Actually, it's $2.25 a night, vs. $15

The real question comes down to, what is more important? Running the league, or recruiting new players?

Our buddy said he doesn't want to play when there's a fee - I don't blame him, because we're all against raked home games.

Would it be fair to sell his shares/points to other players in the tournament? If 5 guys are willing to pay his way, everyone pays $3 and gets 1/5 of his shares/points.

How does that sound?

Was this guy not present at the conversations you had at the games? Why is he waiting until now? Does he not realize how unfair this is to you? It's a dick move on his part to wait this long. He's basically cornering you.

It's not a fee that goes to the house, it's a collection for a backing system that goes back entirely to the players. But he doesn't want to play, so nothing's going to convince him.

If you don't have a reason for people to play who don't have a chance to win, though, I suspect attendance will drop near the end of the league anyway.

Every league seems to have growing pains its first year, as you discover what works and what doesn't. Maybe let 'em opt-out, it might help attendance in the later games anyway. If too many people opt out early on, then just cancel the league, refund the opt-ins, and play normal games.

The question now is what do those who opt-in get for points? Do they get relative to each other, or their position in the entire game?

Tho' I still think you should have cash games on the alternating weeks.

He was there. My guess is that he silenced his lack of love for the idea because others were supporting the idea.

He understand but has no interest in the seat or the profit-sharing. He just wants to play poker.

That was my first thought. Non-League players affect the outcome of the tournament.

As corwiniii put it, I don't think our player base is large enough to play weekly.

A big part of me just thinks "too bad for him". He was there, he was given a chance to voice his concerns and have them discussed among the group before the league started, yet he chose to remain silent.

He could have talked with you away from the group weeks ago, right?

I think you should consider not allowing an opt-out until maybe game 8 or 9, and see how attendance is faring. If it's starting to drop, then talk about it as an option for the last run of games in order to keep the games full and interesting, and the prize pools still worth fighting for.

He still gets to play poker. He just now gets to decide if his desire to play is worth supporting the group and strengthening the game as a whole, or if his selfish desires to sit on his own and corner you at the last minute overpower that.

In my first league, when there wasn't the freeroll, the last game saw someone play who had no chance to win on points. We were taking $50 out of a $100 buyin. He did it solely to support the team.

He sounds like a crybaby taking advantage of your desire to be a people-pleaser. Maybe he should run his own game on alternating weeks.

It sounds like he needs to find another game.

I think he may be getting villified a bit ITT. He's fine with not playing and his participation will not make or break anything. He simply rethought the idea of the league and decided he's not into the idea. He would still like to just play poker and asked if there was some other option. Hence the thread. If the answer is no, he will join us for non-league games, whenever those are. He's really not trying to be an ass, he just asked the question.

Heh, okay, fair enough. I tend to over-defend hosts, because most players don't appreciate how much is involved in setting things like this up. Is $15 not worth it for him to show his appreciation to the host and the other players? I wouldn't be surprised if the host costs himself at least that much in equity every single game (due to being distracted), or that much or more in food and beverage supplies, not to mention all the time spent crafting the league and setting up before hand and cleaning up afterwards.

You have plenty of options, but most of them open Pandora's box.

Keep the box closed.

You've got a league. Let your friend know that while you'd enjoy him playing in it, and understand if he doesn't want to, that you feel that the integrity of the league is important, and you'd rather not create special rules for all reasons discussed in this thread.

Ummm, I think you're overdoing it a bit.

whoa whoa WHOA! It only "goes back to the players" that don't get the WSOP seats, if said players cash pretty high and distribute funds to the non-interesteds who were forced to play.

Don't use your group, their success and your own motivations to assume that every game and every result will be the same as yours.

Odds are, the WSOP or whatever seats are likely to NOT return a dime to the "investors" who are not playing.

REALLY? Wow, what about your selfish desire as a host to only consider your own interests?

Nice gesture, but to blame/insult others when they choose NOT to sacrifice from the get-go seems pretty self-centered, Mr. Host Extraordinaire.

I must say, you're losing some points with me, this week....


Exactly. Now, the question isn't "is that unfair to the host" as much as it may be "how unfair is it to the uninterested players?"

You may have to just decide what decision suits you best, Precept2, and live with any consequences... if you can't accomodate the want-nots on the side.


Maybe, but that could be for good or bad. I treat it as luck of the draw.
Don't forget, they do add to the weekly prize pool and keep the fields bigger, to attract more people.

It's a tough spot. GL with whatever you decide, Precept2.

I talk to all my players all the time, and encourage them to air their concerns. We discuss these things for weeks if not months before they happen. TOO much, perhaps. I don't weigh too heavily someone's concerns when it comes but a few days before go time. I'll consider it for next time around, but it's sort of too late now. People really don't like things to change mid-stride.

Yes, I may have come on a little strong, but people who wait until the last minute to say they have a problem with the entire concept and structure of the league bug me.

Well another thing you can do is the make the opt-out only available if you opt out from the beginning. You can't opt-in until you realize you are out of the running and then opt out.

Do you think people would then just opt out of playing altogether once they're out of the running?

Precept2, I was thinking about this when I woke up. Some possibilities, if you want to allow non-contributors to play:

1) Plan the league around dropping attendance. Set the price a little higher for early tourneys, so the funding will be finishing up at the smaller attendance tourneys that may result.

2) Pad the donations, so seats + expenses are potentially covered. If you don't make the target, you hopefull still cover the seat(s) that you want.

3) Regular price as planned, non-payers don't have to pay the vig...... but some extra dollars come out of the weekly paying places, if a non-contributor cashes. Maybe an escalating $5, $5, $10, $15 (for first... or $20, as a penalty for being an unappreciative crybaby?)

In a sense, a forced contribution, but only if they cash (so they'll grumble less).

Now, whether you want to add a doomswitch provision, for contributors that start in the league but want to opt-out later, is up to your group. If you drop out and start as a non-contributor later in the season, you lose all of your shares.


That's all I have. GL.

Even though I for the most part agree with you on various topics, I've got to say you are way over the top on this one.

I think you are too close to the league that you are running to think about this for someone else's situation.

I was going to go into greater detail on my disagreements but LL has summed it up well in post #35. (First time for everything!)

It sounds to me, and I may be projecting here, that Precept2's group is a small player pool without a lot of other home games to choose from. Plus this league sounds like it's going to run a long time (6-7 months?!) which I feel is a long time if the only games they'll have are the league games every fortnight.

It's rather flippant to tell them to play cash games on their off week. Some people have families and other responsibilities which prevents them from hosting whenever they feel like it. I know in my case having 3 sons playing football at various levels I haven't hosted since the start of football season.

Okay, okay. My attempt was to support Precept, but I went too far. But c'mon, why did the guy have to wait until a few days before the league starts to throw this at the host? Isn't that a little bit rude of him? Maybe not intentionally so, but I doubt he just woke up and decided he didn't want to play. Couldn't he have voiced this concern weeks ago? There's no convenient way for Precept to re-open the dialogue with the group to try to find a solution that would be best for everybody.

I'm not trying to be flip by suggesting cash on off weeks, just trying to encourage more home poker!

I do agree that having only the league can be a bit tough for those who don't want to play it, but there's really no other way to get in this many games in one year.

Maybe the league is reaching too far.

I agree they may be reaching too far on this one. Since they may be losing one reg, some other semi-regs and are limiting their ability to recruit new players they might be well advised to rethink this whole thing.

It may be that others may not have thought through the idea that it (appears) that this will be 6+ months of nothing but league play every other week. I don't think Precept2 said anything about a end of season freeroll to keep interest in the final weeks such as pfapfap's league so this has the potential to break the group up. Momentum is hard to regain once lost.

What's the ultimate prize here? One seat? How about alternating between league games and regular games? Is there a way to pull it off? How much do you need to raise?

There's no way I'd do ONLY league games, partially because cash games are where I make money, but also because different strokes for different folks. I've found that by mixing up the formats, both gain, because those who primarily play one eventually wander over to the other from time to time.

Well whenever you two want I can tap into the player pool from New Haven I know but I dont want to overrun your game

BTW, it doesn't sound like the reason Precept isn't hosting every week is because he doesn't have the means, but more because he doesn't feel he has the player pool.

I think for any long-term successful game, it needs to play every week. When it's intermittent, people can never be sure when it's going to happen. If it's every single Friday, then people know it's Friday, and can plan around it. (Tho' I think Friday is a bad night for a game, but that seems to already be established for this group.) It's no longer, "Is there a game this week?" and is now, "It's Friday, so it's poker night."

Even with my player pool, which now regularly sees 2 or 3 tables per game, when I stopped hosting every week, it took a while to build back up.

There's another game I play where the host won't even send out feelers for the game until a few hours before start time. I've had to decline the invitation more than a few times because I had already made other plans.

And even if in your mind it's "every other week" ... well, I can't be expected to rely that there won't be a hiccup and a shift three months down the line, so I won't see my poker night as permanently full, and will plan other stuff.

Not everybody needs to play every single game. All you really need are three or four core people who can commit to most of them, and a couple dozen others who can play sometimes, and there you go, your game is set.

It sounds like you have several people who are interested in being occasional players in the non-league games, and it looks like there's another player pool close by that might be a good source. EVERY game needs a constant supply of fresh meat. I'm never NOT recruiting for my game. The players are out there, you just need to go grab 'em.

Oh, and you might find that as people get used to having the game every week, they'll get hooked, and will miss it if they don't play, which will just feed itself. I have one player in my game who for a long time has only played tournaments. Once we got this year's league started up again every other week, he started showing up to the cash games on alternating weeks, and he's had a great time. In fact, the whole reason I started tourneys in the first place was to recruit for the cash games.

It's not just a game of poker, it's a regular night away from the stresses of work and family, a night to hang out with your buddies. People really like to have that, and will happily do it nearly every week.

Yes to all of this. About half the players probably get poker via other means. The other half (this one holdout included) is really just a friend of mine who enjoys playing a home game with some friends.

It's possible others haven't thought it through. I'm not sure. There will be a freeroll at the end of the season for any left over money.

The goal is at least one seat at the $1,100 Mohegan Sun Summer Showdown (I think I got that right). If we can collect for two, even better. No other costs included (that I'm aware of). If the point leader cannot make that event, it goes to the next highest point leader, and so on. Plus the profit shares 75%/25% IF the winner cashes in the $1,100 event...

I have to revisit the schedule and work with Precept2 to figure out mixing in non-league games so we still run enough league games to collect for at least 1 seat.

It's that the two hosts (me and Precept2) can't pull off more than that. We both have young kids (me 1, Precept2 like a dozen now or something...) and I know I would be pushing the limits with my spouse - I can't speak for Precept2 on that. Also, we have a hard time getting a full ring game every other week. I think we'd bleed our group dry and burn people out if we ran weekly. We're not there yet for a variety of reasons.

I started this group about 12 months ago - maybe more - to play low stakes NLHE cash games twice a month. Precept2 was an original reg and stepped up to help me host every other week. He and a few others have interest in a league and that is what started the idea and he has done all the work coordinating it. Some people may still just be interested in the cash game idea, I don't know.

Ah, gotcha. Well, maybe you don't have the resources for a regular league, then, especially not if that's all you can do for the next year.

I played a league last year that met about once a month. Mid-way through the folks who couldn't win enough points stopped playing, and this one had TWO freerolls, one for top 6, one for everybody. There were other problems with the league, but it seemed to have soured everybody, because nobody in that group wants to play much any more. To be fair, they never played much in the first place.

Would 10 people be willing to drop down $100 up front? Or even just $50, and then $10 each over 5 games? Then you could just play regular tourneys through the year and have them track their results against each other. That way there's always incentive to play, since the money is already gone, and even if you're out of points it's still like any other tourney. It wouldn't allow for people to join mid-way through, but maybe by the end you'll have new players and those who didn't participate will see how much fun those that did had, and will want to join in for the next year, at which point you can try this format, and try to raise more than one seat.

Just gotta watch out for team play and chip dumping.

You really do need to recruit recruit recruit recruit recruit recruit recruit, tho'. Not only am I always looking for new players, I'm keeping communication open with my current pool, keeping them in the games. I reach out to people who haven't played in a while.

This is exactly what the "crybaby", err my friend, asked to begin with. I think we could get 10, or close to it, to pay upfront.

This was my thinking exactly.

Believe me, we are trying. About half the players came from 2+2 unfortunately (I KID!). I can say everyone who comes has tried to recruit - many successfully - so we are bonded as a group in that way.