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Whatever lends itself to a slightly deeper stack and the tourney ending within 2.5 hours. Some of us need to get the heck out of the house on Sat
Edit - or just start the tourney at 3eastern. Then I'm fine with 5K stacks and 15 minute levels
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yeh 3pm is fineComment -
Definitely don't make it any earlier then it already is. Remember that this is on a Saturday during college football and this is a sports gambling forum.Comment -
RP pal you just love being a contrarian don't ya. Not sure what relevancy college football has for this. There are football games all day. There will be games during a 3pm and a 5pm tourney.
I'm not expecting them to change the time anyway. Bodes well for everyone since I will most likely have to leave early. So ... best to stay out of my way early because I'm gonna have to toss them around light.Comment -
I wish you didn't have to play for an eternity to get to this point. You miss two weeks and you're already behind the college kids and no lifes who wake up at 4pm and drink Busch Light all night.Comment -
definitely don't change the timeComment -
MAKE THE BLINDS SLOW AND MAKE THE STARTING STACKS BIG!
PLEASE LOU!
Poker is designed to be a skill game. Deep stacks (large starting stacks and longer blind levels) leave poker in its true form... where skilled players have enough chips in their stack to outmaneuver weaker players. They can lose a small pot without losing 70% of their chips. They have a big enough stack that they have wiggle room to play the game the right way. When you make 8min levels, it takes the skill completely out of the game. In a deepstack tournament (very large starting stacks, and very long levels), the best player wins. When you rush the blinds, after 45min everyone has like 8 bb's in their stack and is forced to go all in preflop with A-3 just to try to survive. It takes the skill completely out of the game. You should structure it so that the best player wins... NOT so that some lucky idiot wins.
Poker is designed to be a skill game. The skill aspect of the game is only preserved through very large starting stacks and very long levels. It will take longer. But that is a good thing! It is a good thing because it is more fair. You can make decisions based on how you play the game of poker. You don't just play in a crapshoot and have to go all in preflop with q-9 offsuit just because blinds are so huge and you will be blinded out in 10 mins.
Faster blind increases and smaller starting stacks decreases the skill element of the game. Poker is designed to be a skill game. And as SBR, when you are running a big promotional tournament and handing out lots of cash... you should want this one event to be geared so that the best man wins. You shouldn't just make it a crapshoot. You should want to preserve the integrity of the game.
In short stack/fast blind structure tournaments, the luckiest player wins.
In deep stack tournaments (big starting stacks, long levels/slow blind increases)... the best player wins.
The gap between the skilled players and weak players shrinks as you make the blind structure more rapid. When players have large stacks, they have room to make bets and outmaneuver weaker competition. If you only have 10bb's left in your stack 45min in because blinds go up so quick... by the time you make a preflop raise and a flop bet, you are committing yourself to go all in! you can't even make 1 bet after the flop without going all in! its not poker!
I propose:
15,000 starting stacks.
20 minute levels.
(obviously the weaker players want blinds to increase quicker because faster blinds reduces the advantage that skilled players have over weak players).
If you aren't going to go to that extreme...
AT LEAST do 10,000 starting stacks. with 15 min levels. That's the BARE minimum.
PLEASE PRESERVE THE INTEGRETY OF THE GAME! AS SBR, YOU SHOULD WANT THE TOURNAMENT TO BE FAIR! THE BEST WAY TO MAKE IT FAIR IS TO LET THE BEST MAN WIN! DON'T RIG IT INTO A CRAPSHOOT, REMOVING SKILL FROM THE GAME, AND MAKING EVERYONE EQUALLY LIKELY TO WIN NO MATTER HOW BAD THEY ARE!
DON'T MAKE IT A CRAPSHOOT! PLEASE!
AND PLEASE PRESERVE THE SKILL ELEMENT SO THAT THE TOURNAMENT IS DESIGNED SO THAT THE BEST MAN SHOULD WIN!
PLEASE MAKE VERY LONG LEVELS (SLOWER BLIND INCREASES) AND VERY LARGE STARTING STACKS!
PLEASE!
DO YOU WANT IT TO BE A LUCKY CRAPSHOOT WHERE SOME LUCKY DONKEY WINS, OR DO YOU WANT THE BEST PLAYER TO WIN?
IN DEEPSTACK TOURNAMENTS, THE BEST PLAYER WINS. ITS THE MOST FAIR SYSTEM.
IF PEOPLE ARE TOO BUSY THAT THEY DON'T HAVE THE TIME, THAT IS THEIR PROBLEM. THIS IS A PROMOTION AND NO ONE IS FORCING THEM TO PLAY! THAT IS THEIR PROBLEM!
YOU SHOULD BE CONCERNED WITH PRESERVING THE INTEGRITY OF THE GAME!
MAY THE BEST MAN WIN!Comment -
My opinion:
4000 chips
8 Minute BlindsComment -
While I agree with your reasoning, a tourney of this nature would make more sense if the qualifiers were designed similarly. I think it would be cool if there was a year long poker series with these types of tourneys scattered throughout the year... maybe like 20 to 30 freerolls for SBR Pros. Those that met the championship qualifying criteria would then play in a tourney with this design for the championship. I'd much rather set aside some time for these types of qualifiers that require taking time out of peoples schedules only a couple times a month vs. having to play a tourney everyday for 4 or 5 months to keep the pace. That said, this weekends tourney should be a little more than the qualifiers in starting chips and blinds. maybe 3 or 4k and 10 or 12 min on the blinds. that's zammers take.Comment -
Hockey I respect where you are coming from but that's excessive. People dont want to spend their entire day playing with other hobbies , kids, jobs etc. It's an sbr tourney not a 5K buyinComment -
In poker, the best player deserves to win.
This is only preserved with longer levels and higher starting stacks.
Poker is supposed to be a game of skill. It disturbs me that people want to turn it into a game of luck.
By the way, I would spend 3-5 hours for a free tournament where 1st place gets paid $5,000 in cash!
SBR players fought tooth and nail in those daily tournaments for several MONTHS just to qualify!
I think that after working hard for MONTHS just to qualify, that ppl can spend an extra hour or 2 in a tournament. Especially to make the tournament structure fair so that the best players have a higher chance of winning.
...Especially when you are talking about a legitimate, high-cash prize. $5,000 in cash is a lot of money to some people. This is an unusual tournament. I understand your logic for the daily tournaments. But this tournament is the real deal. It's importance is magnified because of the high cash prizes.
This is supposed to be the big SBR Main Event. Make it a legitimate, fair tournament where the most skilled player stands a chance to win. Don't just turn it into a turbo crapshoot where skilled players and donkeys all have the same chance because the blinds go up so quick you have to go all in preflop with A-3 offsuit. That's not poker. It's craps. Might as well just flip a card for who wins the tournament.
Respect the integrity of the game. If they aren't going to do it for all sbr tournaments... AT LEAST do it for the one, big, main event tournament where they are handing out big cash prizes.
If people have other things to do, that is totally fine. No one is forcing them to play. If they would rather do something else than play in a tournament, that's fine! They have the right to do that. But that shouldn't be a justification to ruin the game of poker and punish skillful players by making a mockery of a high-profile tournament by making rapid blinds turn it into a crap shoot.
No one is forcing anyone to play! If they don't care about a free shot at $5,000... if they are busy, then they are free to use their time to pursue their other hobbies!
But at least make the one, big, high profile SBR tournament a legitimate tournament. Don't eliminate the skill from the game. That defeats the purpose of the game. poker is designed to be a skill game. Don't denigrate it and punish skilled players by turning the game into a crapshoot with rapid blind structures.
It wouldn't take all day. it would prob take 3-5 hours. I would do that for $5,000! That's like $1,000 per hour! If you make $1,000 per hour, your annual salary would be $2 million a year!
I think the prize is big enough that it belongs to the best player. Deep stack tournaments allow the best player to win.
In poker, the best player deserves to win.
Hopefully sbr uses big starting stacks and longer levels.
May the best man win.Comment -
The bigger the stacks and longer the levels the better. Don't want to risk 50% of my stack just to 3 bet. If you don't have 3 or 4 hours to play a big poker tourney then don't plat at all. This thing has been going on for months, don't let the big one come down to a final table where all stacks are less than 15 big blinds.
15K starting stacks 15 min blinds................Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Good luck everyone!!!Comment -
I see where you are coming from on the skill point, but you are smoking some strong dope if you think 15k starting chips and 20 min levels would take 3-5 hours that would be at least an 8 hour tournament likely closer to 10. 15k and 15 min would be 7 or 8 hours. While this is a great tournament, we didn't qualify this way and SBR wants us handicapping some football Saturday. The structure Lou has suggested could easily take 41/2 to 5 hours and seems quite fair.Comment -
The play-in games were 1800 chips, 8 min blinds, approximately 40 players. There will be twice as many players this Sat at 5pm, so my 2 cents is for somewhere between 3600 - 4000 chips, and 10 min blinds.
SBR - the best website in the world, Thank you for all of your work.
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Ok so make it 10k starting stack with 15min levels. that could be around 5 hours with 86 people. That would get the tournament through level 20 (blinds are 5,000-10,000). Even if its only an extra hour to make it 6hrs, through level 24 the blinds would be 15,000-30,000. If you did 15min levels it wouldn't take more than 5-6 hours.
Since this is the big SBR main event tournament.... they should structure it in a way that respects the skill aspect of the game.
Poker is supposed to be a skill game.
Longer levels, bigger starting stacks.
10K STARTING CHIPS, 15MIN LEVELS.
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in poker, the best player deserves to win.
the most fair way to do it is to structure the game the way it was intended - a skill game.
this way, the best person will win.
It is the fairest way to do it. It isn't fair to have some lucky idiot with the $5,000 because sbr riggs the structure to make it all luck.
longer levels and bigger starting stacks ensures that the best player wins!
good luck and may the best man win!Comment -
10K STARING STACKS 15MIN LEVELS
If you want to make it a turbo Crapshoot, WHY EVEN HAVE A POKER TOURNAMENT?
WHY NOT JUST DRAW MEMBERS' NAMES OUT OF A HAT TO DECIDE WHO WINS THE MONEY????
THAT'S BASICALLY WHAT YOU'RE DOING WHEN YOU MAKE THE BLINDS FAST AND STACKS SMALL. YOU ARE TURNING IT INTO A CRAPSHOOT, ELIMINATING THE SKILL FROM THE GAME, AND YOU'RE BASICALLY JUST PICKING NAMES OUT OF A HAT!
POKER IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A GAME OF LUCK! ITS SUPPOSED TO BE A GAME OF SKILL!
MAKE LONG LEVELS AND LET THE SKILL PREVAIL!
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10 min levels 4-5 K stack works for meComment -
WSOP ME has a really deep structure so why is it that a bunch of luckboxes still win almost ever year?
If someone is good at poker they will have an edge in any format.
Deep stacks work better for cash games.Comment -
now that the main event uses hour or two hour levels, when the wsop ME gets down to final 300 or so, its ALL pros left. Final table is all pros. Amateurs don't make it past day 2 or day 3.
Also, you have to understand that the main event is unusual because it has such a large field. It is also a very long tournament. You have to play for 6 or 7 days. One mistake and you are out. Sometimes even the best players can lose patience or make one big mistake in a 7-day stretch. You have to go 6 or 7 days without making any big mistake. It is the size of the field and the length of the tournament that makes it difficult to win even for good players. When you have a field of 9,000 people, you have to run good. Yes skill is favored. And thats the reason why amateurs dont make it past day 2 or day 3. But even the world's best player will have a tough time beating 9,000 people. The field is astronomically large. yes it still favors skill which is why when the field weans down to about 200 or 300 people, the level of play is extremely high. You have to take into consideration that most 100 person tournaments are a little bit different than a tournament with 9,000 people... even if they use the same blind structure.Comment -
Whatever structure you use, you are just one hand away from a bad beat/cooler anyway.
End the pain sooner than later.Comment -
the difference is that when the blinds go up slower, you aren't pot committed with a single flop bet. when you get short stacked (less than 10bb - which in these turbo tournaments happens after practically half hour).. you can't play poker. you are restricted to 2 moves. go all in preflop or fold. that's not poker. when you have bigger stack you can try new things, you can try bluffs, you can adopt counter strategies, you can use all the weapons in your arsenal. being short stacked restricts your arsenal to 2 moves: all in preflop or fold. you might as well just flip a coin. there's no skill in that. Even when you have 10-12 BBs, by the time you raise preflop and bet the flop, 50% of your stack is in the pot. if your opponent moves in, you are getting 3-to-1 on your money. so unless you think you are more than 75% to lose, you still have to call. This is the issue of pot-commitment. Deep stack games don't have this pressure. you can make a flop bet, only invest 5% of your stack, then fold on later street and still have 95% of your chips. It's not like turbo poker where you are pot committed anytime you enter a pot.
regarding coolers, when you have a big stack, you can call 2-3 bets, lose to a better hand, and still have 60-75% of your stack left. When the blinds race up and you have 8BBs, by the time you raise preflop and bet the flop you are all in. You can't survive these beats because your stack size is so small. when you have a bigger stack you have more room to play the game the right way.
Regarding wsop, the long blind structures they use in a variety of events do let skill prevail. your hands need to hold up of course. but why do you think so many of the top pro's have been to so many final tables? Phil ivey made 5 final tables at this year's wsop. That is HARD to do. The blind structure in wsop allows skill to prevail.Comment -
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My main fear is we get to the final table (If I'm lucky enough to get there) and the blinds are 20% of the average stack thus making the final table BINGO.
Just would be lame to have a final table where your "Forced" to go all in because of the blind size.
Maybe for the next poker series you can do a November 9 type of deal. Basically you cut everything down to 9 then you rework the structure and adjust the final 9's chips so that its not a extreme turbo.
So 86 down to 9 In a Turbo type tourney making it so it doesn't take all afternoon then the following saturday the 9 play with a more reasonable blind structure then a turbo / bingo structure.Comment -
Longer blinds and longer levels still will not take the element of luck out of a poker tourney. Your "skill" is still going to have to beat out a flush draw, cooler hand or whatever. Just with this structure you dont spend 8 hours on a Saturday for a very similar results. There is skill involved in any form or structure, present format included. If you have an edge you will be able to exploit it and long term you will be successful. For one tourney, stretching the time frame out and making it last all day will not prove/disprove your level of ability.
I am willing to go back and retype my posts in caps if you guys think it will help my points.
good luckComment -
I respect your opinion and you are correct in your assessment for the most part, but where we differ is that Poker is a game of chance with skill involved, not a game of skill with chance involved. Skill remains involved no matter how quickly the blinds go up. Granted, the faster the blinds go up, the less hands better players see and can extract an advantage over the lesser ones, but you also have to acknowledge that even in tournaments where the blinds escalate quicker, there is still a larger skill advantage to those who know how to play the "end game" and those who don't.
If the best player deserved to win, Phil Galfond and Barry Greenstein would be billionaires winning nearly every tournament and cash game they play...but they don't. Combine that with the fact that this is an online tournament and we see more hands per hour than live. Four hours for an online tournament is probably the equivalent of a 7-8 hour live one.
We can make the levels a few hours if we have to, but in the end, it's a game of chance with skill involved, not the other way around. While I agree the finals tournament should have a longer structure than a satellite, at some point you're going to have to bite the bullet and play end game poker...which requires a degree of skill as well.Comment -
In general, most guys are too worried about ROI instead of what they should be worried about, $/hrComment -
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good structure lou.
one min less blind levels but you start a bit deeper then i suggested with blinds beginning at 10/20.
look forward to seeing what you guys come up with next challenge.Comment -
Can we please have hand for hand or less time per player? Too much stalling and we don't get to play many hands as a result as the blinds escalate.Comment
