I am not sure that paying 50p extra would put that many players off late registering. The point is that it would get many more players registering early. The other side of the coin is that if you registered early it would save you money. If your name was Matt Bates and you had registered early for all your tourneys, just counting the ones that Aussie covers which come to almost 3,200, you would have saved around £1600. However if that is too harsh it could done with rewards points.
Well it'd put me off late registering, which i do a lot.
Does anyone know the reasons why casinos do it. Must be a rationale behind their thinking.
I imagine it’s that they want you in there as long as possible. Many casinos don’t make any money from hosting Poker
So would this not work for SkyPoker as well. Surely the longer you are on the site the more you spend.
You are in the casino and buy in early and get a drink/play some table games etc. You are at home and reg early watch tv and get a drink from your own fridge.
You are on SkyPoker and buy in early and play in SkyCasino, play some cash games etc
Surely you can see the difference between being in a casino and being "on skypoker." Under Haysie's idea, I would suggest players would reg then go and do whatever they had planned to do. In a casino players have time to kill.
you missed a bit. I was thinking more in terms of an early entry, a normal entry, and a late entry. So you are rewarded for entering an hour (or at least half an hour) before the start, then you just get the norm up until the start, and a bit less for a late entry. So if it was a discount on an £11 tournament. You would pay £10.50 if you entered early. £11 for a normal entry, and £11.50 for a late entry.
On the above basis any player registering early for all their tourneys would save a fair amount of money on a monthly basis. The stubborn players would just have to register early for half their tourneys to be no worse off.
Are you suggesting a flat 50p or a %? Do you expect this to be revenue neutral for sky? For them to make more?
I massively disagree about players being ok with paying an extra 50% in rake, players struggle to win at the best of times let alone after paying 50% extra in rake. Surely players would take advantage of the rake saving and when faced with the extra rake tournament option pick another site for games at those times?
For players that know when they will start playing registering early is fine but for lots they don't know when they will start. Lots of players will finish work at diff times/start once the kids are in bed etc. Seems to put these players at a big disadvantage so surely they would just move volume to another site rather than pay a penalty. Lots of players 1 table and reg one when they bust one so dont see how this would work for players like that.
Also say I start at 7, I save on my reg fee for 8pm onwards games. Really not sure how sky recovers the rake they lose out on for the later games. I really don't think sky should be thinking of ways to save regs like me money.
MTTs have guarantees and lots of people will late reg when there is potential overlay in tournaments due to the value there. Not sure how keen players will be to do that if they have to pay extra in rake.
Sats were mentioned in the OP, if I see a sat and it has a good reg or 2 registered in a one seat guaranteed sat then I wont bother registering as is little chance of me making much £. So the first reg to see the lobby will reg then others probably wont bother. Another idea to get more sats running would be to give net depositers lower rake for sats.
There seems to be lots of reasons why players would go for the lower rake but few to justify why players would pay more in rake when they can just play on another site and pay a normal rake.
you missed a bit. I was thinking more in terms of an early entry, a normal entry, and a late entry. So you are rewarded for entering an hour (or at least half an hour) before the start, then you just get the norm up until the start, and a bit less for a late entry. So if it was a discount on an £11 tournament. You would pay £10.50 if you entered early. £11 for a normal entry, and £11.50 for a late entry.
We all have different opinions, which is great. However, while I think you touched on a great idea (rewarding early entry - in some way), I firmly disagree with the 'stick' part of the equation seeking to punish late entry.
My own opinion is that...
Any changes/feedback I ever suggest, I try to consider the perspective of Sky, and precisely why they would want to go with said suggestion. Not because I only care about Sky but rather because if the suggestion does not make sense to Sky then I do not see why they would consider going with it (and rightly so, they are a business at the end of the day).
In that light I see two themes being suggested...
1: Rewarding early entry - Brilliant idea IMO. Promos always seek to influence traffic upwards and not many/any I recall have hit upon rewarding early entry. We know people can register early in significant numbers as that used to be the only way to get into a tourney prior to late registration being introduced.
From my own observations over the years the introduction of late registration significantly bumped up tournament entry numbers and therefore was a big winner for poker sites. I am sure it still does and thus we have not reverted back to the way things were in the 'good old days'. However, from what I see there are a group of players who are just in the habit of late registering these days. So while late registration will undoubtedly still be helping tournament entry numbers, a portion of the players registering late would register early if they had an incentive to do so.
I personally think there would be a benefit of encouraging the latter group of players to register earlier as the prize pools would look bigger and this would encourage more late entrants. Also some of the group of players who plan to play anyway, but have just got into the habit of late registering, will sometimes become distracted or just change their mind and not play between the point of when they would have registered in the old days and when they are in the habit of registering nowadays.
So I think a properly thought out reward for early entry appears to have little downside and could be a big positive for Sky and the players alike. The drawback of directly touching the rake is that Sky will have an obvious reluctance to do this as it is their stream of revenue. It also is not ideal to overtly alienate any one group of players by penalising them. The inclination would just be to go elsewhere and there is a lot of competition for traffic. Altering the chip stacks seems to be better but still not ideal as it alters the game dynamic and certain groups are again very directly disadvantaged. However, if extra reward points were offered for early entry then the rake is not directly touched and no group of players are being directly disadvantaged as the game dynamic is unchanged.
The costs of incentivising early entry via extra reward points could easily be set at a level (whatever level that is) in which it is cost effective to Sky and could encourage much enhanced tournament entry numbers.
2: Penalising late entry - Late entrants are already at a disadvantage as they are getting smaller effective stack sizes. Besides this there will be plenty of sites offering tournaments which offer no late penalty and there would therefore be a danger of driving traffic away. On top of that, as Matt mentioned, the extra rake could make these games tougher to beat for some players and also make a group of players feel alienated when they simply cannot, or do not want to, register early.
So personally I love the 'carrot' part of the equation (although it would depend on how it is done - preferably via more rewards points) but I feel the 'stick' part of the equation is a complete non-starter.
if any site charged more or gave less chips for late reg i would never register for that tourny , say i,m drunk on a friday and bust out me tournies early and sites charged more for late regging id just go bed
The unfortunate thing about debating anything like this is that most people hate change, and generally the older you get the more you hate it. The other important factor is that there are so many more people with half empty glasses, than half full. Dealing with your response Matt. I was thinking in terms of a method that didnt cost Sky any money. Therefore if you incentivise early entries, you have to penalise late entries to avoid a cost. So yes 50p per tourney, but only down to £5.20 buy in tourneys, not below. I saw it as revenue neutral because the extra payments would increase the prize pool. Although there are gains for Sky which Marky has clearly pointed out. No extra rake. You can never stop players opting to play on other sites. All you can do is encourage them to play on Sky. On your example of what players might do. Lets say you sat down at 2pm. You know you are playing a 3pm and a 5pm so you enter. You are now £1 in front so if you decided to late enter the 1.15, and 1.45, you are all square. So providing you entered half your tourneys early this would cost you nothing. If you were able to plan and enter early all your tourneys there would be a good saving. If you thought of it as a discount rather than a penalty then you might have a different view. Lets take the tourney I used in my example. Lets say it is an £11.50 buy in. You get a £1 discount for early reg, and 50p discount for normal reg, with no penalty for late reg. Each entry would have the same £1 rake. Half full or half empty? The reason I suggested this is because a number of tourneys get cancelled because some players cant be bothered to enter in time. That b/h yesterday had 4 players one minute before the off, another 2 registered in the very dying seconds, and it ended up with 18. The point is it was nearly cancelled, and many do get cancelled. I was playing sats for the Summit on Tuesday and 3 got cancelled, they were being played at half hour intervals, and this might have been caused by players late reging rather than entering the next one. This would stop all that. Got to go or I will be late reging.
Sure, incentivize people to reg early so that tournaments don't get cancelled, but for the love of god don't penalize late entrants.
There's already a number of points laid out by others above why you shouldn't do this.
And as somebody who late entrants a lot (not due to choice, but due to work commitments) it'd hugely peeve me off to have to pay more when I'm already at a disadvantage late regging.
Carrot - Yes Stick - **** no.
Side note. Apparently H e l l is a bad word I'm not allowed to use
I agree with much of what you say Marky. Although I was attempting to find a solution that had no extra cost to Sky. Any worthwhile incentive over thousands of tournaments, and many thousands of players each week, would involve substantial increase to the running costs.
Maybe you could just discount early entry and not penalise late entry. You could perhaps receive a discount in the form of a tournament credit, which could be used towards tournament entry. The credits could be 50p from £5 to £10, then £1 from £10 to £20, and £1.50 for £30 plus. No charges for late entry. No cost because only the discounted figure would hit the prize pool. This would encourage players to register early.
There is a different way of achieving this, rewarding the earlies, without alienating the lates.
Suppose the Minimum number is 4, and there are only 3 starting. Sky could create a temporary 4th, which would sit out until the 4th arrived-once the 4th did arrive, they would receive the full starting stack, and the other "blocker" removed. That way the early starters could play for some "away" chips as a reward, without penalising the late reg.
This would prevent people shoving for the seat-other players would soon enter.
There is a different way of achieving this, rewarding the earlies, without alienating the lates.
Suppose the Minimum number is 4, and there are only 3 starting. Sky could create a temporary 4th, which would sit out until the 4th arrived-once the 4th did arrive, they would receive the full starting stack, and the other "blocker" removed. That way the early starters could play for some "away" chips as a reward, without penalising the late reg.
This would prevent people shoving for the seat-other players would soon enter.
This is a very interesting idea, would like to hear from Sky about logistics of this.....
If late reg finished and there were still only 3 + ghost would he disappear and let the rest play on or would he stay to provide an interesting ICM dynamic
This started off trying to find a way of encouraging players to register early rather than late. I think it is possible to discount early entry without penalising late entries as I said in my last post. I think that many players register late because they cant be bothered, and a small number have genuine reasons. An idea of the scale of this is that I look at the main some nights and only one third register before the start and two thirds late. That means around 80 runners pre start, and 160 after. This results in a number of small tourneys getting cancelled because not enough players have registered early enough. So I think a discount for early entry would go some way to addressing this problem. Although, however much you incentivise it, you will still have late entries, but maybe a lot less. As it stands many players seem to prefer to late enter a sat, rather than enter the next one, even when they are being played at half hour intervals, which in itself causes sats to be cancelled. The problem about players shoving for value first hand would be partly solved by this method as you would have more players registering early which obviously affects the value. What would really stop it in addition to this would be to run every sat until the end of the late entry period. So if you have shoved first hand and won, you will be sitting there on your own, just like on a cash table, waiting for the late entrants. Doing this would completely stop the shoving.
Comments
I'm very stubborn
I was thinking more in terms of an early entry, a normal entry, and a late entry. So you are rewarded for entering an hour (or at least half an hour) before the start, then you just get the norm up until the start, and a bit less for a late entry.
So if it was a discount on an £11 tournament. You would pay £10.50 if you entered early. £11 for a normal entry, and £11.50 for a late entry.
The stubborn players would just have to register early for half their tourneys to be no worse off.
Do you expect this to be revenue neutral for sky? For them to make more?
I massively disagree about players being ok with paying an extra 50% in rake, players struggle to win at the best of times let alone after paying 50% extra in rake. Surely players would take advantage of the rake saving and when faced with the extra rake tournament option pick another site for games at those times?
For players that know when they will start playing registering early is fine but for lots they don't know when they will start. Lots of players will finish work at diff times/start once the kids are in bed etc. Seems to put these players at a big disadvantage so surely they would just move volume to another site rather than pay a penalty.
Lots of players 1 table and reg one when they bust one so dont see how this would work for players like that.
Also say I start at 7, I save on my reg fee for 8pm onwards games. Really not sure how sky recovers the rake they lose out on for the later games. I really don't think sky should be thinking of ways to save regs like me money.
MTTs have guarantees and lots of people will late reg when there is potential overlay in tournaments due to the value there. Not sure how keen players will be to do that if they have to pay extra in rake.
Sats were mentioned in the OP, if I see a sat and it has a good reg or 2 registered in a one seat guaranteed sat then I wont bother registering as is little chance of me making much £. So the first reg to see the lobby will reg then others probably wont bother.
Another idea to get more sats running would be to give net depositers lower rake for sats.
There seems to be lots of reasons why players would go for the lower rake but few to justify why players would pay more in rake when they can just play on another site and pay a normal rake.
My own opinion is that...
Any changes/feedback I ever suggest, I try to consider the perspective of Sky, and precisely why they would want to go with said suggestion. Not because I only care about Sky but rather because if the suggestion does not make sense to Sky then I do not see why they would consider going with it (and rightly so, they are a business at the end of the day).
In that light I see two themes being suggested...
1: Rewarding early entry - Brilliant idea IMO. Promos always seek to influence traffic upwards and not many/any I recall have hit upon rewarding early entry. We know people can register early in significant numbers as that used to be the only way to get into a tourney prior to late registration being introduced.
From my own observations over the years the introduction of late registration significantly bumped up tournament entry numbers and therefore was a big winner for poker sites. I am sure it still does and thus we have not reverted back to the way things were in the 'good old days'. However, from what I see there are a group of players who are just in the habit of late registering these days. So while late registration will undoubtedly still be helping tournament entry numbers, a portion of the players registering late would register early if they had an incentive to do so.
I personally think there would be a benefit of encouraging the latter group of players to register earlier as the prize pools would look bigger and this would encourage more late entrants. Also some of the group of players who plan to play anyway, but have just got into the habit of late registering, will sometimes become distracted or just change their mind and not play between the point of when they would have registered in the old days and when they are in the habit of registering nowadays.
So I think a properly thought out reward for early entry appears to have little downside and could be a big positive for Sky and the players alike. The drawback of directly touching the rake is that Sky will have an obvious reluctance to do this as it is their stream of revenue. It also is not ideal to overtly alienate any one group of players by penalising them. The inclination would just be to go elsewhere and there is a lot of competition for traffic. Altering the chip stacks seems to be better but still not ideal as it alters the game dynamic and certain groups are again very directly disadvantaged. However, if extra reward points were offered for early entry then the rake is not directly touched and no group of players are being directly disadvantaged as the game dynamic is unchanged.
The costs of incentivising early entry via extra reward points could easily be set at a level (whatever level that is) in which it is cost effective to Sky and could encourage much enhanced tournament entry numbers.
2: Penalising late entry - Late entrants are already at a disadvantage as they are getting smaller effective stack sizes. Besides this there will be plenty of sites offering tournaments which offer no late penalty and there would therefore be a danger of driving traffic away. On top of that, as Matt mentioned, the extra rake could make these games tougher to beat for some players and also make a group of players feel alienated when they simply cannot, or do not want to, register early.
So personally I love the 'carrot' part of the equation (although it would depend on how it is done - preferably via more rewards points) but I feel the 'stick' part of the equation is a complete non-starter.
The other important factor is that there are so many more people with half empty glasses, than half full.
Dealing with your response Matt.
I was thinking in terms of a method that didnt cost Sky any money. Therefore if you incentivise early entries, you have to penalise late entries to avoid a cost. So yes 50p per tourney, but only down to £5.20 buy in tourneys, not below.
I saw it as revenue neutral because the extra payments would increase the prize pool. Although there are gains for Sky which Marky has clearly pointed out.
No extra rake.
You can never stop players opting to play on other sites. All you can do is encourage them to play on Sky.
On your example of what players might do. Lets say you sat down at 2pm. You know you are playing a 3pm and a 5pm so you enter. You are now £1 in front so if you decided to late enter the 1.15, and 1.45, you are all square. So providing you entered half your tourneys early this would cost you nothing. If you were able to plan and enter early all your tourneys there would be a good saving.
If you thought of it as a discount rather than a penalty then you might have a different view. Lets take the tourney I used in my example. Lets say it is an £11.50 buy in. You get a £1 discount for early reg, and 50p discount for normal reg, with no penalty for late reg. Each entry would have the same £1 rake.
Half full or half empty?
The reason I suggested this is because a number of tourneys get cancelled because some players cant be bothered to enter in time. That b/h yesterday had 4 players one minute before the off, another 2 registered in the very dying seconds, and it ended up with 18. The point is it was nearly cancelled, and many do get cancelled.
I was playing sats for the Summit on Tuesday and 3 got cancelled, they were being played at half hour intervals, and this might have been caused by players late reging rather than entering the next one.
This would stop all that.
Got to go or I will be late reging.
There's already a number of points laid out by others above why you shouldn't do this.
And as somebody who late entrants a lot (not due to choice, but due to work commitments) it'd hugely peeve me off to have to pay more when I'm already at a disadvantage late regging.
Carrot - Yes
Stick - **** no.
Side note. Apparently H e l l is a bad word I'm not allowed to use
Sky could do an "early bird" promo.for MTTs where you.get double points for early reg. Maybe do a trial month see how it goes.
No cost because only the discounted figure would hit the prize pool.
This would encourage players to register early.
Suppose the Minimum number is 4, and there are only 3 starting. Sky could create a temporary 4th, which would sit out until the 4th arrived-once the 4th did arrive, they would receive the full starting stack, and the other "blocker" removed. That way the early starters could play for some "away" chips as a reward, without penalising the late reg.
This would prevent people shoving for the seat-other players would soon enter.
If late reg finished and there were still only 3 + ghost would he disappear and let the rest play on or would he stay to provide an interesting ICM dynamic
I think that many players register late because they cant be bothered, and a small number have genuine reasons.
An idea of the scale of this is that I look at the main some nights and only one third register before the start and two thirds late. That means around 80 runners pre start, and 160 after.
This results in a number of small tourneys getting cancelled because not enough players have registered early enough.
So I think a discount for early entry would go some way to addressing this problem. Although, however much you incentivise it, you will still have late entries, but maybe a lot less.
As it stands many players seem to prefer to late enter a sat, rather than enter the next one, even when they are being played at half hour intervals, which in itself causes sats to be cancelled.
The problem about players shoving for value first hand would be partly solved by this method as you would have more players registering early which obviously affects the value.
What would really stop it in addition to this would be to run every sat until the end of the late entry period. So if you have shoved first hand and won, you will be sitting there on your own, just like on a cash table, waiting for the late entrants.
Doing this would completely stop the shoving.