynamite has the same private tournament form. I tried a search on a couple of other forums. Can't really find much on ipoker.net. One thing I found about Dynamite was that after 90 days of inactivity, they declare your money account "dormant" and it reverts to a 0 balance.
Someone posted their experience with this and eventually was able to get the balance restored (but had to play a certain number of raked hands to be able to release the money....) very lame, having to play similar to releasing a deposit bonus to get your own money back!
Something to be cautious about.
I created an account on ipoker. The site is completely web-based. there is no software download. As of 11:30am, there is almost no activity at their tables.
From the terms of use:
"Inactive Accounts: Any account that has been inactive for a period of 1 year will receive an email asking what the player wishes to do with the account and the account balance. In the event of no response, the account will be closed."
A little more reasonable than the above story...
So, if you guys decide to still use ipoker, I'm there. Just wanted to bring up a couple of points as I saw them.
hork.
PokerRoom's play money NL single-table tourneys are not private, but they do increase the blinds automatically. The cost to enter is 500+50 play chips.
So, if you picked a time and a day, forum users could all sit in at exactly that time in a matter of seconds, before any 'outsiders' arrived...
Since it's single table, if you want more than 10 players, I guess you'd have to set up some sort of round-robin structure. But I will say for sure that the play money NL single table tourneys DO automatically increase the blinds.
Sorry if I'm repeating what's already been said.
Regards,
all_aces
The main problem I see with this is that we restrict ourselves to *exactly* 10 players (or exact multiples of 10 if we wanted a multi-shootout format).
Getting 10 players that co-ordinated together (and non-lagged) probably isn't a piece of cake either.
However, this seems to be the best alternative if many people are strongly against making a deposit at iPoker.
ScottyZ
No one had talked about the tournaments on pokerroom yet, I was referring to the private tables. As far as this, Scottys points are good. I don't think it would be possible to coordinate this without a good chance of an outsider joining in.
Has anyone talked to pokerroom about a private play money tournament?
Jer..you have the best avatar ever. :shock:
Finally an explanation as to where all that farting was coming from...
ScottyZ
Did I just say that? Oh my. Too many Xtra large coffees this morning.
Thanks a lot guy, I don't think I'll ever be able to eat marshmallows again.
Not because of the farting... the religious implications are simply too great.
ScottyZ