We were discussing giving the 4th prize away as some kind of spot prize each week but we couldn't come up with anything that seemed suitable. Besides, shouldn't it be right that those who play more have a better chance of winning?
Wayheyy nice 2nd spot thank you all I just battled through Last night just kept reloading my tables and they all popped up eventually Only played the mini major once or twice lets hope for a deep run to make it worth while being up late, scratch that it won't happen rarely do well in anything over a fiver will try my best tho
We were discussing giving the 4th prize away as some kind of spot prize each week but we couldn't come up with anything that seemed suitable. Besides, shouldn't it be right that those who play more have a better chance of winning?
Average points per game?
Yeah but then somebody could win 100 points after 3 games and then not play anymore to lock up the ticket.
We were discussing giving the 4th prize away as some kind of spot prize each week but we couldn't come up with anything that seemed suitable. Besides, shouldn't it be right that those who play more have a better chance of winning?
Average points per game?
Yeah but then somebody could win 100 points after 3 games and then not play anymore to lock up the ticket.
Minimum number of games? 10 games? Or possibly a % of total games available? Just some thoughts
It seems a lot of effort for the sake of giving away a £5.50 Mini spot prize. I don't know though, @NOSTRI is the spreadsheet wizard so maybe it is something that can be tracked with ease.
Whatever we do though there will always be someone who isnt happy, say we change it to pay top 3 plus the spot prize then it wouldn't surprise me if whoever finished 4th that week would complain about not winning a seat. It's impossible to please everyone, but I understand your views.
I think the prizes awarded are fine as it is, keep it simple ( ish) The nature of poker , you could play 50 tourneys and not get a sniff of a cash , and next 10 you cash and win a couple. Entering this comp was a personal choice, I totally get that life stuff gets in the way sometimes, but to tweak a league to suit individuals personal circumstances is stretching things a tad. Good luck to all next week.
In all likelihood the league is going to be dominated by the players who are willing and able to commit to playing 30+ games a week. That's fine. The thing is, a lot of the players who wanted to be a part of this simply won't be able to commit to playing anything close to 30 games in a week for any number of reasons and therefore will really struggle to ever realistically compete for a top four spot and a prize. Could it be an option to have the top three places paid as is but have the prize for fourth place (fourth place isn't really a 'thing' anyway is it? Gold, Silver, Bronze...) go to the player who has the best record from a minimum of ten games and a maximum of twenty? Whether that would be purely points total or a combination of metrics, I don't know, but I think it would make it more interesting and give the lower volume players a better chance of getting something out of it at the end of the week.
I think it's an unavoidable fact of a league format that those who play the most have more opportunities to score points but I feel it's still relatively easy for people to do well with low volume. The average across everyone who played more than one game was 18 games played this week, and two people were able to get in the top ten playing only that many. On the other end of the spectrum, someone played 29 this week and didn't score a single point. So the prizes are far from guaranteed just for playing a lot. Ultimately there's not much point entering a league and expecting to win if you can't play a decent chunk of the games available and I think that's a reasonable expectation.
There are certainly ways we could do better, and feel free to discuss amongst yourselves how we should approach that, but I don't think it's inherently unfair as things stand right now and all the obvious workarounds add a degree of extra work to the daily administration. We need to be able to strike a balance between fairness and not making this our day job.
Let's go through some:
Only count people's x best results? Still giving an advantage to volume players, who will keep playing until they lock up x good results.
Use average points per entry, or some such metric? We're going too far the opposite direction here and actively punishing people who play a lot—who, remember, may want to play these tournaments simply as part of their daily schedule—unless we ask them to specifically ask for certain tournaments to be excluded from their tally, which now opens us up to cherry-picking and adds another layer of added work.
Shorten the schedule to make it not possible to win by sheer volume? This is the fairest way, in my mind, and I'm open to doing it. Nobody loses out. But it's also quite boring.
Separate the leagues somehow between low and high volume? Ok, but that means fewer prizes and we can only give one main event ticket.
It will never be perfect.
Giving the extra fourth place ticket as some kind of spot prize is a fine idea, and something we discussed, but we couldn't come up with a decent criteria that is a) fair, b) not too subjective, c) relatively easy to track, and d) isn't likely to end up being given to one of the top three.
Average points per entry is not bad, let's have a look at that. On this week's table, that would go to someone who only played 6 MTTs. Is that fair? Maybe not. The next three on the list already won something this week. Is that fair? Not really. The next person only played 7. And so on. Most of the time, this would end up in the hands of someone who hardly played or had already won a ticket or had come fourth anyway. The only way around it would be to add some arbitrary criteria that would just end up excluding people and making them feel bad. By all means suggest other ideas but I'm not sure that one's a winner.
I don't know! I'm sympathetic but I also don't know what you want us to do.
Found some email messages that might interest a few. Here are a few extracts....
Tikay : "You are doing a great job of that Forum thingy son, well done...proud of you" Nostri : "Cheers Great Grandad....it was a brilliant idea of yours to begin with TBH" Tikay : "Right, how shall we select the winners this week? Who deserves to get a ticket? You let me know, and I will tweak the RNG to sort as per last week" Nostri : "Well 1st 3 gotta be Stokey (really done well), Engy (lot of volume put in) and that chavy bloke (not a bad diary to keep up your Forum views that you get commission on Great Grandad) " Tikay: "Done..I will sort that now with the RNG technician if I can wake him up. What about the winner this week?....Do you fancy it?" Nostri: "Ah, cheers...would love a 1st place....but how will you work that?" Tikay: "Its been a quiet week on the Forum views due to MisterDJ and Yawnsie not pulling their weight, so I need a boost. I will keep turning the system off and on all night which will give you the chance to go round tables and collect enough chips for you to win the League. When you are over the line, I will disable you too so it doesnt look suspect. #sorted as you kidz say eh" Nostri: "Thanks. I will start doing the write up now then. You best get off for your nap"
I like the idea of the fourth ticket being awarded to the player who scores zero points from the highest number of qualifying MTT’s over the course of the week. I am slightly biased of course as I think I could be a regular leading contender for a ticket that way .
Very well played everyone. I had a great time this week, not just become I came 4th but for the chat and camaraderie on the tables. I had a bit of a mare last night, got started but couldn't finish anything. Oh well
Not saying this because I came 4th, but I think it's the best way to do it and it's achievable with low volume too. If I didn't play last night I would of still got 280 points and come 4th but from 20 games. Average that out and it's less then 3 a night. 4 a night over 5 days. I would think most people here can do that.
Good luck everyone this week, apart from those of us who won last week. To us, I hope we get no points but win from our free entries
How about just simplifying to players outside top 3 finishers with a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 20 games being eligible and simply taking their points total then?
This week would have seen nine eligible players for the prize with misterpj pipping waller to the ticket.
I don't think it would encourage anybody who played over 20 games (15 players) to play fewer games and I think it might encourage the people who played fewer than the 15 games (19 players) to try to get at least 15 games in.
How about just simplifying to players outside top 3 finishers with a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 20 games being eligible and simply taking their points total then?
This week would have seen nine eligible players for the prize with misterpj pipping waller to the ticket.
I don't think it would encourage anybody who played over 20 games (15 players) to play fewer games and I think it might encourage the people who played fewer than the 15 games (19 players) to try to get at least 15 games in.
My problem with this is it's still completely arbitrary. What about someone who played 14 or 21 but scored more points? What meaningful reason is there for excluding them? If the point of this is to give low volume players a chance why are we deliberately excluding the lowest volume players?
A much better outcome, from my perspective, would be to award it for something more fun or as a bit of a booby prize. Believe it or not, I like @Duesenberg's idea of giving it to whoever scored zero over the most entries more than this idea. Or to whoever bubbled the most tournaments. Something daft like that.
Purely because you would have to draw the line somewhere and it was just to give the people a shot who were unable to play 30 games in a week but might be able to squeeze in 15 if given a little more incentive to do so.
how about keeping it as it is afterall we only found out there was a prize for forth this week if people want to win they have to put the volume and run like Usain it's that simple
I like the idea of random spot prize, if we’re going to get arbitrary might as well go full-on arbitrary! Would mean you could perk someone up, encourage participation in the thread, or whatever took your fancy that particular week. Just not ‘baddest bad beat’ please!
I was at a raffle the other day and it kicked off when it was discovered that some of the winners had bought more tickets than others. How can that be right?
It's all getting a bit silly now. When Sky ran UKOPS leaderboards did they have a system where it factored in the amount of games played? No, it's just the way it is. The more you play the better your chance and rightly so imo. That's not to say you have no chance if you play less games, there will be seat winners who play less than 20 games at times.
I think it's worked well as it is and thanks to everyone involved in running it. I play on a tablet, so can't multi table even if I wanted to. My volume of games is only going to increase the quicker I get knocked out of them!
I came second in the £5BH which starts at 6.30pm one night last week and it didn't finish until last 11pm and I won £220 inc bounties. If that means I only play one event a night, I'd gladly welcome a repeat performance and midtable obscurity.
Comments
I just battled through Last night just kept reloading my tables and they all popped up eventually
Only played the mini major once or twice lets hope for a deep run to make it worth while being up late, scratch that it won't happen rarely do well in anything over a fiver will try my best tho
Whatever we do though there will always be someone who isnt happy, say we change it to pay top 3 plus the spot prize then it wouldn't surprise me if whoever finished 4th that week would complain about not winning a seat. It's impossible to please everyone, but I understand your views.
I think the prizes awarded are fine as it is, keep it simple ( ish)
The nature of poker , you could play 50 tourneys and not get a sniff of a cash , and next 10 you cash and win a couple.
Entering this comp was a personal choice, I totally get that life stuff gets in the way sometimes, but to tweak a league to suit individuals personal circumstances is stretching things a tad.
Good luck to all next week.
There are certainly ways we could do better, and feel free to discuss amongst yourselves how we should approach that, but I don't think it's inherently unfair as things stand right now and all the obvious workarounds add a degree of extra work to the daily administration. We need to be able to strike a balance between fairness and not making this our day job.
Let's go through some:
Only count people's x best results? Still giving an advantage to volume players, who will keep playing until they lock up x good results.
Use average points per entry, or some such metric? We're going too far the opposite direction here and actively punishing people who play a lot—who, remember, may want to play these tournaments simply as part of their daily schedule—unless we ask them to specifically ask for certain tournaments to be excluded from their tally, which now opens us up to cherry-picking and adds another layer of added work.
Shorten the schedule to make it not possible to win by sheer volume? This is the fairest way, in my mind, and I'm open to doing it. Nobody loses out. But it's also quite boring.
Separate the leagues somehow between low and high volume? Ok, but that means fewer prizes and we can only give one main event ticket.
It will never be perfect.
Giving the extra fourth place ticket as some kind of spot prize is a fine idea, and something we discussed, but we couldn't come up with a decent criteria that is a) fair, b) not too subjective, c) relatively easy to track, and d) isn't likely to end up being given to one of the top three.
Average points per entry is not bad, let's have a look at that. On this week's table, that would go to someone who only played 6 MTTs. Is that fair? Maybe not. The next three on the list already won something this week. Is that fair? Not really. The next person only played 7. And so on. Most of the time, this would end up in the hands of someone who hardly played or had already won a ticket or had come fourth anyway. The only way around it would be to add some arbitrary criteria that would just end up excluding people and making them feel bad. By all means suggest other ideas but I'm not sure that one's a winner.
I don't know! I'm sympathetic but I also don't know what you want us to do.
Found some email messages that might interest a few. Here are a few extracts....
Tikay : "You are doing a great job of that Forum thingy son, well done...proud of you"
Nostri : "Cheers Great Grandad....it was a brilliant idea of yours to begin with TBH"
Tikay : "Right, how shall we select the winners this week? Who deserves to get a ticket? You let me know, and I will tweak the RNG to sort as per last week"
Nostri : "Well 1st 3 gotta be Stokey (really done well), Engy (lot of volume put in) and that chavy bloke (not a bad diary to keep up your Forum views that you get commission on Great Grandad) "
Tikay: "Done..I will sort that now with the RNG technician if I can wake him up. What about the winner this week?....Do you fancy it?"
Nostri: "Ah, cheers...would love a 1st place....but how will you work that?"
Tikay: "Its been a quiet week on the Forum views due to MisterDJ and Yawnsie not pulling their weight, so I need a boost. I will keep turning the system off and on all night which will give you the chance to go round tables and collect enough chips for you to win the League. When you are over the line, I will disable you too so it doesnt look suspect. #sorted as you kidz say eh"
Nostri: "Thanks. I will start doing the write up now then. You best get off for your nap"
Sounds about right to me
Very well played everyone. I had a great time this week, not just become I came 4th but for the chat and camaraderie on the tables. I had a bit of a mare last night, got started but couldn't finish anything. Oh well
Not saying this because I came 4th, but I think it's the best way to do it and it's achievable with low volume too. If I didn't play last night I would of still got 280 points and come 4th but from 20 games. Average that out and it's less then 3 a night. 4 a night over 5 days. I would think most people here can do that.
Good luck everyone this week, apart from those of us who won last week. To us, I hope we get no points but win from our free entries
This week would have seen nine eligible players for the prize with misterpj pipping waller to the ticket.
I don't think it would encourage anybody who played over 20 games (15 players) to play fewer games and I think it might encourage the people who played fewer than the 15 games (19 players) to try to get at least 15 games in.
A much better outcome, from my perspective, would be to award it for something more fun or as a bit of a booby prize. Believe it or not, I like @Duesenberg's idea of giving it to whoever scored zero over the most entries more than this idea. Or to whoever bubbled the most tournaments. Something daft like that.
Those who walk their dogs for the longest distance during breaks?
Most volume of urine during break? ( unfair advantage to boozers)
if people want to win they have to put the volume and run like Usain it's that simple
It's all getting a bit silly now. When Sky ran UKOPS leaderboards did they have a system where it factored in the amount of games played? No, it's just the way it is. The more you play the better your chance and rightly so imo. That's not to say you have no chance if you play less games, there will be seat winners who play less than 20 games at times.
I came second in the £5BH which starts at 6.30pm one night last week and it didn't finish until last 11pm and I won £220 inc bounties. If that means I only play one event a night, I'd gladly welcome a repeat performance and midtable obscurity.