I played the $560 event....and as an online player these are some of my observations.
A) A prize pool break down. I only care about this, because everytime I play the buy in * the number of entrants does NOT equal the prize pool. With 300 entrants...the prize pool should be exactly 150 k. Yesterday the final prize pool is reported as 14x k. I don't remember the exact number. In any case, I can only assume that the missing money went to the dinner. The dinner is a alright idea...if players were given options. There are no options though...I must pay for dinner if I like it or not. If I re-enter...you pay for the dinner multiple times? If I bust before dinner...I have to wait there to eat or leave?
To me, I think the prize pools should always be broken down. Every single dollar to make everything transparent and clear to everyone that wants to know. Like right now, I have no idea if the $10 bonus add on chips really go to the dealers. Or does part of it go to the house like in Vegas.
Towards the end of day 1b, the tournament director decides to stop the clock in the middle of a level and randomly chip people up. This was just after 20 ppl were left and we were only playing down to 17 ppl. We were not removing the smallest domination chips off the table at this point...and this was not during a break. I have no idea exactly how long it took to do this...but it's probably like 10-20 minutes.
I know eventually, we need to chip ppl up, but the timing and reasoning are so flawed. Why on earth are we doing this in the middle of a level, 3 away from the end of the day? The time it took us to chip up....we could have busted the 3 players and saved everyone time.
Another reason why it's unnecessary is that they don't bag and tag your chips like in vegas. What they did instead is manually count everyone chips and wrote it down...and chipped you up themselves before day 2. Why do the same process twice?
C) Rolling back the blinds on day 2. For better players, I want the blinds as small as possible....but even I think it's totally unfair to have posted a blind structure that is to be followed and to change it during the course of the tournament. You can't say it's fair for everyone, because the guys that bubbled day 1....could play some hands differently as a result.
Along side this point, day 1A and day 1B basically never finishes at the same time. I understand they don't want people coming back to day 2 to bust with no money, but there should be a better way to do this.
As an example....maybe they have a blind level freeze on day 1A after a certain point and do the same on day 1B. At least the blinds are the same at the end of each day.
D) 11 handed tables. During the tournament on day 1B...I have no idea if any of the tables were 11 handed. I sat down at a 10 handed table...and assumed every table was 10 handed or less. We end up with 31 players on day 2...and now we have one 11 player table. I understand it makes it easier, but that doesn't follow how the tournament has been run.
Like if this is the WSOP ME, what if instead of the Nov 9, we changed the final table to 11 players, when we have never played 11 handed until up to that point.
E) Some of the plays I saw on the table....are borderline collusion. I'm not mentioning any names, but it's obvious that there are regular live players here and it seemed obvious to me that there's a bit of soft playing at the table.
F) They should use new cards more often. A lot of the cards have dents/marks on them. I'm sure someone could mark cards if they wanted to and were good at it.
G) Antes. Sometimes when I play live, I get the feeling that the dealers/floor/TD wants to just have the day end. That in itself is kind of bad. If they really wanted to do something really simple to help that is to increase the antes. They should target a 4 to 1, SB to Ante ratio. Sometimes the antes are 1/10th the sb. Way too small. The blind structures ramp up so quickly....why are we skimming the antes in these situations.
I don't want to make this post sound all negative. These are a lot of good things at the tournament. The dealers were good and professional. The tournament ran pretty much on time. The floor seem to be good at gathering the information and making the fairest ruling.
Normaly the charity portion of 1.5% (maybe its 2.5%? I think this comes out of prize pool and not admin fees)
BRB
Ran the math on the 1k: 120 entrants, 117k prize pool =2.5% shaved for Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission mandatory charity portion, that’s where your missing chunk for $500 would be. Over $100 buy-in I believe is 2.5%, under is 10%.
Meals, dealer costs, come out of admin portion, usually add on money goes to tip pool for dealers, tourney directors etc, they work some long hours over any series. Most guys just adjust any tip they will leave for big scores accordingly.
Standard live stuff. It isn’t always put out there in bold for sure, but that’s pretty much the deal.
Glad you had some strong positives points too. Structure wise, I have been to quite a few around the country and this is one of the better start stacks and structures. The 1k didn’t wrap up until near 6am and average at 4 am was still around 10m. Considering we are only talking just over 100 guys, 16 hours of play is pretty good.
The $500 the last 31 played out for 10+ more hours. Blind roll back is also pretty standard on multi-start day events as varying field sizes and end time at 10% of field make it so something has to be done to make it fair for the multiple fields. They don’t always announce what the blinds will roll back too as it is a decision the director might have to put thought into and adjust accordingly. They shoot for what is fairest and base it on chip count, average etc. Ending the game is a factor but they know they are accountable to the player so are usually as accommodating as possible. It’s a balance, there is a business factor that has to come in too, Yellowhead definitely leans more to the player than the pocket book when compared to many others.
also just to add to PFC glory, slb69 took 3rd in 1k for $15000.
Sanborn who DennisG and Darbday both met (and he was very intrested in the forum when we told him about it) shipped the $300 for $9500, he won the last $500 there for $28,000. Expect he will be joining us here soon.
Kai crushed the $300 in Calgary just before this (don't know total but it had two start days and 195 players) He was also crushing 25/50 PLO HU against a tough opponent last I seen him this weekend.
also just to add to PFC glory, slb69 took 3rd in 1k for $15000.
Sanborn who DennisG and Darbday both met (and he was very intrested in the forum when we told him about it) shipped the $300 for $9500, he won the last $500 there for $28,000. Expect he will be joining us here soon.
Kai crushed the $300 in Calgary just before this (don't know total but it had two start days and 195 players) He was also crushing 25/50 PLO HU against a tough opponent last I seen him this weekend.
Sanborn is the guy biking to Vegas?? Glad he took it down, he also took me out. Finally the one guy that would call with AK..lol
Yeah, got to meet Kai, Jon, and T8 which was all cool, nice to put faces to names and posts. Kai wouldn't play me in PLO though..apparently my roll isn't big enough.. I think he was just scared.
I had a fantastic weekend being a degenerate and thought the Yellowhead did a pretty good job as well...
Though, with windbreaker on a few of his points..uneven tables, clocks stopping/play going with stopped clock..and the marked cards. When I pointed a few out to the dealer, I was told they were all like that...but yet I knew when I had the 6 of spades in front of me without looking at the face. As well, some of the cards were so worn you almost had to turn them around to see what it was..Spades seemed especially bad in the one particular deck...
Yup, Sanborn was the bike guy. He is just about Super Nova Elite now, one of the standard names in the west on result lists, page 3 of our thread here pre series said he would be one to look out for.
Joel who played Wetts1012 heads up at COPC and Nav are also a few guys I will mention here and there, Bo and Comely I don't remember if I introduced you, but thats pretty much the crew here. Few others who are taking a break.
Also had a blast on this volatile degenerate excursion. Ended up playing the $340 as well, stuck less than mine and the wife's 2 planned combined buy-ins so as far as non productive poker weekend goes, can't complain.
I played the $560 event....and as an online player these are some of my observations.
A) A prize pool break down. I only care about this, because everytime I play the buy in * the number of entrants does NOT equal the prize pool. With 300 entrants...the prize pool should be exactly 150 k. Yesterday the final prize pool is reported as 14x k. I don't remember the exact number. In any case, I can only assume that the missing money went to the dinner. The dinner is a alright idea...if players were given options. There are no options though...I must pay for dinner if I like it or not. If I re-enter...you pay for the dinner multiple times? If I bust before dinner...I have to wait there to eat or leave?
To me, I think the prize pools should always be broken down. Every single dollar to make everything transparent and clear to everyone that wants to know. Like right now, I have no idea if the $10 bonus add on chips really go to the dealers. Or does part of it go to the house like in Vegas.
Towards the end of day 1b, the tournament director decides to stop the clock in the middle of a level and randomly chip people up. This was just after 20 ppl were left and we were only playing down to 17 ppl. We were not removing the smallest domination chips off the table at this point...and this was not during a break. I have no idea exactly how long it took to do this...but it's probably like 10-20 minutes.
I know eventually, we need to chip ppl up, but the timing and reasoning are so flawed. Why on earth are we doing this in the middle of a level, 3 away from the end of the day? The time it took us to chip up....we could have busted the 3 players and saved everyone time.
Another reason why it's unnecessary is that they don't bag and tag your chips like in vegas. What they did instead is manually count everyone chips and wrote it down...and chipped you up themselves before day 2. Why do the same process twice?
C) Rolling back the blinds on day 2. For better players, I want the blinds as small as possible....but even I think it's totally unfair to have posted a blind structure that is to be followed and to change it during the course of the tournament. You can't say it's fair for everyone, because the guys that bubbled day 1....could play some hands differently as a result.
Along side this point, day 1A and day 1B basically never finishes at the same time. I understand they don't want people coming back to day 2 to bust with no money, but there should be a better way to do this.
As an example....maybe they have a blind level freeze on day 1A after a certain point and do the same on day 1B. At least the blinds are the same at the end of each day.
D) 11 handed tables. During the tournament on day 1B...I have no idea if any of the tables were 11 handed. I sat down at a 10 handed table...and assumed every table was 10 handed or less. We end up with 31 players on day 2...and now we have one 11 player table. I understand it makes it easier, but that doesn't follow how the tournament has been run.
Like if this is the WSOP ME, what if instead of the Nov 9, we changed the final table to 11 players, when we have never played 11 handed until up to that point.
E) Some of the plays I saw on the table....are borderline collusion. I'm not mentioning any names, but it's obvious that there are regular live players here and it seemed obvious to me that there's a bit of soft playing at the table.
F) They should use new cards more often. A lot of the cards have dents/marks on them. I'm sure someone could mark cards if they wanted to and were good at it.
G) Antes. Sometimes when I play live, I get the feeling that the dealers/floor/TD wants to just have the day end. That in itself is kind of bad. If they really wanted to do something really simple to help that is to increase the antes. They should target a 4 to 1, SB to Ante ratio. Sometimes the antes are 1/10th the sb. Way too small. The blind structures ramp up so quickly....why are we skimming the antes in these situations.
I don't want to make this post sound all negative. These are a lot of good things at the tournament. The dealers were good and professional. The tournament ran pretty much on time. The floor seem to be good at gathering the information and making the fairest ruling.
i felt the same way about almost every single thing here, even noticed the dented cards and wondered if one of the players was doing it. but your post isn't negitive i had a good time but you bring up good suggestions.
and was happy to meet everyone, was introduced to same interesting and good players and had a good first time 'event' poker experience, thx all, thx dennis for the invite!
Comments
A) A prize pool break down. I only care about this, because everytime I play the buy in * the number of entrants does NOT equal the prize pool. With 300 entrants...the prize pool should be exactly 150 k. Yesterday the final prize pool is reported as 14x k. I don't remember the exact number. In any case, I can only assume that the missing money went to the dinner. The dinner is a alright idea...if players were given options. There are no options though...I must pay for dinner if I like it or not. If I re-enter...you pay for the dinner multiple times? If I bust before dinner...I have to wait there to eat or leave?
To me, I think the prize pools should always be broken down. Every single dollar to make everything transparent and clear to everyone that wants to know. Like right now, I have no idea if the $10 bonus add on chips really go to the dealers. Or does part of it go to the house like in Vegas.
I know eventually, we need to chip ppl up, but the timing and reasoning are so flawed. Why on earth are we doing this in the middle of a level, 3 away from the end of the day? The time it took us to chip up....we could have busted the 3 players and saved everyone time.
Another reason why it's unnecessary is that they don't bag and tag your chips like in vegas. What they did instead is manually count everyone chips and wrote it down...and chipped you up themselves before day 2. Why do the same process twice?
C) Rolling back the blinds on day 2. For better players, I want the blinds as small as possible....but even I think it's totally unfair to have posted a blind structure that is to be followed and to change it during the course of the tournament. You can't say it's fair for everyone, because the guys that bubbled day 1....could play some hands differently as a result.
Along side this point, day 1A and day 1B basically never finishes at the same time. I understand they don't want people coming back to day 2 to bust with no money, but there should be a better way to do this.
As an example....maybe they have a blind level freeze on day 1A after a certain point and do the same on day 1B. At least the blinds are the same at the end of each day.
D) 11 handed tables. During the tournament on day 1B...I have no idea if any of the tables were 11 handed. I sat down at a 10 handed table...and assumed every table was 10 handed or less. We end up with 31 players on day 2...and now we have one 11 player table. I understand it makes it easier, but that doesn't follow how the tournament has been run.
Like if this is the WSOP ME, what if instead of the Nov 9, we changed the final table to 11 players, when we have never played 11 handed until up to that point.
E) Some of the plays I saw on the table....are borderline collusion. I'm not mentioning any names, but it's obvious that there are regular live players here and it seemed obvious to me that there's a bit of soft playing at the table.
F) They should use new cards more often. A lot of the cards have dents/marks on them. I'm sure someone could mark cards if they wanted to and were good at it.
G) Antes. Sometimes when I play live, I get the feeling that the dealers/floor/TD wants to just have the day end. That in itself is kind of bad. If they really wanted to do something really simple to help that is to increase the antes. They should target a 4 to 1, SB to Ante ratio. Sometimes the antes are 1/10th the sb. Way too small. The blind structures ramp up so quickly....why are we skimming the antes in these situations.
I don't want to make this post sound all negative. These are a lot of good things at the tournament. The dealers were good and professional. The tournament ran pretty much on time. The floor seem to be good at gathering the information and making the fairest ruling.
BRB
Ran the math on the 1k: 120 entrants, 117k prize pool =2.5% shaved for Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission mandatory charity portion, that’s where your missing chunk for $500 would be. Over $100 buy-in I believe is 2.5%, under is 10%.
Meals, dealer costs, come out of admin portion, usually add on money goes to tip pool for dealers, tourney directors etc, they work some long hours over any series. Most guys just adjust any tip they will leave for big scores accordingly.
Standard live stuff. It isn’t always put out there in bold for sure, but that’s pretty much the deal.
Glad you had some strong positives points too. Structure wise, I have been to quite a few around the country and this is one of the better start stacks and structures. The 1k didn’t wrap up until near 6am and average at 4 am was still around 10m. Considering we are only talking just over 100 guys, 16 hours of play is pretty good.
The $500 the last 31 played out for 10+ more hours. Blind roll back is also pretty standard on multi-start day events as varying field sizes and end time at 10% of field make it so something has to be done to make it fair for the multiple fields. They don’t always announce what the blinds will roll back too as it is a decision the director might have to put thought into and adjust accordingly. They shoot for what is fairest and base it on chip count, average etc. Ending the game is a factor but they know they are accountable to the player so are usually as accommodating as possible. It’s a balance, there is a business factor that has to come in too, Yellowhead definitely leans more to the player than the pocket book when compared to many others.
Sanborn who DennisG and Darbday both met (and he was very intrested in the forum when we told him about it) shipped the $300 for $9500, he won the last $500 there for $28,000. Expect he will be joining us here soon.
Kai crushed the $300 in Calgary just before this (don't know total but it had two start days and 195 players) He was also crushing 25/50 PLO HU against a tough opponent last I seen him this weekend.
Sanborn is the guy biking to Vegas?? Glad he took it down, he also took me out. Finally the one guy that would call with AK..lol
Yeah, got to meet Kai, Jon, and T8 which was all cool, nice to put faces to names and posts. Kai wouldn't play me in PLO though..apparently my roll isn't big enough..
I had a fantastic weekend being a degenerate and thought the Yellowhead did a pretty good job as well...
Though, with windbreaker on a few of his points..uneven tables, clocks stopping/play going with stopped clock..and the marked cards. When I pointed a few out to the dealer, I was told they were all like that...but yet I knew when I had the 6 of spades in front of me without looking at the face. As well, some of the cards were so worn you almost had to turn them around to see what it was..Spades seemed especially bad in the one particular deck...
All in all, I had a really good time.
Joel who played Wetts1012 heads up at COPC and Nav are also a few guys I will mention here and there, Bo and Comely I don't remember if I introduced you, but thats pretty much the crew here. Few others who are taking a break.
Also had a blast on this volatile degenerate excursion. Ended up playing the $340 as well, stuck less than mine and the wife's 2 planned combined buy-ins so as far as non productive poker weekend goes, can't complain.
i felt the same way about almost every single thing here, even noticed the dented cards and wondered if one of the players was doing it. but your post isn't negitive i had a good time but you bring up good suggestions.