Thoughts and Feedback please for Season 3 Home Game Fixture

[trishan]

Nice one Garth. I think that the new schedule balances everyone's concerns. Looking forward to season 3.

[bennymacca]

Good post gundog

Late rego is an 888 thing though I doubt it can be 888pl specific

Hopefully with the new software launch they implement late rego synchronized breaks and time bank

[Garth Kay]

I forgot to mention that the new software has late rego!

Thanks Gundog. I appreciate the kind words.

[bennymacca]

late rego is great. you will find heaps more players playing

what about synchronised breaks?

[gmatical]

OK. My apologies for the late response to this thread but work commitments have prevented my participation.
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Apology accepted.

[bennymacca]

OK. My apologies for the late response to this thread but work commitments have prevented my participation.
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Apology accepted.

[x] harsh

[x] i lol'd

[gmatical]

Just a minor irritation whilst you are making changes - the MQF sattelites take soooooooo long.

Can you turbo-ise it a bit. I think that most people who have played these would agree with me.

10 minute blinds would be good, even antes too maybe.

[bennymacca]

Just a minor irritation whilst you are making changes - the MQF sattelites take soooooooo long.

Can you turbo-ise it a bit. I think that most people who have played these would agree with me.

10 minute blinds would be good, even antes too maybe.

yep i agree with this.

even making it a 2k stack in stead of 5k might be ok

[trishan]

Just a minor irritation whilst you are making changes - the MQF sattelites take soooooooo long.

Can you turbo-ise it a bit. I think that most people who have played these would agree with me.

10 minute blinds would be good, even antes too maybe.

yep i agree with this.

even making it a 2k stack in stead of 5k might be ok

LOL I already said this. I suggested the same format as the Online Champs satellite. 3K stack/10min blinds.

[pmk]

Where else should I ask the question and receive an answer from players? That doesn't involved printing off marketing materials or conducting in depth customer surveys?
I think I have a very good understanding of the demographics involved in our player base and completely understand what cross section the majority of the forum users represent.

Polling the players at live games. You have a captive audience and with a bit of thought about specific questions and how to ask them a quick raising of hands would provide you with more accurate information than polling a small percentage of your player base (i.e. the forum denizens)

Surely you can’t reasonably argue that the active forum users are an indicative cross section of the player base?

Yes Pete, you are way off base. I ask questions of players because I do want their answers and feedback; as has happened many times players feedback and comments has lead to many changes within the league.

Yes you do and it’s great that you are able to do so. Perhaps I should have been more specific. For the first 2 points the decision has been made.

Online freeroll players contribute $0 to this business and the league in general. If you are not comfortable playing buy in poker then please feel free to go play in venue for your daily dose of free to play poker; 888 also offer a plethora of freerolls for the regular 888 player.

Me personally, I don’t play the free rolls all that often. I prefer the buy-in games. It is often a much better game. But in looking at this objectively I am able to see a bigger picture. I have no doubt that with access to the right information I could prepare a compelling argument to retain the free rolls but I don’t have the time nor is it my place.

Suffice it to say that you are stripping away value added services based purely on economical reasons. I understand the logic but I find flaw in the consistency of the application of this logic and the reasoning while fiscally sound is not beneficial to the bottom line in the long run. Many companies have discovered the hard way that when they allow bean counters to strip away value added services for their clients that have little or no financial gain their clients will become increasingly disillusioned with the company.

FYI only 6% of the Victorian playing market are concerned about points. Of that 6% of players only 2% of those are concerned about online games and or Dream Team points.

While I might question the accuracy of those figures, let’s run with them as being accurate.

This means that 94% of Victorian players DON’T care about the points. To me, this is absolutely astounding! This represents a HUGE fail for 888PL. Almost the 95th percentile of members don’t care about an integral and important part of the business/league!

Why have a league at all then? Why spend $XXX running and maintaining a points system for just 6% of your player base? Why not scrap the league system totally and simplify it to something like if a player plays x amount of games in a say a 15 week period they automatically qualify for the semi finals with the top 250 qualifying for the Grand Final. (This is an over simplified example which no doubt is full of holes but it should suffice to demonstrate my point)

Why not put the $XXX to maintain the league point system into prize money? Why spend so much money on just 6% of your customers? Unless you of course are providing a value added service. Hmmm... aren’t you in the process of stripping off non-profitable services (the free rolls)? To me this is an example of inconsistent application of fiscal logic.


My suggestion about the 2:30pm start time for the 3 free rolls being not the best seems to be totally ignored. Who is available to play @ 2:30 in the afternoon then available to play in the evening, then late at night? I expect a very small percentage of your player base. With the available information I have, I can only suggest the awkward time is set to limit the amount of people who can actually achieve the final tabling or winning of all 3 games. Let’s face it, for something that provides no income, no league player benefit and no attraction of players to the 888PL online games, 888PL are prepared to potentially lose $2,000 per day?! Hmmm.... something's not right here.

The running of the free rolls in this manner seems to me to contradict the reasons for removing them in the first place. (another example of inconsistency in the application of fiscal logic)

In fact why have any free rolls at all?

The discussion is open to all members of the 888PL. There is a link to the forum on the main 888PL site with advertisements for people to come and share their thoughts here. In addition there was a message on Facebook directing people to this thread. The Facebook group has over 954 regular players. The forum is increasingly being advertised to all members.

I’m sure it is open to all members of the 888PL I wasn’t disputing that. My points were a) there is no EASILY found link to the forum. If there’s one I haven’t found it and I know many other people haven’t either. Perhaps you could enlighten me and others where it is. (Seriously) and b) by the very nature of this forum it is VERY big stretch to claim that the regular forum user base is indicative of the 888PL player base as a whole.
Who has time or the inclination to troll through multitude of threads? This itself limits the nature of the users here. Statistics 101 demonstrates how the very nature of people who go out of their way to respond to polls and questionnaires means they are not indicative of the general population.

While a forum is a great vehicle for discussion and the dissemination of information for those keen enough to dig far enough down, it should not be held up as a realistic cross section of the league.

All that is being scrapped is the 888PL lowerstakes and freeroll/rebuy games. 888 can still cater to those who don't have much money or wish to build a roll.

How many 888PL players understand the concept of building a roll? How many want to do this? This is my point that by removing the free rolls totally (in regards to the league point system) then players are being forced to a different level of play. It’s like the difference between playing league tournament poker and playing cash poker at the casino. Not everyone is comfortable playing at the casino.

An opportunity to develop their skills?

Seriously? Is that the best reason you can come up with? But OK, let’s run with that. I again ask why would someone play the 888PL free rolls when they a) don’t receive points for it b) have very little chance of winning any money from it? There is a myriad of other poker gaming sites that offer free rolls but with the possibility of instant gratification i.e. being placed in the money at the end of the game and not see all your hard work thrown out the window by a bad beat in another game. (yes I know that’s poker).
What skills are you going to hone playing in a free roll with little or no incentive to win? Particularly playing against players with a care factor of zero (why care how well you do? It’s only a free roll and it doesn’t mean anything etc etc etc.)

So as a poker player why should I play on 888 and play the 888PL free roll? What’s in it for me apart from some esoteric notion that I might improve my skills?

Anyway, what 888PL does is up to them. Garth asked for feedback and I have voiced mine and that of others too intimidated by the forum to post. While the elements of the proposal may or may not be agreeable or logical to some people Garth will take the feedback on board and make decisions that he feels are best for 888PL. If he’s too far out of whack then people will vote with their feet.