Royal Cup Improvements thread
Thought I would put this out there to get some more formal input...
My thoughts:
1/ Obviously open internet access... This one caught me by surprise but since they had some website access blocked internally I couldn't do anything about it. I will attempt to fix this for next time.
2/ More help in the kitchen since I know some of you waited a long time for food orders. And delete the veal from Milo's menu choices..
3/ Since we have the space, do we want to grow this a little to 9-10 teams and do you think there is enough interest?
I think the poker part of the event is pretty smooth but can we improve it?
Any suggestions for improvements?
My thoughts:
1/ Obviously open internet access... This one caught me by surprise but since they had some website access blocked internally I couldn't do anything about it. I will attempt to fix this for next time.
2/ More help in the kitchen since I know some of you waited a long time for food orders. And delete the veal from Milo's menu choices..
3/ Since we have the space, do we want to grow this a little to 9-10 teams and do you think there is enough interest?
I think the poker part of the event is pretty smooth but can we improve it?
Any suggestions for improvements?
Comments
none of us is getting any younger!
As for the speed of service, that might be helped if they had one server behind the bar, and one for food service. Might cut into profits for the Club, so I don't know if that will fly though . . . tough day for her by herself. Having a cash till behind the bar would also make things easier on both sides of the transaction. Less writing things down, and having to remember who is owed what that way. I imagine most of these issues are a result of this being our first time there, and hopefully they will be squared away without having to squawk about it.
Expansion is why this facility is the best I have played in for a Royal Cup. Getting back to 8 teams will be a breeze in terms of set-up, and we could probably accommodate 10 teams if the event gathers enough interest. Speaking to that, having it held where it is/was for the last three outings seems to have calmed down some of the more silly behaviour (my play aside), and hopefully players/teams that have shown up in the past may return. I can only say the last three Royal Cups have been a steady improvement each and every time. RC XII was a modest improvement overall due to the hiccups already mentioned, but none of those issues take away the fact that this event could be primed to get BIGGER as a result of the changes in locale.
Now, can we get rid of the Limit Hold Em?
1. Get rid of Limit. It serves no purpose. No one cares who wins the Limit game. Whe else would someone get 8BBs in pre-flop with 89o? There's 3 hours of my life I'll never get back. 8 hours of poker is plenty.
2. More play/quicker rounds. Seems contradictory but... We need deeper stacks to determine who is the best at anything but push bot poker after the first 2 or 3 rounds. At the same time, why are 95% of the players forced to wait around while one or two tables finishes their heads up battles? Cap the games at 2 or 3 hours or whatever then all those left (hopefully just heads up at that point) count up their chips and resume their game either after they bust out of a subsequent round or at the end. Then we can have predictable start times on rounds and people can plan accordingly if they want to go out.
3. Publicize the results. That is part of the fun and will bring more people to the event. Why is there no chatter about some of the crazy shit that went on yesterday? No squawking about the donkey who called MVP's all-in with 52o? No mocking of AJ's skills?
pkrfce Greg, official reporter of Royal Cup XIV!
I like limit, and when this event was designed, it was to consider multi-disciplinary poker. Limit is a different animal than NL, and it should stay.
Why does this come up every time?
Mark
1. There was a huge time gap between Stud/Omaha and LHE: the captains could have made selections during that time instead of/in addition to playing cash. The only drawback that I can see is not knowing how potential opponents are performing that day.
2. Have the captains make their picks at the regular time, in the traditional manor but have them start the NLHE round on their own, separate clock, allowing all other tables to begin promptly.
3. Randomize the picks in the same way the MVP picks were randomized this year: I know that there was already some resistance to this idea but i still feel that there could be some value in this option.
Everyone plays NLHE and PLO, while you split the first event between Stud and Stud8?
As a captain, I can say finding stud players is always hard enough, and stud8's addition would mean two things
1: Even more difficulty finding players
2: An even longer time needed for Stud, due to confusion, pot divisions, and HU taking FOREVER.
Stud's already likely the longest game session at the Royal. Limit Hold'em is played FAR more often online, B&M, and such, and is easier to follow for those less experienced in poker.
Also, to address something pkrface said that doesn't add up for me. You're saying people are playing bad hands to 8xBB in limit - you do realize this happens just as frequently (actually more frequently I'd bet due to the nature of the game) in NLHE? You even reference a NLHE call of an all in with an inferior hand still.
Limit should be there. Arguments of time, and terrible play due to either blinds or skill of players are reflected in all of the events in RC. The only way to alleviate these issues would be if the tournament ran for a total of like 20 hours. No thanks.
FWIW Milo, I would consider a Stud / Omaha / Hold'em / HU structure, but would want to think more on it.
Mark
Also, I like the idea of randomizing the picks for HU in the same way that it was done for MVP Picks. Unless of course, the programming presents a problem. Not a techie so I have no idea how difficult it would be. But it would also be a one time thing, as each subsequent event would just use the same program, right?
Get rid of the heads up round. Remember now, this is just spit-balling here. I have often felt the HU round sways the outcomes of these things a little too heavily. Perhaps a setup of Stud - Omaha - Limit - NLHE would be best. I don't know that there would be much of a time difference, as the final HU matches go well late (however, I will conceded that a 4-SNG setup would likely take longer).
I understand that HU is a more dramatic way of doing it. I guess depending on what you think the RC is supposed to challenge people on will determine your feelings but:
1: The RC is should test players on a variety of poker skills and teamwork
vs
2: The RC should test the players on the games of the day, or most popular / beloved games.
In the first, I could see you liking the stud/omaha/limit/NL setup while the second would allow for a venue change in the future. Perhaps Pineapple becomes a big hit. Chinese poker has a resurgence? Just somethings to consider.
Mark
Not that I am averse to switching to four events, all SnG's as described.
like picking the HU matches. I noticed there were two columns on one sheet for the H/U matches. My team didn't even have a pick in about the first 1/3 of the first column so I sat around doing nothing for quite a while. Solution: two sheets, one column of matches on each sheet. Result: faster.
like the new venue
also need bigger text lots bigger said this last time too and it got smaller, or I got older something like that
once the picks are chosen they could be posted or printed out, we are all adults so we can look at the sheet and find our own matches. If need be we wear a "Hello my name is" name tag
Maybe the HU picks could be done the night before? The captains could have a virtual meeting via Skype.
All else is great. Everyone works so hard to ensure the day goes well and managing a large group of people under a dynamic schedule isn't easy. My hat goes off all the organizers.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2
What if the schedule was created so that it went by "rounds" with each team involved in one selection per round...
example
Round 1
Kitwho? v. Milton Rocks
Ching Hill v. HBK
Guelph v. Loose Moose
Donkey Launchers v. Grinders
The team on the left nominates one of their players, and the team on the right picks one of their players to go against that pick. The schedule would be created to make an even balance of the times that each team picks first and second.
I am sure I can build schedules for 6 to 10 teams to accomplish the matching in the least number of rounds needed.
This way we have 3 or 4 conversations going on at the same time instead of one by one.
Some of my 2 cents:
- the last level of Stud should be 1000-2000 instead of 800-1600. Counting all those 100 chips slows things down
- I think one of the reasons the Stud round took so long was because the blinds were capped. Maybe reconsider this
- although I just re-read the rules and the blind levels are not capped at 800-1600 in the rules.
- encourage chipping up when the 100's aren't needed. In some cases we re-used the green 25's as 1000's
- Consider reducing the blind levels from 14/15 minutes to 10 after say level 9 (which is around the time the 100 chips aren't needed). This is something OPT introduced this season.
- some of the discussions above are around the impact of the HU round to the overall team results. Right now all the other games offer a total of 54 points to 8 players, an average of 6.75. If you increased this so the average was 10, it would be comparable to the contribution the HU matches bring. Eg instead of 15 12 9 7 5 3 2 1 avg = 6.75. try 20 16 13 10 8 6 4 3 avg = 10
- I like Mark's idea of having everyone play all the games - Stud, Omaha, LHE, NLHE. This being a team concept, not everyone is an expert at all the games, so that adds to the excitement. So what if you don't know Omaha; didn't someone get a first having only learned the game that morning? And keep LHE - this is the first Royal I've made some money (had high hand). :-)
- so if you went with this change, have a final HU round that involved perhaps only the top 2 players from each team. That would add to having others stick around to rail. But then keep the points as is so the HU points can make a difference. Or even increase the HU points from 10 to 25 for more late-day drama.
- This change could also affect MVP.
- I don't agree with setting a finishing time for the games. Doing so would change your decisions to try to last longer instead of trying to win.
- I preferred drawing names from the hat for MVP. That allowed for more interaction. I don't know who I had, and no one came to me to say they had me.
All in all guys you have a fantastic thing here. Tweaking is good. Or leave it unchanged, so that one always knows what to expect.
Just my 2 cents.
Tom
The average number of points for the Heads Up round per player is 5 - not 10. If anything the Heads Up round is undervalued, but I think that is made up for in the fact that it is all or nothing in each match. I think that it also adds to the excitement that each player has to play, and that comebacks are possible in that round. If the points increased in the first 3 rounds many more teams would be fully out of the running before the heads up rounds began.
Al
I think Headsup is different enough from a full game that it warrants a place in this tournament, and NLHE is all that really makes sense for it because everyone is comfortable with it; and potentially anyone can beat anyone. If we think it's over-valued at 10pts, perhaps lower it to 8 pts for the win?
The food slowness issue could be resolved even with just the one server by giving out numbers and just having the food wait at the counter - instead having her do 3 laps of the room looking for people every time.
Overall, new venue was great; round tables are much better even if it means we can't use the sweet ChipTalk table tops we used to.
This is a really good idea.
If we were going to change the format, this would also be my favorite...
Great idea! Thank you
Are the small font size complaints related solely to the printouts?
Printouts will be much better at XIV
Spreadsheets can be zoooooomed so those will be remaining the same
Yeah OK fine. But I'm bringing scissors labelled TOM
See, /g2 followed through. The captains just didn't execute.
Appreciate the bigger font too.