Hey guys, I'm looking to get together a HUNL cash game championship which is likely to take place at $10kNL. I've had discussions with quite a few players and it looks like we can get enough players together to make it happen. So far likely contestants include myself, sauce, ike, jungleman, ben86, jackrich and ZeeJustin. I'm sure you guys can think of some others who are likely to play that I haven't confirmed with so don't want to post their names here. I've not spoken to poker sites about it yet but I plan to fairly soon. Hopefully, this championship will generate a lot of excitement throughout the poker community and I want it to be an event that really showcases the skills of the best players around to as wide an audience as possible. With that in mind I'd like to hear input from people who would be interested in following the championship to know what people want to see and how much interest there would be in it. I can't promise that the idea with the most votes will be the one to take place but it will definitely be taken into account and all comments, even if they're just to say that it's a cool idea that you'd love to see take place, are welcome. I'm unlikely to be able to read every post in this thread if there are a lot but I'll keep track of the poll and will read as much of it as i can. Assume all ideas have a $50k buy-in.
Idea 1:
A straight up knockout tournament. If 16 players enter then they are drawn against each other to make 8 matches. Each match lasts 5k to 10k hands total and can be played over several sessions. The winner will be decided either as the player who is up at the end of the match or if someone quits before the end of the match then they forfeit a predetermined amount (say you must escrow $150k to play and if you quit before you lose that the opponent gets the rest of the escrow) to the other player and the other player goes through. This is then repeated until we have a winner. The prizepool would probably be split something along the lines of 50% to the winner, 25% to second and 12.5% each to 3rd and 4th.
Pros:
- Will get quite a few players
- The simplest of the options
- No room for collusion etc
Cons:
- Won't be a great test of skill as there will be huge variance in the draw you get as well as the short matches. If the best 2 players get drawn vs each other then there's prob a 45-50% chance that the best player is out in round 1 and even with an average draw there's a decent chance that a lot of the best players go out early. This may harm the spectacle as everyone will know that it's not the best players playing out the later rounds (similar to normal HU tournaments).
- You don't get to see so much of each player as lots of them drop out early
Idea 2:
The field is split into groups. If we get 10 players it would be 2 groups of 5, if we get 16 players it would be 4 groups of 4 etc. Let's take the 10 player example. In each group of 5, each player would play a 2.5k isildur showdown style match vs every other player in the group. Each player starts the match with a $150k bankroll and if they lose it the match is over, the player who wins is +$150k in the league table and the player who loses is -$150k. If the match lasts the full distance then the winnings and losses are entered into the league table. When everyone has played each other, they will all have played 10k hands. Anyone who is down over $200k may choose to quit the championship with no further forfeit. Everyone who plays on plays everyone in their group again giving a total of 20k hands played each if nobody drops out. The top 2 winners from each group then go into a final group where the slate is wiped clean (they keep all money won in the group stage but everyone starts from $0 in the new group standings) and which has the same format but where each player plays everyone 4 times for a total of 10k hands vs each player and 30k hands total. There are a couple of potential issues with this format. Firstly, players dropping out early and secondly, collusion between players who are out of the running to qualify and players trying to qualify. I have pretty good solutions to both I think but for the sake of keeping this post at a manageable length I won't post them in detail for now.
Pros:
- Less variance than idea 1, a better chance that the best players get to play later into the championship.
- A better chance to see all the players than idea 1.
- Nobody who wants to play a lot of hands is forced out too early.
- More players than idea 3.
Cons:
- Some chance of collusion.
- More variance than idea 3. Still a reasonable chance that the best player drops out in the first group stage though it's very likely that the final group is at least of a very high standard even though it's unlikely to be exactly the best 4 players.
- Less players than idea 1.
Idea 3:
A league format where everybody who signs up plays 10k hands or so vs everyone else and the winner is the guy at the end with the most winnings. On top of any winnings/losses from the play throughout the tournament, the prizepool would be awarded to the top 2 or 3 along the lines of the split in idea 1 depending on how many players enter (probably 6-11). I originally floated this idea in post #342 in this thread:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19...9/index23.html if you want a better idea of how I would see this running. Inevitably here I think that some people would end up dropping out before the end of the championship but in this case their results would stand and it would just be important to ensure that everyone plays everyone a roughly equal amount so that no large advantage is gained by playing certain players first.
Pros:
- The lowest variance of the ideas. A pretty good chance that the best player in the world is crowned the champion and the order of the league table will roughly reflect the skill of the players involved (though of course extreme good or bad luck could change it up quite a bit).
- Everyone who wants to play till the end can so you may see the biggest swings having this idea.
Cons:
- The number of players prepared to commit the time and risk would be lower than the other ideas (which you may say is a pro because it creates an elite field of real contenders for best HU player in the world, if you won this tournament it really would be a massive achievement).
- Difficult to run keeping everyone playing at the same pace for so long
There's more I could say about all of the ideas but this post is too long already! I'm sure the potential participants will all have their own ideas about which one they prefer but at the end of the day, the site who runs this championship will probably add to the prizepool and the more interest there is in it, the more they will be willing to add, which means more players who are willing to play which means a better championship. Therefore I think everyone's interests may line up nicely and I'm looking forward to hearing what people think about it
Two Plus Two
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