That's quite an elaborate move. Where did Polk learn that?

I'd be more interested in seeing rake per hour of play for a fair comparison of live mtt providers. That's the best way to assess value for money.

If the median player lasts 5 hours in a 500+100, but 3 hours in a 500+75, who gets the better deal in terms of hourly cost? And is the skill edge in a slower structure worth the extra 25 rake in terms of roi?

Wow talk about getting defensive.

And by the way, I just looked at your structure and let's see, you skip 300-500, you go from 1000-2000 to 1500-3000. No 1200-2400 level.

And you skip the 2500-5000 level. Just from 2000-4000 to 3000-6000.

And no 12,000-24,000 goes right from 10,000-20,000 to 15,000-30,000.

So I'm glad you can toot the horn of all the top tournament guys you have and blah blah but the fact remains your tournament skips a bunch of important levels. And for a 500k guarantee it shouldn't be like that. But I guess according to you the structure is wonderful.

Not surprising based on how he replied to my structure comments. Dude wants to tout his great staff rather than listen to feedback.

That's one way of looking at, the other is that the tournament is among the most popular of its peers, and other people have a different perspective on what is important.

Ban Doug from social media immediately.

Guess you know how it feels now.

I would personally delete 100/100 and 100/200 and start at 100/200/200 and add a couple of the levels you describe. But other players do love starting with super deep stacks and getting "bang for their buck". 4 hours in for a $600 tourney, a starting stack is 40 blinds, so can't really call it a bad structure overall regardless.

Hi Doug:

First, congratulations on having a highly successful cardroom.

Second, I'm not sure my post will have any value, but here goes.

On of the things that I try to bring out in my book Cardrooms: Everything Bad and How to Make Them Better is that there needs to be a proper balance of many things for a poker room to be successful. And this balance, especially when it comes to rake, can certainly vary from poker room to poker room.

Specifically, this means two things when it comes to rake. First, the cardroom needs to not only make a profit but also needs to cover any additional expenses that it might have, and your example of new dealer chairs is an example of this. But second, poker room management needs to be aware of the effect, in the long term, the rake will have on the overall health of the games, and this is an area where most poker room management often fails (and I'm not implying that this is the case at The Lodge).

So, how do you judge whether the rake is too high for the long term success of the games? I wish there was an easy answer, but I think there are two things that can come into play.

First, is experience. Have you observed the number of games being reduced over time when the rake is at a certain level, or the size of the games getting smaller (and this can also be caused by the expert players having too large an edge), or the need to hire props.

Second, what is the economic outlook for the area where the poker room is located? If it's good as compared to poor, the rake can be higher and the needed balance will still be there.

Also, and this is very important, just because your poker room is full today doesn't mean it will be full a year from now or five years from now. This is another place where experience as to how the rake is affecting the games in the long term will come into play.

Best wishes,
Mason

Doug’s Polker Room.

The guy is a sociopath, how most of the poker world hasn't realized this is amazing, or maybe most have and just don't care.

Can I have something as bitter as you guys are having? No one is perfect, Polk certainly isn't either; what he did to me at that 5/10 table was despicable. But he's done a lot of good for poker and it should be pretty clear by now that apart from that 5/10 incident where he angled me specifically, which definitely happened, he's a standup guy. Bunch of the comments itt are a pretty big joke. If you intend to clear your name fully, Doug, by all means hit me up so we can figure out how to wire that $30k you owe me.

Yeah I would like your idea. And I get it there is little incentive to change anything if this place keeps getting huge fields. But imo skipping the 1200-2400, 2500-5000, 12000-24000 starts ruining the skill and it becomes a card catching shovefest too soon..At least that's what I think anyways with a 500k guarantee.

I do think tournaments could be better value to the player but tbh the time rake is really reasonable for the quality of service in cash games. Isn't it 10$/hr?

Anyone that took this post seriously should be banned from the internet for lack of critical thinking skills. These are the same people that fall for Nigerian Prince scams.

The guy cant even afford shirts with sleeves. Let him rake a little more.

Should the guarantee matter, or the buyin? Like Doug said, you're penalizing them for having too many runners.

In the Lodge Monthly Monster $600, a start stack is 40 bigs 4 hours in. In WSOP Event #11, $600 Deepstack, a start stack is 30 bigs 4 hours in. Even 8 hours in, level 16 at Lodge, start stack is 4 bigs and at WSOP it's 5 bigs, so not some giant disparity that deep. So when exactly is it becoming a card catching shovefest compared to other $600 tournies?

The page you linked for memberships is clear to me. Three different membership rates (day, month, year) but I will use the day, $10/day. Then there is the hourly club access fee, $10/hr.

So for 1 day playing 10 hrs the cost is $110 or $11/hr, $6.50 per 30 min down which is well aligned with the typical $7/down seat fee I have seen in many casinos.

^^I don't know about The Lodge specifically but these clubs often have happy hours and no entrance fee times etc so it can usually be cheaper than that even

Not sure I follow. Keep defending your buddy while I suffer on Skid Row. The guy ruined my life when I decided to take a shot 4rollz and you're talking about Nigerian Prince scams... shame on you!

This just shows how people will sing a different tune once they become an operator.

Dougs no different than negreanu at this point.

Once you go over 15% rake and first prize is the house then something is wrong.

Rake probably should be closer to 10%. This is a problem lately in live low stakes tournaments across the country. Rake is creeping into the 20s and if I recall I read a thread of something close to 30.

Once operators realize the inelastic demand of lol live low stakes donkament fields this is only going to get worse.

Unless of course Doug sets the precedent of charging at max 15-12-10 % or whatever.

Also what is the nonsense of leaving it up to the pros?

Doug you’re the pro of pros. The supposed peoples champ. But now you’ve lost yourself and you’re people if you’re going to side w more rake is better.

I mean you are comparing this to a wsop event? That gets a gazillion entries? C'mon that's not a fair comparison.

My point is when you skip key levels it quickly transform the tournament into a shovefest and that penalizes the good player.

If there's anything I realized regarding this rake debate over the years, it's that most poker players don't consider the operators perspective and things he has to consider at all. Fedor Holz mentioned this as well when he started working with GG. There's a lot that goes into rake considerations, like covering all sorts of expenses we don't factor in and factoring in how to maintain a healthy player pool, which rake has a lot to do with. There's a case to be made about what rake percentage is reasonable and criticism should always be voiced when you think you've got a point to make, but you guys should really look at both perspectives when making a case against a certain policy.

Sent from my Skid Row tent using FML

Don't have an opinion about tourney fees but I doubt that he rejected the possibility that more rake is more profitable for a poker room (although in fact it can be excessive even from this point of view as MM elaborates).

I think what he was mocking was the idea that more rake is better for the *players*.

You also penalize the good player if a chunk of recs don’t show up anymore because they a) don’t want to spend all day in the poker room and b) like the gamble and better chances of winning.