I'm trying a different Beast payout structure starting the 28th. This will go for at least several Beast rounds and may stick around. The tournament distribution is the same, but the cash distribution is different. Here's the explanation:

There are four payout tiers in the Beast.
• Tier 1: $2,500
• Tier 2: $1,000
• Tier 3: $250
• Tier 4: $100

Every $10,334 in the Beast cash prize pool, the prize pool adds:

• One Tier 1
• Two of Tier 2
• Five of Tier 3
• Twenty of Tier 4
• Reseed next race with $2,584

Residual funds (between multiples of $10,334) as the Beast grows are applied to the top places in Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4—maintaining each respective cap amounts.

Last week would have looked like below instead of this.

Place Cash
1 $2,500
2 $2,500
3 $2,500
4 $2,500
5 $1,631
6 $1,000
7 $1,000
8 $1,000
9 $1,000
10 $1,000
11 $1,000
12 $1,000
13 $755
14 $250
15 $250
16 $250
17 $250
18 $250
19 $250
20 $250
21 $250
22 $250
23 $250
24 $250
25 $250
26 $250
27 $250
28 $250
29 $250
30 $250
31 $250
32 $250
33 $250
34 $166
35 $100
36 $100
37 $100
38 $100
39 $100
40 $100
41 $100
42 $100
43 $100
44 $100
45 $100
46 $100
47 $100
48 $100
49 $100
50 $100
51 $100
52 $100
53 $100
54 $100
55 $100
56 $100
57 $100
58 $100
59 $100
60 $100
61 $100
62 $100
63 $100
64 $100
65 $100
66 $100
67 $100
68 $100
69 $100
70 $100
71 $100
72 $100
73 $100
74 $100
75 $100
76 $100
77 $100
78 $100
79 $100
80 $100
81 $100
82 $100
83 $100
84 $100
85 $100
86 $100
87 $100
88 $100
89 $100
90 $100
91 $100
92 $100
93 $100
94 $100
95 $100
96 $100
97 $100
98 $100
99 $100
100 $100
101 $100
102 $100
103 $100
104 $100
105 $100
106 $100
107 $100
108 $100
109 $100
110 $100
111 $100
112 $100
113 $100
114 $100
115 $100
116 $100
117 $100
118 $100
119 $5

looks interesting. will definitely benefit me. some people won't be happy but can't please everyone.

smooothie gone be mad

Hard to argue that this is a better way to do it, but I am sure someone will troll it soon.

So a whole bunch of people lose a lot of money so the top 10 can be more even and profitable for them?

Wait what? You're telling me there is no difference between 1st place and 4th place payouts?


--
Kahn

So, applying the new payout schedule to last week's race, almost 70% of players are paid less money (including every player from 34th place to 102nd place), with the bottom 13 no longer getting paid at all, and 14th to last getting practically nothing... and 34th place, which earned nearly double the points as 118th place, both get paid the same amount.

I still think that a tiered system that divides the money into low stakes, mid stakes and high stakes tiers is really the best use for the Beast money.

As somebody who qualifies for The Beast every week, and think it is a horrible promotion to start with,

this change is REALLY bad. How could you not consult your player base before making this change?

I like this proposed structure. It will decrease incentive for team accounts and those who short stack every table for massive hours.

+1

except for where it does the exact opposite because more money is now in the top 10, and less in all the other spots. If i was someone who was getting 20th before and could find someone to team account with who would be decent then i have more incentive to do it now.

I think everyone that makes the most rake for the site but The Green Smoothie is going to benefit from this including the site.

I see the Beast jackpot increasing because of this as well.

TGS is going to be playing no matter what for ICON, and now heavy volume players (that obviously play less volume than TGS) such as AcesHigh, IamMachine, Myself, and a few others) will put in a good battle for the rest of the bubble (2nd - 4th).

Before people would attempt to go for 2nd and then give up playing when they knew they couldn't reach it because 3rd-8th and 9th-18th would be so close in pay jumps. 2nd would then just protect the lead while everyone else would coast.

Now, I actually see people competing and fighting for 'tiers' going down to the last minute especially if the bubble competition stays relatively close.

I wasn't able to play on the weekend and when I saw how far ahead 1 and 2 were for this week I didn't even play more than 100 hands because of the current setup. With the new setup, now I can afford to actually take a day off or have some time to do errands and still have enough time to put in a good effort to get back into respectable beast pay.

i dont mind it although it prob hurts me since i usually end up between the 1k and 250 payouts. prob good for the site tho since grinders will be tier battling since the payout dropoffs are somewhat significant. should be a $500 tier imo.

edit: ^ agree with much of what mr coin said above

I was just starting to pull away from other sites and focus my play more towards the Beast because the games have been decent enough that the extra RB% made it worth it. now there's virtually zero incentive for me to to play WPN over other options after cracking the bottom tier. I'll rake enough to min-cash and play the softer other sites. not really complaining, just pointing out how this change effects my scenario.

I really like the new payout tiers and think the system will thrive.

The fact that tier 1 can grow and offer more top prizes is a good thing IMO. One of the biggest flaws of the beast was the fact 1st place paid TWICE as much as second place, that was really disgusting. This flatter payout to give more players the chance to be in "first place" is a good thing imo. Overall i think this new structure will drive action even more and in return, grow the prize-pool exponentially

Don't like this at all. Gives no motivation to move up from 150 to 35 if it's the same payout. I enjoyed trying to move up a coue spots even if it was a small jump. Take the fun out of it.

I don't like this at all... it seems it will drive the top players to play less, as once you have a top spot locked up, there is no longer any reason to continue playing for that week (unless you're pretty profitable at the tables)

The flattening of payouts in the middle of the structure is also pretty bad, as someone who normally gets around $150-$200 a week my payout will go to $100.

If it's going to be done this way, please drop off any monetary payout below 50th so that there is still some reason for those of us without 40 hours a week, to grind as much as possible & try and compete for some of the middle spots.

edit: Will reserve judgement til I see it in action though... IHasTehBluff makes a good point about it possibly driving more traffic since more tier 1 payouts could be created.

Hey all!

Looks like I should chime in on this one

If it's best for the site and the poker economy, I'm all for it. I appreciate that my life will now be more +ev on the weekends.

The one thing that I disagree with atm is that 1st is the same payout as 4th...I think most people would agree that this is kind of silly.

I mean, you might as well not even call it 1st place 2nd place 3rd place 4th place and just call it 4th 4th 4th 4th, or T-1st, T-1st, T-1st, T-1st.

When 1st place in something is earning the same as 4th...meh, it just seems kinda silly

Also, if tourneys were structured this way, and when you get to the final 4 and they just ended the tourney and chopped it up evenly 4 ways, I guarantee you they would not be as fun (although this does happen sometimes).

Looks like I'm going to have to change my business model, and it was heading in the direction of less volume higher stakes anyways, so I am happy about this

Lastly, the way I look at this is just another small challenge. Gonna have to turn it into a positive and adapt. There could be wayyyyyy tougher challenges to face then this. What fun is life with no challenges?

I still love this site and respect the management enough to understand that they are running a business. I hope this works out for everyone- I guess we will have to wait and see.

GL at the tables!


----
TGS

The previous structure had first place pay way too much, so I am glad you got rid of it. But you can improve on this more. I think this could be an interesting experiment, but the tiers and quantities you chose were pretty bad. You probably want to have a few more tiers, because what causes competition is people trying to get those extra X points to jump a few people who are close by. I think you could easily have 8-10 tiers, so that if you are in the middle of a tier, you can think about playing some more to get to the next tier. By making the bottom tier so wide, you are basically killing all incentive to play more for most of the people in that tier. Also, the jump from $1000 to $250 seems unusually large. And there's nothing sacred about $100 - I'm sure some micro guy would love to get $50 (or even $25).

This looks like something a bunch of the higher volume grinders (outside of TGS) made up to take more of the Beast allocation. Yes - it's great that #4 generated 20K points last week. But keep in mind #72 thru 75 generated the same 20K points. It's not clear to me if #4's business is worth more than players 72-75 to you (Hint: it's not). So to reward the one player with an additional $2,100 seems a bit extreme. Your goal should be to incentivize all players to play more - not just the top dozen. And all things being equal, you probably want to appeal to a wider audience, than just a handful - more diversification, better word of mouth, larger upside (trying to develop 4 "lower volume" grinders, rather than 1 nearly-maxed-out one), etc.

And it seems strange not to include #1 in the additional leftover allocation - give each tier a little something to shoot for.

Oh, and for the love of God! Can you stop pissing away 25% of the Beast pool into that absurd Tournament Package Jackpot? Very few want to play, and even if they win, very few want to go. That is just so annoying to force someone to play a tournament they have no interest in, for a prize they have no interest in. If you really want to build up your tournament player pool, give 25%-35% of the Beast as Tourney Bucks that people can use in any MTT.

^this

this ^^

First getting the same as 4th is bad. The hardcore grindres will still compete because you will have to in order to get Top 4 but still when someone gets first they should at least get 1k more then the other spots imo.

I too would rather have $55 extra in cash or at least be able to get tournament dollars or a $55 ticket to play whatever I want whenever I want instead of being forced to play on a Sunday or be blinded off like half the pool does which don't get me wrong does make them satellite tournaments as +EV as any satellite can get.