nj.partypoker.com & borgatapoker.com are excited to announce the first Garden State Super Series with a total of $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pools! The GSSS consists of 20 events at three different buy-in levels across a range of different tournament formats which are scheduled to run over two weeks from September 7 - 21. This is scheduled to coincide with and complement the Borgata Poker Open (BPO) & WPT so both New Jerseyan and out-of-state players can participate. We hope this will allow us to run the largest and richest online poker tournaments in New Jersey since the market opened last November.

We want the first Garden State Super Series to be great, and would like to ask the poker community for feedback on our draft schedule before we formally announce and start promoting the final schedule. Please consider that we want the GSSS to be exciting and compelling for both our recreational and regular players, and we welcome comments that help us make this better for either (or both) groups!

The draft schedule:


Garden State Super Series by partypoker, on Flickr

So what do you think? Please post a reply below whether you like the events, buy-ins, format, structure, timing, and anything else – particularly how/if you think it can be improved. We will monitor this thread regularly over the next few days. Our intent is to announce the final schedule announcement very soon.

Thanks in advance,
Party_Rep

Can we get a link to the structures?

Btw, overall first impressions extremely positive. I'll do a full write up tonight or tomorrow

Overall I like what I see. I personally would like to see bigger starting stacks in your rebuys. Right now the daily rebuys I feel are little to small to start. Also, the High Main Event buy in is kind of ridiculous. Half of that would be ok.

I guess the normal $50k Sunday will be replaced by these events?

Also, a leader board would be awesome.

Almost as if they want you to do an immediate rebuy before the tourney starts...

1. The three-level buy-ins are a great idea.

2. There's a good balance between game types and scenarios (bounty, rebuy, 6max). (I'm generally not a fan of rebuy events because of the wild and loose play they encourage in the early levels, so I'm glad only 1/3 of the events are rebuy and that there are non-rebuy equivalents for some of those events.)

3. Very glad to see a bounty event. What % of the buy-in will the bounties be? (BRING BACK GTD BOUNTY EVENTS!)

4. You have some typos on Sunday the 14th and Sunday the 21st: you have satellites for events that have passed!

Suggestions: it would be great if there were regular stud MTTs.

Thank you for at least keeping the start times to 7pm and later. Us NYC commuters need some time to get home from work.

Glad to see some of the neglected games included (Stud, FLH).

Weeknight tournies should start no later than 19:00, considering there will be a late registration period.

Why are the start times staggered? We are all capable of multi-tabling.

Why is event #1 Low a $10 buyin while event #2 Low a $20 buyin, when Medium and High are the same for both?

How about a heads up tournament?

Lastly, I think the series should culminate with the Main Event, rather than have it midway through.

One more thing...software related. The poker client NEEDS to have a checkbox that the player can check for "Auto Add On." for rebuy tournaments. The add on message is so easy to miss, and I know everyone I have spoken to has complained about missing the add on.

Since Events 9 are on the the 12th, you might not want to run the satellites for it on the 14th...

Agree with this. 7pm start for all buy-ins should be good.

What about holding the main events at the end of the series, having a tournament leader board and giving out seats to each of the events to the top 5 or whatever?

Ok, as I said, good schedule overall, but a few overalls points:

1. 3 buyin levels is too many. Unless you're planning on spanning everything from micros to nose bleeds (like another major poker site does during their series where they have 3 buyin levels) then 2 buyin levels would be plenty. The problem is you're going to wind up cannibalizing your own sites action because the buyin levels are so similar. 5 is too close to 10. 10 is too close to 20. 20 is too close to 50. Even 50 is really close to 100.

I would prefer to see 2 buyin levels, and have larger guarantees on these two, rather than 3 smaller tourneys.


2. Main event being in the middle of the series is odd. I understand that you want it to run along side the wpt main, but you should push the whole series up then. The idea of the main event being the last tournament of the series is that you can run a TON of satellites all series long to it and really pump up the attendance. Also, if a main event is the last event of the series more people are going to "take shots" and play things they usually wouldn't because it's their last chance to hit it big. Again, I understand why it's scheduled where it is, just don't necessarily agree that it will be bigger/better here

3. Buyin levels: $200 sucks for a main event buyin. I know I know, you want people to be able to use tickets. Well guess what, you're never gonna get away from it if you don't start somewhere. Every single week you run a $200 tournament with a very large first prize. This series won't feel special at all for 85% of people who do not cash in this beet! it will be another usual Sunday for them. Main events are supposed to be special and big and awesome. Make it $300, $250 even would be better. You're not going to turn people away, and just will wind up with a much bigger prize pool

4. $1k buyin is an awesome idea. With the success of the $500 tourney last series (save for the messed up payouts) I would think this $1k will be huge. $50k is a VERY conservative guarantee, and for a main event I'd like to see this be higher. I think $100k is a very very attainable guarantee.

5. Stud and the plo8 are great additions, but why are they on the same night? Spread them out and sprinkle them through the series rather than just jam them all in one day. Plus people who like mix games will then log on more than one night and may try some other stuff, building the overall series.

6. PLO additions look good, but at least one of them has to be 6 handed. I understand having one full ring, but both of them being full ring is super boring. Make the PLO rebuy event 6 handed.

7. The vanilla nlhe rebuys on Thursday and Saturday are kind of boring. 4 days of essentially he exact same tourneys shouldn't happen. Make one of them a second bounty. Or another 6max, or how about an 8 handed, or 4 handed. You have so many options that can make it slightly more interesting and generate some buzz rather than just having the exact identical tournaments multiple times. Also:

8. Why is there no heads up? Heads up is the most true form of nlhe, and really should be represented in a series like this. Make one of these nlhe rebuys into a heads up

Overall, I'm very excited, this series looks cool. Good selection of freezouts and rebuys, 6max is fairly well represented, etc.

Guarantees look pretty good, I think some are slightly off, but nothing too far save for the 1k that I mentioned


I would certainly like to see the structures before these tournaments are put into the client. There were some problems last time and would like to have these resolved before it's too late to change it


Overall, nice work party!

no heads up tournament again? give it a try and it may surprise you..

+1

your daily schedule needs to look more like this! I like the schedule, series, and options! I see the pressure of pokerstars is already having an effect on you guys! It's a little funny to me that this thread pops up on the exact day that Amaya completed their purchase of pokerstars and fulltilt! Competition is definitely a good thing!

I must add that the current daily tournament schedule is pathetic! That is all!

Well, yesterday was August 1st. Seems a reasonable day for both things to happen: announcing the closure of a purchase deal, and the preliminary schedule for a poker series starting in the next month.

1.Marketing
As one of the guys that will probably be playing on the site alongside visiting for the open it will be many players first time playing on the site and the schedule looks well I just hope you guys promote it to the players from the live series as well, who may not be aware of this series that could be playing the online series from their room instead of in the live cash games once they bust out.

2.Pricing
I Do agree with the buyin levels being similar. For a tournament series i think $11,$50-60, and $160 would be perfect. I do think the guarantees are good compared to other sites that offer reentry and is not just limited to just poker from 1 legalized state.

3. Champion series
Will there be a free roll or something for anyone that wins a event or even better a award for person with best combo of Live + Online points?

4. Incorporate some of the online coverage or at least a brief mention of the winners in the poker series blog surprising many guys read it daily at the tournament and it could get them to sign up.

Obv agree with almost everything gags said..

emphasis on main event buy in..Stop being scared. $300-$400 will do fine.

The 3 flights are way too close together. Go with 2 and have them far apart like $10/$100 $5/$50.

High roller is a must. $500/$1k whatever. Pay top 7-8%.

Yes top 8% for 1k high roller. We deserve one tournament that doesn't pay 20%

I also agree with gags, add a heads up tournament or a few, that has to be in there. at low and high end buyins, you be surprised how many people would be interested in these.

looks good so far, looking forward to it.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

+1 for having heads up tournaments. i would love to play a heads up tournament with a 100+ entry fee.

gags and wildman spot on as usual...please listen to their suggestions and make some changes they proposed!!

When will mobile/tablet play be allowed for tourneys? I haven't played online in NJ for a while so forgive my ignorance but I think your ipad app is just cash games/fast fwd right? Why is this? If you guys really want to take advantage of a live series going on- you must allow us to play mobile so we can also grind at the tables. I did this on wsop.com ipad app and its awesome. No one wants to sit at the table w a laptop- its very bulky and cumbersome. WSOP.com has had this technology basically from the beginning it makes no sense that you can grind cash but not tourneys? Please fix this ASAP if you havent already...

Finally, you need a leaderboard for the GSSS. Award some points, prizes, tickets, main event seats etc and give people incentive to grind the whole series. thanks for listening

+1 On Heads up Shootout.

Also a leader board would be very nice.

Would be a win/win for both. More players will play more events because of the leaderboard. I think the best type of leaderboard would be split for low/med/high.

What does everyone think?

Alot of good suggestions have been said. I think that most of the guarantees can be pressed and increased 10-20% each. Especially the Highs. 1k 50k is so weak.

Is the software really that simple that you cant do random numbers for buyins? I think some tournaments would do better as $15, $30, $75, $150, $325 for main, and like wildman said itll create a better gap between buyin levels.

Echoing something said a few times, can the payouts for the Highs be 10-12% of the field and not 15-20% like it is now? With the exception of the main I guess. Use 10-12% for this series and it will serve as an example how its a better payout structure. Prizes will be larger and overall everything will look better and more desirable. If the 15-20% is geared towards strecthing out the fish then keep it like that for the Low and Medium fields. The High players deserve what they want a few times a year for your series.

Please add heads up. How is this even left off the schedule? Should add one in the beginning and one towards the end. 5/20/100 and 10/50/200

Make one or two of the random no limit tourneys a turbo. Maybe one of the rebuys a turbo and then a turbo freezeout.

Run specific easy to read sattelites to the high events. Lots of sattelites. Not this phase II III crap, "$20 SATTELITE TO GSSS #4 $100 HIGH"

Leaderboards obv

bump...any info on what the tournament structure is going to look like?

it is VERY important that you release the structures before they are in the client so changes can be made and you don't wind up with similar problems to last series