Just wanted to say excellent job on the tournament. From my point of view everything ran smoothly and all issues were handled professionally.

I played day 1C and day 2 and would have to echo the previous post. I thought everything went very smoothly and would love to see more multi-day tourneys. Was surprised at turnout, I expected more runners, nonetheless, I say kudos to you and your staff, Brian.

Yeah Brian does a great job.

Brian - I was only there Friday (bad move on my part) but I had a great time. Looking forward to making more trips up. I used to go pretty often before your arrival but wasn't impressed with previous management. I will def get there more often now.

On a side note, until Friday I had never folded trip Aces without the obvious 4card flush / straight possibilities on the board. Friday I did twice. Opponents kept filling up with their lower than mine second card. Can a 2+2er get some love from your dealers next time...

Eric

So no stats or results from the tournament?

Played in the Black chip bounty..had a good time , but cant understand why so many players at this casino and many of the dealers keep screwing up this most basic of rules....on a flop, player 1 bets and player 2 raises and is called by player 1..turn comes player 1 acts first again and checks as does pl.2..river comes pl 1 acts first and checks and pl 2 acts last and checks..the whole table claims that player 2 shows first becuz he made a raise on the flop, but player 2 is no dummy and he knows he acts last until the hand is over and at this point the hand is still not over, .....the dealer incorrectly tells pl 2 that he is first..pl2 doesnt budge so they need the floor to come over to clear up this most basic rule...why is this one so hard for so many players? Still playin in the garage game i guess? Also, didnt like the lack of effort to aggresively announce the sit n go sattelites in the week leading up to to the HPO week..if this was Atl. City they announce stuff like that constantly til they have a full table, would have been a cool cheap way to get into any of the week long events -_-

I guess Brian has been working 24hr shifts for a week straight. He was advertising pre-tourney, where's the results?

Sorry for lack of updates, worked straight through the tournament so I've had the past few days off. Of course I caught a cold right at the end so I've been in and out of bed the last couple days.

Event #1 Black Chip Bounty - 118 entrants, $23,600 total prize pool including bounties. Tournament played all the way to finish, no chop. 1st paid $2890 + $1650 in bounties (he chopped one pot to get a 1/2 bounty). Tournament ended right at midnight.

Event #2 NL Hold'em - 65 entrants, $13,000 prize pool. First place would have paid $3,248, however, the players agreed on a chop when they were down to 5 players remaining, and the largest stack received $2,400 2nd in chips got $2200 and the other 3 got right around $1700. Ended around 9pm.

Event #3 NL Hold'em - 31 entrants, $6,200 prize pool. Tournament played to a finish with 1st receiving $2480. Ended around 6pm.

Event #4 had 176 entrants across all three starting days (57, 52, and 67 in that order). $35,600 prize pool. No chop. 1st was $8,448 + $4,000 Prize Package/seat, 2nd was $5,280 + $4,000 Prize Package/seat, 3rd was $3,960 + $4,000 Prize Package/seat. Ended on Day 2 around 6pm, iirc.

Picture/names of the winners are on our Facebook page, don't want to name them here. If you want any more details I'll be glad to post them, not sure what else you guys look for in tourney results.


As far as what we're looking at next time around is:

Early registration, both in person and online.
No "unusual format" tournaments - AKA shootouts.
More weekend tournaments - starting on a Friday so that more people have the opportunity to buy in to events who might not be able to get off work on weekdays.
Night tournaments are a possibility.

Lots of stuff to look at. This week was designed as a learning point to get a feel for the volume of play we could expect for larger events. We had a short amount of time to put it together, and I'm pretty proud of my team for how well it all ran.

Thanks guys,
Brian Vickers

Next time you're in that situation, I recommend thinking about this quote from Robert's Rules of Poker:
"In order to speed up the game, a player holding a probable winner is encouraged to show the hand without delay."
It comes from the same paragraph as the "most basic rule" you mentioned above. (under General Poker Rules - The Showdown)

Generally, whenever I get a floor call and players are asking "who has to show first?" I usually respond "Whoever wants to win the pot." I, and other tournament directors, don't like when we have to come over for this call, because we just see the players hurting themselves and the other players in the tournament by needlessly holding up the action while the clock is ticking.

As a player myself, I don't always like to show my cards first either, I understand that, but after the action goes check check and I'm sure I likely have the best hand even though I am not forced to show will simply say "top pair", he'll give a little head nod, then I table and win (or he'll say two pair, table, and he wins, whatever the case may be). If you do show first and he mucks, just ask to see the hand and it'll be flipped over (Same paragraph in RRoP: "A player may opt to throw his hand away after all the betting for the deal is over, rather than compete to win the pot. However, the other players do not lose the right to request the hand be shown if he does so.")

Just about, lol. I worked 12 days straight, then my immune system paid the price for my lack of sleep. I'll be back Friday for those who are missing me

But Brian you almost sound like you assume player 2 had the winning hand just because he raised pl 1 on the flop...which wasnt true...look river comes,it goes chk-chk..pl 1 auto shows 1st,but in this case the table and the dealer convinced him that pl 2 goes 1st(wrong)..pl 2 had a small pocket pr and player 1 had top pair to the board...pl 2 wants to muck but geeze we needed the floor to tell player 1 to show his cards 1st? Then after pl 2 mucks the table wants to see pl 2 cards which I thought was rotten(by the rules its ok)...why dont they ask to see cards allways then????...that was backwards slap really

I wrote it in that manner because I made the floor call that I thought you were talking about on that table (table 11) that day and player 2 did have the best hand.

Whether player 1 or player 2 has the best hand is irrelevant, both players are holding up the game and are breaking the code of etiquette.

Brian you got the right table(11) and you made the correct call as to the rules...but pl 2 had 44 on a board of like Q-6-5-7-2..pl.1 had like Q4 and would not show til u came over...then the whole table wanted to see pl 2 cards..horrible...no bad etiquette here for pl 2..pl 2 just wanted to fold after the ruling..but really then with the bs pl 2 got shafted by the table becuz idiots needed the floor to come over..basic..pl 2 did nothing wrong here other than waiting for pl 1

I saw on Bravo that a 5/5 game got going tonight and a 1/3 list was failrly long but never got running. Did the min/max buy-ins for the pre-existing 1/2 and 2/5 change it all when the 1/3 and 5/5 got approved? If not, what are the min/max buy-ins for the newly approved games?

$1-2: $60-300
$1-3: $100-500
$2-5: $200-1000
$5-5: $500-2500
$5-10: $500-No Max

December's tournament calendar is now online.

Brian,

Just checked out the December calendar. Why are there no changes especially to the evening tournaments? The redundancy of cheap shovefests offer no reason to even consider playing.

Probably because most people do not want to play until 3am. It's a balance between attendance and quality tourney. IMO

Currently there is a lack of both.

+1

There is a $1-2 H.O. mixed game running right now. It's NL Hold'em / PLO - round of each. The Omaha is high only. I know I've read a lot of guys looking for PLO high on these boards, so it is running now if you guys are interested.

I've played the tourney many nights later in the week and consistently see 20-40 runners with it generally wrapping up 4-5 hours later. 3 tables and 4.5 hours is perfect.

On a Friday and Saturday afternoon, 30 minutes and 6-8 hours is also perfect. Brian has found a good combination.

Be specific with how you would change it. Also be specific with how an 8 hour tourney (till 3:15am) would increase attendance.

It's right in your rules (which aren't opening online right at the moment). Last aggressive player shows first, unless no action on river, then it's first to the left of button. Really quite simple. I was at that table too. Asking to see a hand is also in your rules. It's there to protect against colluusion/soft play and NOT to be abused by players, floor has say in whether to allow it or not.

My biggest mistake the dealers make is finishing the hand when 2 players are all-in without forcing them to open the hands first. This has got my into arguments with 1 certain player claiming he had JJ on a J377 board, and he basically slid his cards FACE DOWN to the dealer before the river was dealt. I put him on QQ or KK. Oh, I had 77 for quads. So he had an out for bigger quads. Didn't make sense to me. He played the hand so awfully bad. Makes sense now to me though cause I played yesterday with him when he 3-bet from 250 to 1500 (at 50/100 level) and then folded to the raisers all in for 1900 more, getting 3-1 on the call. Just a god awful player, so maybe he did have JJ in that hand.

Be specific with how you would change it. Also be specific with how an 8 hour tourney (till 3:15am) would increase attendance.[/QUOTE]

How about more than 5000 in starting chips and less than 1/3 of your buyin going to the house. An occasional comped drink every once in a while wouldn't kill anyone either. Although who knows, nobody has ever gotten one to find out.

How about more than 5000 in starting chips and less than 1/3 of your buyin going to the house. An occasional comped drink every once in a while wouldn't kill anyone either. Although who knows, nobody has ever gotten one to find out.[/QUOTE]

Anything more than 5k will extend past 1am - decline in attendance.

More buyin goes to players. I agree, but doubtful on the increase in players.

Free alcohol - doubtful this would bring out more than 1 or 2 degens.