Starting this weekend, a core group of players from my $10 Wednesday league are going to start playing a cash league with the goals of sending one or more players to WSOP 2011 games.

Today, I'm tasked with putting the details on paper and presenting them to the rest of the players for Saturday's game.

The gist of play is that:

..we'll be playing a NLHE-NLHE-PLO rotation at the single $1 blind level. A $1 rake will be taken at $20, and a possibly an additional dollar at <some large number>.

Players will earn hours at the table, redeemable for a chip stack at a freeroll tournament in early 2011. Players will have to meet a minimum number of hours (10% of the top hours earned, for example) to qualify for the freeroll, and chip stacks will be scaled DIRECTLY to hours played. 100 hours = full stack, 750 hours = 75% stack.

Prizes will be paid in <tournament entry> sizes.

Players at the freeroll not finishing in 1st place earn a percentage of the winner's action -- with the winner keeping 80%+ of his action and the league splitting the remaining action (likely a higher base percentage to the winner, and a lower pre-tax percentage to the league members).

Winners unable to play at WSOP 2011 would have to sell the tournament entry to the next place finishers at <reduced percentage> of prize value. Winners using their BI as a portion of a larger tournament BI (e.g. 1500 of a 2500, 2500 of a 5000, etc.) would only be responsible to the league for a proportionally reduced percentage of their action.

---

I'll be looking here for feedback, but be aware that: "Your concept sucks" will likely be discarded. The people who want to play like the concept -- cash/hours/freeroll/percentage -- so that's unlikely to change. We're primarily suburban professionals for whom a couple hundred dollar bills is "real money," but not stakes at which anyone can get hurt. Any of us could simply take some PTO and write a check to the WSOP if we weren't busy paying child support or day care or finding renters for our house with the upside down mortgage

I'll return later with something nearing the final document.

I've been asked to some up with a league idea for the next year. But we play about 50/50 cash/tourney. Am I reading this correctly, that this is for a cash game only? You won't play tournaments, or they will not be considered for this?

eneely, this will be in addition to the $10 tournament poker league that Palimax already helps run.

Disclaimer - Most of my questions here are based on being a potential occasional player in this game.

How big do you intend the final tournament to be? I'd be concerned about playing, paying the rake, but still not making "enough" hours for the end of cycle tournament.

Is the game cycle set in stone, or will it vary based on the table desires? What if a group of people only want to play Omaha, or want to play HORSE?

Are you looking to rake enough to get someone into the main event, or into a smaller event? Is it the choice of the winner if its a smaller even WHICH event? Based on the close to last paragraph I think it's winner's choice, but just validating.

Will you stop raking when a certain value is met? If not, what's the plan for the non even amount of money? Does it go to the winner to help pay other expenses?

Also... there's a game this Saturday?

I imagine there wouldn't be more than 20 people or so at the final game - max, and I think the more realistic number is two tables or under. 16 or fewer.

I also imagine that the floor on hours would be fairly low - let's say 15%. Someone with fewer chips would be at a fantastic disadvantage anyway. I don't have a problem letting short stacks play in the final tournament, but like the BBJ threads, people are going to feel bad towards the guy who plays once, gets T500 in a T10000 final event and miracles his way into the WSOP on "their" money. ...but like anything, those numbers are negotiable.

That's the "announced" game; and we're free to play anything. I imagine PLO and PLO8 will run by themselves, as would probably 2-4 HORSE, etc. There needs to be a rule about how many people does it take for their to be a "qualifying game" that rakes money and earn hours, how much notice they need to give other players, etc.

I imagine the prize would be in $1500 increments, but we'd have to see what the rake situation looks like early on.

As I imagine things -- and we're not set in stone yet, of course -- we'd likely start raking for second place's $1500 tournament next, if/when we get that far.

Yes. Marco's. Earlier rather than later -- although we'll run late. I'll be over there drinking and playing UFC2010 early. [I promise, I was going to mail people ]

This is strictly a cash game with a for-WSOP-freeroll rake. [You can nit about 'freeroll' all you want.]

I don't see a problem, however, with us figuring out what an hour of play rakes, and then having a tournament night that rakes what we WOULD have raked playing cash -- and then making that a viable game choice.

Ignore the odd formatting - Word does strange things to quotation marks and stuff...

This is the draft going to players at our inaugural game tonight.

Sounds interesting, and the rules draft is reasonable. My only question is in the Prize Use section. The net win is divided 90/10 between the player and the other top 5 in the freeroll. What about the $1500 that isn't part of the net win? I assume the player keeps this, but it's not clear in the rules.

Looks good other than Schmendr1ck's question above.

Also, in the Final Tournament section, what did you have in mind with "A provision will be created to handle a player who has earned the right to be at the final tournament but who cannot attend."

I'll post an update as soon as I integrate last night's changes after we talked about it among the people who will likely comprise most of the core of the group.

Only the win is distributed among the next-five. If we send two people to WSOP 2011, and one of them cashes for $3,000 total, he owes finishers 3-7 a percentage of his $1500 net profit on the tournament.

This is probably the one major thing we're stuck on. Some things I can tell you are that even if we allow some sort of proxy to attend, he'd still be playing on behalf of the original player -- and that not attending isn't something voluntary. We'll make a best effort to schedule the final when we can all attend, but there's always the possibility someone has to go to jail or their work sends them to China next March. We don't want to hose someone on a technicality because life threw them a massive curve-ball.

Another option would be to buy them out of their share of the final event - at our usual $0.80 on the dollar

I've finally made it to a little "me" time at my desk today, and it doesn't appear as if my flash drive came to work with me, so here's the major updates, as I recall them:

Language was cleaned up to provide better examples.
The player-league share was unanimously moved to 80-20%, in that the spirit seemed to much more about sweating our friends.

We're still stuck on exactly how to handle a qualifying player who can't attend a final event. I'd be willing to propose an 80% buyout of his share if the league has non-prize, cash reserves to cover it. [Remember, you need a "life event" to not attend the finals or the WSOP.] I'd be willing but reluctant to send a proxy to play for him as well. I want to take a hard line with a simple exception policy for "left events."

And, at least one tale from the felt from the game for ya'll:

Play is 6-handed.
Hero has AK in the single $1 blind.
Lawyer UTG calls $1.
Saleslady calls $1.
Salesman raises to $5.
Jeweler folds.
Landlord calls $5.
Hero re-raises to $22.
Lawyer folds.
Saleslady flat-calls $22.
Salesman flat-calls $22.
Landlord folds.
Pot = ~$70 after rake.
Flop AA9
Hero bets $42.
Saleslady calls.
Salesman folds.
Pot is $152.
Turn board is AA9T
Hero bets enough to put Saleslady AI,
Saleslady snap-calls for $80 with 99.
River is not T, K or A.

[Hero doesn't have 99 in the hands that flat $1 and $22 Hero updates his notes...]

There were several other large pots of the night, including, hero calls a non-pot bet into the KQx board with 9TJx to snap off the KKxx bettor - and one over-pair vs set AI on the flop for ~100 each.

Salesman was the big winner of on the night.
Landlord got the worst of it.

I'll move a photo or two from my Blackberry later.

The easy answer is that if winner doesn't want to attend WSOP (I don't fancy trying to define qualifying 'life events') then auction the place to all the tournament players.

To be fair, the winner should also be allowed to bid.

Saleslady was digging the hole, laying the twigs and leaves over it...

If you don't want to attend the event, you shouldn't be playing in the first place.

...but yes, if you're not going, it goes to auction.

Week 2 Updates, and "TR"

We had our second cash game on the second week of its existence. I think we'll run about 2/month, but we're off to a quick start. Pretty sure we'll skip this week, but I could be wrong. Depends on how much people are dying to play.

5 of the 6 players from the first night were there, plus 5 others - for at least a couple of hours.

Former-Mechanic dropped about $260 into the game in 1.5 hours, despite hitting a flush-over-set hand for +$100 early in his 90 minutes of breakneck play. (Hero's set, btw...) New-Girl played at dollar limits for the first time in her life and held her own for 2 hours before leaving busted. Consultant played shortstacked for 2 hours and left busted. Dental-Guy played hour hours on a single buy-in, and then went home down not too much more than rake. Saleslady went broke just short of the end of the game. Bar-Poker-Guy (BPG) started late and shortstacked and won the biggest pot we've seen to date in our game and left with the largest cashout we've seen to date (800+). Hero lost about $170. Game ended when Landlord got busted for the last time $300 or $400 -- after running on his first buyin for a good 4 hours and building up a good stack before this hand happened:

BPG managed to get AKT9 in against AKT5 on the KK9xx Omaha board for all of Landlord's stack. [BPG and Landlord are both pretty agressive, neither of them afraid to get their stacks in with less than the nuts, or on a draw, so the pot isn't THAT surprising...]

With BPG taking almost all of the donated money off the table, and crushing Landlord repeatedly in the AM hours, the only other players to run positive were Jeweler and Salesmanager -- but both only a small amount.

In the photo below you can see one of the more interesting hands of the night. Jeweler and Dental-Guy end up in a smallish pot, when DG tries to buy the turn for $15 ($17?), Jeweler decides to play along and then the hand ends up running out:

T7777

Leaving DG's AK the winner over Jeweler's 89.



I wanted to grab a snap of the $300+ KK9 hand, but it wasn't the time or place to stop the action and have people pose...

League standings so far are fairly straightforward:



..oh, and yes, that's the Chiptalk mat there. We were playing at Salesman's house again this week.

I was gonna make a snarky comment, but you beat me to it.

Fun read, thanks for the TR.

I was sort-of freerolling in the game, in that I had negotiated a chop in BPG's $1,000 quarterly freeroll tournament earlier that day.

I proposed a $50 chop to 20 people and had only one objection

The hold-out gave in when we were seven handed, and I proposed $100 to everyone and that play continue with the winner taking the $300 that wasn't in the 7-way chop.

BPG had pre-written checks! for the payouts. I settled up the final table and deposited his checks

I would have been the second objection, if I'd been there.
You're as bad as Da Coach, in my game!

Live poker is rigged

The fact that I got 18/19ths to agree meant my read on the crowd was spot-on. People just wanted their $50. I'm just here to oblige.

So, I sanitized the documents a bit, and started hosting the stats for the players.

http://singledollarblind.com/

[I domains.]

How does the State of Arizona feel about an unregulated entity raking a cash game? (Even if the rake is eventually returned as a prize.)

Legally? Ask my lawyer

We fall under "Social" gambling in Arizona.
...and "Social Gambling" is expressly legal in Arizona.

We're pristine. Nobody makes a paycheck. I don't collect interest on the set-aside. I eat the whopping $7/year for the domain registration, although things like that could get paid for, since we all share the burden equally, I'd imagine. Everyone is eligible to make the finals merely by participating in reasonable quantity.

My Wednesday league does this too. $10 buy-in, $2 reserved for the finals. $8 in nightly prizes. $5 siphoned off every night to buy supplies for the league as a whole, and nobody gets a paycheck for their work.

I planned on doing the same thing... what we decided to do was:

-- Whatever the BI was for the tournament, 50% would go to an immediate payout, 50% gets put in escrow for the WSOP entrance fee

-- Points would be awarded for the place you finish; even the last place finisher gets a point. The higher you finish, the more points you get

-- Whomever has the most points at the end of the league goes to the WSOP, and is entitled to 50% of the profits

-- Each person who participates in the league would have a "piece" or "stake" of the remaining 50% in the league winner who enters the WSOP tournament, proportional to their point standing in the league

-- If the WSOP rep cashes in the WSOP, the profit would be divided up amongst all of the people who participated in the league, proportional to their point standing

-- Any money left over (extra interest, if they enter a few smaller WSOP events, etc.) -- or if the winner decided not to (or could not) go to the WSOP -- would be similarly divided up proportionally amongst the participants in the league

The idea is that people can participate in the WSOP tourney league games at their leisure. If they can't make one week, they aren't penalized, but the more games they play (even if they don't cash), the more equity they build up in the stake.

This should encourage people to continue to play even if they have no hope of catching the leader because they gain an equity stake in him, and they also get an immediate payout for the tournament.

Nothing particularly new under the sun, but I figured I'd tell you how we were thinking about doing it, Pal.