A good (although not the only relevant) question to ask is 'what would Durrrr do if he were in Jungleman's shoes?'.
What would Durrrr do if he was up 30 buyins after 20k hands, (and up another 20 buyins in pre-challenge play)? Would he happily play one hour a month, not worrying about the awaiting $1.5 million bounty, ignoring the pleas of close friends wanting to cash in their significant wagers?
The structure of the challenges ensures that one person won't have incentives to play, and it's the job of the arbitrators to make sure he does.
Black Friday
was an 'act of god' but Full Tilt came back 10 months ago which is plenty of time to have played the 30,000 hands in, rather than what, 2,000? Playing in games where your
'ev is way higher' is reasonable to a point ('sorry Mr. Trump I'd love to play but I have to complete my match with Jungleman'), but the weaker player will by definition
always have a higher ev option available to him.
Since it seems that Jungleman is generally free to play and Tom is often busy, here is my suggestion for the moderators. Each month Jungleman lists 20 days that he's willing to play the challenge on. Tom selects 4 of these. They each find a place with a secure and stable internet connection. On the first three days they play for 6 pre-agreed, not necessarily consecutive hours. The fourth day is held back as safety in case of technical problems. Assuming they get 400 hands in per hour, this is 7,200 per month, which will have the challenge completed by the end of the year. Anyone who fails to meet his monthly obligation twice (without a very good reason) forfeits the challenge.
Jungleman agreed to 6 or 8 table which would have the challenge completed even quicker. Or they could just commit to play 6 days a month, and complete the challenge by the end of October! The schedule I suggested is really rather lenient (hey guys play 3 days a month to complete this challenge you started 3 years ago!). They played 6k hands on their first day! 4k hands/month with a 1 buyin fine per missed month is really really weak, at this point you should
not allow such a low monthly target (not to mention how vague it is. 'Hey man I was totally willing to play 4k hands it just happened that I was only willing to do so while you were sleeping! Doh!'). A rigid structure with strong disincentives to deviate (two strikes and you're out) and all of a sudden all the reasons for
not playing are suddenly less compelling.
A lot of people have side action on this contest. This is all not really fair on them. Liquidity is so vital in poker. I know people who have a bunch tied up in FTP, and are 'up' $50k which they can't claim until the challenges ends, money that would allow them to earn significantly more money. The longer this goes on the more chance someone could die, someone who intended to pay will have cashflow problems etc. The arbitrators should forcefully encourage play. Full disclosure, I don't have any action.
Last edited by PartyGirlUK; 09-05-2013 at 09:41 PM.