Just a personal preference I guess. I've never played a serious poker game with wild cards
Winter Poker League Discussion
- Thread starter Gameface
- Start date
It's just so little money for such a long tournament.
Do you mean that the league buy-in is small compared to a nine game season or that the payout for a 3-5hr tournament is small?
The league buy-in for a 9 game tournament. Should be $100 or something. But if a large buy in discourages people from participating, I'll take the lower one .
It can be hard to strike a balance that works for everyone. I know at least a couple people aren't in the summer league because of the league buy in. In fact, the league buy in was going to be $100 but one guy in particular thought that was too much so we dropped it to $50 and it still kept him out.
If it looks like we aren't going have two tables I'd definitely consider doing a $100 league buy in for a ten person league
That would keep me out.
No, what I'm suggesting is a $40 league membership fee (buy-in) all of which goes to the league prize pool.
Then for 6 out of the 9 tournaments to have a $40 buy-in. Of that $30 will go to the prize pool for that individual tournament and the other $10 will be withheld for the league prize pool. An idea was that if a person didn't want to join the league and/or didn't want to pay the $40 league membership fee up-front they would have to pay an additional $10 (non-member fee) to play in a tournament. That $10 would go towards the league prize pool. If that player played in 5 tournaments they would be considered league members at that point (having paid a total $50 in non-member fees) and on their 6th tournament, and all tournaments beyond 6, they would not longer pay the extra $10.
I also want to have one larger buy-in tournament as part of the league. I'm not sure how much it should be, but let's just say $60 buy-in, with $50 going towards the tournament prize pool and $10 going towards the league prize pool. With the point system I intend to use this tournament will be worth considerably more than the $40 buy-in tournament. So, it'll be a tournament that can shake-up the standings a little bit. I would probably schedule that tournament for March.
Then I'd like to have two rebuy tournaments. I can explain rebuy tournaments in a little more detail, but for now I'm going to skip that. The rebuy tournaments would have a lower initial buy-in, most likely $20, with all of it going towards the tournament prize pool for that game. A rebuy would cost $20, of which $10 would go to the tournament and $10 would go to the league prize pool. Rebuys would be allowed until the first break. At the first break players would have an optional add-on that would cost $20, of which $10 would go towards the tournament and $10 would go to the league prize pool. After the break the game would play like a normal "freezeout" tournament.
This is what has me a little torn. I'm concerned that I'm trying to do something in an attempt to capture two groups, one group that wants to play in a casual low-stakes poker league as a sort of generic opportunity to get out of the house and another group that has a much higher tolerance in regard to cost that is more focused on playing in a competitive poker league for a more significant payout.
I'll say that looking at poker in Wendover you can't really play in a poker tournament for less than $70, and that's their bargain tournament and it has a rebuy. I'm pretty sure the smallest cash game they offer is $1-$2NL, which you'd normally want to buy into for $200.
I think I'm missing out on some players who are more into poker because they sort of see a $20 buy-in tournament as a waste of time. I mean, the winner of our league tournaments has been walking away with $70 for 1st place. That's not a huge payout for ~3hrs of play. The league winner will be getting $200 after playing in 6 tournaments over 6 months.
I want to guarantee $1000 for the winner of this league. That is an amount that I think will get people's juices flowing a little bit. So I'm trying to find creative ways to make that happen.
I really value your participation, Bigb. Same with everyone else who has played in the majority of the games I've hosted since I've been on Jazzfanz. I absolutely want to accommodate as many of the people that have been playing as possible. But I think $20 buy-ins are too small. There isn't much to play for and it's easy to not really care about the results. Winning a tournament is kind of meh. You could spend all your winnings picking up dinner for the family on the way home. I want to make it a little more exciting, a little more intense.
I hope that we come up with something that works.
This is a crazy idea and I'm not really suggesting it as something that will actually happen, just an idea.
What if there was a basic league membership and a "premium" league membership.
So, $40 league buy-in for the basic membership
$100 for the premium membership.
So let's just say for the sake of this example there are 10 basic members and 10 premium members. That would put $800 into the basic prize pool ($40 from 20 players) and there would be an additional $600 (the additional $60 from 10 players) in the premium prize pool.
If we payed top 4 at 40%/30%/20%/10% the basic prizes would be $320/$240/$160/$80 The premium payouts would go to the top 3 at 50%/30%/20%, so $300/$180/$120
If the person who took 1st overall was a premium member they'd get $620 ($320 + $300) But if a basic member took 1st overall they'd just get $320. So maybe second overall is the highest ranking premium member, in that case they'd get $540 ($240 + $300).
Anyway, just an idea. But it kind of illustrates how much more of a payout you get if everyone buys-in for a little more.
$40 over 9 tournaments comes out to less than $4.50 per tournament
$100 over 9 tournaments comes out to just over $11 per tournament.
What if there was a basic league membership and a "premium" league membership.
So, $40 league buy-in for the basic membership
$100 for the premium membership.
So let's just say for the sake of this example there are 10 basic members and 10 premium members. That would put $800 into the basic prize pool ($40 from 20 players) and there would be an additional $600 (the additional $60 from 10 players) in the premium prize pool.
If we payed top 4 at 40%/30%/20%/10% the basic prizes would be $320/$240/$160/$80 The premium payouts would go to the top 3 at 50%/30%/20%, so $300/$180/$120
If the person who took 1st overall was a premium member they'd get $620 ($320 + $300) But if a basic member took 1st overall they'd just get $320. So maybe second overall is the highest ranking premium member, in that case they'd get $540 ($240 + $300).
Anyway, just an idea. But it kind of illustrates how much more of a payout you get if everyone buys-in for a little more.
$40 over 9 tournaments comes out to less than $4.50 per tournament
$100 over 9 tournaments comes out to just over $11 per tournament.
I love it. And I appreciate how much thought you're putting into this.
Yeah, I get what you're looking for. I definitely fall into the group that looks at it as a night out. For me, it's a chance to get away from the kids and wife, hang with some dudes and let my hair down. While I take the playing seriously, if I don't win, it's not the end of the world. It costs less than a date with the wife.
I would be okay with upping the stakes some, but I'm certainly not good enough of a player to start looking at pumping a lot of money into it.
I think the most I'd be willing to pony up would be like $50 for the league and maybe (MAYBE) $40 each night. Even that would push it.
Just my personal input.
Lies!
Back hair, bro.
As far as communication and RSVPing last time I made a group on meetup.com, but it seemed like a lot of players didn't want to mess around with making an account on that site. I'm not a Facebook user, but if it has good functionality for that sort of thing I'd give it a shot. Have any of you used the RSVP feature on Facebook? I've been told it exists.
Last edited by a moderator:
I just downloaded an app called Groupme for my son's baseball team. It's free and works well.
My only real gripe about the current poker league (and you did address this, GF) is the seat-of-the-pants scheduling. So far it has worked out for me, but there have been a couple of times that it would have saved me a lot of stress to know exactly when the game was going to happen (summer is always a tough season, schedule wise.) If there were a regularly occurring time (say, 5 pm on the third Saturday of the month, just for example) it would make scheduling easier for the individual, and I think fewer people would commit, only to later back out. Last minute conflicts are always going to be a factor, but it might help.
Also, my willingness to part with a triple digit league buy-in will vacillate depending on how well I am doing moment to moment. I've been wicked cold the last two games, so right now I'm less inclined to want to dig deep.
My .02
Also, my willingness to part with a triple digit league buy-in will vacillate depending on how well I am doing moment to moment. I've been wicked cold the last two games, so right now I'm less inclined to want to dig deep.
My .02
I definitely don't see getting two tables worth of players if the league fee is $100. I'm thinking $40-$50.
I'm completely with you on the schedule. It hasn't been a huge issue, but with a paid up-front league fee I could see a person being pretty upset if it just so happened that multiple games were scheduled when they couldn't make it and basically took them out of the running for 1st place in the league.
It leaves a lot of room for a person to feel like the league is not fair. If it seemed to them like every month the date that worked best for them was dismissed and most the other players picked the dates that didn't work well for them. And we have 8 players, every additional person makes it that much harder to find a good date for everyone.
So I think I'm moving away from the idea of a ToC.
If we do get between 16-20 players I'd like to pay out at least the top 5 for the league prize pool. But I absolutely want to be able to pay 1st place $1000. I'll have to play with the numbers to figure out how many players we'll need in order to guarantee that.
If we do get between 16-20 players I'd like to pay out at least the top 5 for the league prize pool. But I absolutely want to be able to pay 1st place $1000. I'll have to play with the numbers to figure out how many players we'll need in order to guarantee that.