Grand Final Freeroll Discussion thread

[AceLosesKing]

New thread because the old one got locked. Issues that went unresolved before the lock:

Garth:

Scoreboards for a season are one thing. The whole point of keeping a scoreboard is to see who has done the best overall by end of season. Consistently doing well duly gets rewarded. Doing well once should not.

One off tourneys should never be part of that same scoreboard. However, doing well in such a tourney should of course still be rewarded, just not lost sight of the fact that it was still a one-off tourney. It should not be lumped in with other events of a dissimilar nature.

If there was a series of largeish, one-off tourneys then that could be called a circuit (for example) and there would be a different scoreboard for that particular circuit. It's still like for like.

That's more akin to what my interpretation is of what a Dream Team scoreboard should reflect. If there were say 10 large events per calendar year then whoever has done the best overall in just those events would most definitely have an extremely good claim to fame, disputed by none.

Current Dream Team scoreboard format has a mixture of regular season and large events (if GF qualifiers etc are included) and therefore isn't really showing anything IMO.

Individual recognition for individual tourneys is also well deserved and should not be overlooked. It just does not mean that suddenly that player is a gun in a different category.


I very much like your idea of assigning points to things like casino events etc. In fact, I like a LOT of your ideas. I just extremely dislike things deliberately appearing as something they are not.

Pete's post was excellent, I thought. Touched on a lot of the points that I was going to post.

Question. The GFF was a rebuy tonight. $1 for 1500 in chips.

Garth, when I spoke to you online, you said the rebuys were going to be used as cash prizes, not going towards the seat. But as it stands now, the pool is $400, and ONLY 1st is being paid for the $500 gf seat (which is put up each week).

So where is that $400 going?

[Phantom]

I think the problem here is that normal tournaments are limited to 150 ppl, why is that? The tourny starting in an hour (7.30pm Tuesday night) was half filled in 30 minutes (when I joined) and is now full a full hour before the start!
So why is the limit 150? Why can't we open it up to more players? The GF qualifier is a max of 1,000 so why can't we use that limit?

As the person who came 2nd on Sunday nights GF qualifier I have to say I like getting those points - not because it was a high amount but because I got something out of the game and made it worthwhile staying up until 11pm - I get up at 5am and would have been furious if I only got 6 hours sleep for nothing. While missing out on the big prize was very disappointing I was satisfied with the points for my effort.

I like the system the way it is - but if a GF qualifier had 1,000 ppl and the winner got 1510 points then I would see it differently. Maybe limit the amount of points to a max of '300 ppl' (so the winner get 460 points).

The other thing I have a problem with is that paid tournaments only receive about 20-40 entries, so I don't enter them as the points aren't worth it. Maybe have these worth double or even triple points for the dream team.

[AceLosesKing]

I think the problem here is that normal tournaments are limited to 150 ppl, why is that? The tourny starting in an hour (7.30pm Tuesday night) was half filled in 30 minutes (when I joined) and is now full a full hour before the start!
So why is the limit 150? Why can't we open it up to more players? The GF qualifier is a max of 1,000 so why can't we use that limit?

Because 888pl want players to go outside and spend money at the pubs instead of playing online all the time. If the cap for nightly freerolls was 500, that would prevent a lot of players from playing at an away venue when they can stay home and play poker for free.

As the person who came 2nd on Sunday nights GF qualifier I have to say I like getting those points - not because it was a high amount but because I got something out of the game and made it worthwhile staying up until 11pm - I get up at 5am and would have been furious if I only got 6 hours sleep for nothing. While missing out on the big prize was very disappointing I was satisfied with the points for my effort.

Well done, I was wondering where you finished, you had a large stack leading to the FT.

I like the system the way it is - but if a GF qualifier had 1,000 ppl and the winner got 1510 points then I would see it differently. Maybe limit the amount of points to a max of '300 ppl' (so the winner get 460 points).

There's a points cap at 400. So even if the tournament has 1000 runners points will only be awarded as if there were 400.

The other thing I have a problem with is that paid tournaments only receive about 20-40 entries, so I don't enter them as the points aren't worth it. Maybe have these worth double or even triple points for the dream team.

This is unfair to all the players that haven't deposited on 888.

[bennymacca]

This is unfair to all the players that haven't deposited on 888.

so?

it would definitely make people more likely to deposit

but the games as they are are steadily growing, they will get there in time - but the fact is, the freerolls will always have more runners

[Phantom]

As the person who came 2nd on Sunday nights GF qualifier I have to say I like getting those points - not because it was a high amount but because I got something out of the game and made it worthwhile staying up until 11pm - I get up at 5am and would have been furious if I only got 6 hours sleep for nothing. While missing out on the big prize was very disappointing I was satisfied with the points for my effort.

Well done, I was wondering where you finished, you had a large stack leading to the FT.

Thanks. The eventual winner and I were locked at $300K each when I hit an AK flush to beaten by his FH - 'stuff' happens. Even looking back on it now I don't regret going all-in with that.

The other thing I have a problem with is that paid tournaments only receive about 20-40 entries, so I don't enter them as the points aren't worth it. Maybe have these worth double or even triple points for the dream team.

This is unfair to all the players that haven't deposited on 888.

Players who play at venues end up paying in some way (well, I assume 99% of them do), I don't think paying for online poker is that much of a difference.
The lousy points for paid online games stop me from paying them - when the new season starts I will pick one or two to go into every week in order to qualify for the semi final but as I started 4 weeks in I don't want to play those games.
Although I do play some of them in order to try to win money

[trishan]

I think the problem here is that normal tournaments are limited to 150 ppl, why is that? The tourny starting in an hour (7.30pm Tuesday night) was half filled in 30 minutes (when I joined) and is now full a full hour before the start!
So why is the limit 150? Why can't we open it up to more players? The GF qualifier is a max of 1,000 so why can't we use that limit?

Because 888pl want players to go outside and spend money at the pubs instead of playing online all the time. If the cap for nightly freerolls was 500, that would prevent a lot of players from playing at an away venue when they can stay home and play poker for free.

The thing is that most players frequent only one or two venues and that means that on the nights that their venues are not open, they have to be near a computer between 5-6pm to register or else they miss out.

My understanding is that most people who play pub poker play for the social side of it as much as they want to play poker and an online freeroll aint gonna stop them from going to their local the one night every week that a tournament is hosted.

[trishan]

Also why don't we have a decent tournament structure for the games during the day?

I have to stay up till 11pm to play the late foundation freeroll and if you run deep it finishes at 2am or later. It is the only tournament structure that you can play decent poker and luckboxes are eliminated somewhat.

Why not change the 3:30PM EST freeroll to 2000 starting stacks and 10/15 minute blinds. Even a deepstack tourney starting at 12PM EST would be nice. There's always a place for the crapshoots, but at least one good structure tournament during the day would be nice.

[AceLosesKing]

This is unfair to all the players that haven't deposited on 888.

so?

it would definitely make people more likely to deposit

but the games as they are are steadily growing, they will get there in time - but the fact is, the freerolls will always have more runners

Not that it would even come into practice, but come on. 2x or 3x points is totally unfair just because the game is a challenge venue. You know what its like in the AK Big Hair rebuy, no one rebuys because no one has deposited on 888. Having one event that essentially rewards double points is already screwing up the leaderboard system.

[maccatak11]

I also agree with this. i understand why they need to make the 7.30 games unatractive enough so that people go to venues, but there is no reason to do this during the day. Games already run longer than peoples lunch break, so i dont think it needs to be a crap shoot anymore. especially the 3.30 games.

Has having a deep structure for the sunday afternoon games slowed people from going to the many venues that run in this timeslot??

[trishan]

Has having a deep structure for the sunday afternoon games slowed people from going to the many venues that run in this timeslot??

No. Even though that structure is my favourite of all offered, if I am am free I will always go to my local venue for the Sunday arvo game.