I am in a minority but I play poker for the enjoyment of it. I am well off financially and the range of tournaments I play (say 400 to 1,500) are such that even I never cash for the year I am not harmed in any way. I am very competitive though and want to do well. The amount of cash you win minus the amount you pay is my way of keeping score. Most years I am plus or minus $5,000.

That was a round about way of saying I will look at the buy in and then the S-points of an event to determine if I will play. I don't think I have ever looked at the amount of the rake. If you give me play I am happy to pay a little more just as I am happy to pay more for a superior golf course or a nicer room.

Can you please move to and play in my town?

Only play tournaments so I doubt I would increase your EV much. If it helps I am in Vegas for the Venetian deepstack March 14 to 21st and the WSOP June 17 to 30 th, lol.

Sure, that's how you justify it, but we don't all look at things the same. From my perspective, I only care if it's more profitable. Rake could be 25% or 30% for all I care, but if after all the rake the tournament in Austin is more profitable for me to play than the WSOP event, then I'd rather play the event in Austin. Others look at it differently than that, perhaps they enjoy the convenience of playing events in their home town rather than having to fly to Vegas.

Whatever the case may be, it sounds like these tournaments are doing very well. Anecdotally, last night at my table in Dallas, both grinders and rec players alike were talking "Are you going to Austin" "When are you going to Austin?" Dallas is a 3 hour drive from Austin but it's clear that these tournaments are generating a buzz that players are willing to travel to play them, regardless of the rake.

You are unbelievably tiresome and nitty, pretty much in all threads.

Did The Lodge struggle with players to hit the guarantee? Was it close? The goal is to build the tournaments and make it most enjoyable across the board (and yes, while turning a profit large enough to make it worth the time and effort), not just to make them for people like you who would prefer 4 hour levels and a 500k starting stack.

Congrats! Nice score. Appreciate the kind words about the Lodge.

As for the other posts

- I did not say that a higher fee is good for the players. The point I was making is that we are investing in improving player experience. There's an important difference between "Paying more is good for you" and "We are spending an increased portion of revenue on improving the player experience." I am making the second point.

- a $100 fee on a $600 mtt is somewhat high but still within a reasonably competitive range. This buyin/fee was set before I partnered with the business. We will monitor our buyins and if they need to be restructured we will do so.

- The Lodge has some of the cheapest cash games to play in the entire country.

- Only in NVG can someone say they "cycle and swam" to the Lodge from Amsterdam to Austin, Texas and have their post be dissected seriously. (Lol)

Every post I've ever seen you make is harassing people or whining.

Don't like the structure, don't play. Nobody likes Kessler chainsaws.

Guys he didn’t say more rake is better for you; he said more rake is better for your experience

To be fair he could have talked about Amsterdam in the state of New York . But yeah it was obviously a joke.

For some reason I didn't really pay much attention to the "I cycled and swam" part. I thought it was some kind of phrase I didn't know. Like it meant "I hurried up" or something. But the notion that Doug pulled a Torelli and subsequently threatened to fire a staffmember like some sunday morning cartoon villain should have made it clear that it was a joke. My bad

The structure skips key levels. You can attack me all you want but just because the place gets lots of players for the tournament doesn't mean it can't be made better. With the levels that thing skips it becomes a luckbox card catching contest way too soon. But yes blame me tough guy.

If they added more levels most of these guys will probably still donk off their stacks one way or another and complain about something else.

IMHO the best thing a professional serious MTT player can have is a tourney where there is a very high number of low poker skilled entrants, much lower than his own skill level. If a tourney can attract a bunch more recreational players than the typical tourney due to the organizers spending more dollars on marketing and on player amenities, an extra 1% of rake is worth paying.

We've come full circle... I think....

Dnegs shilling for pokerstars by saying "More rake is better" is the thought process he was trying to convey, at least that's what he was saying after the comment went viral. "More rake is better..." Because it runs off regs and bad players do not care about high rake.

Doug and his social media team took the phrase and ran with it... and who can blame them?

The whole thing ended up with Doug winning a millball off of Dnegs a few years later.

In that regard, Doug played it well...

But to your comment, I think we've finally come full circle on this topic.

I understand your point. If I lived in Austin, would I play the tourney down the road at the lodge, go to Winstar Oklahoma, go to Louisiana or fly to Vegas?

It obviously makes sense to play in Austin.

However, from my perspective, I am not in Texas, it costs the same for me to fly to Austin vs. flying to Vegas.

Room accommodations in Austin cost more than they do in Vegas and I know all of the legalities for events being held in Vegas. Everything is black and white for Vegas tournaments.

I have no idea what I am getting myself into when going to Texas to play in a poker room that operates in a gray area with (presumably) no sort of gaming commission.

Other jurisdictions remit their fees to the government to fund this enforcement arm, and many of the gaming funds are earmarked for specific state initiatives, such as funding scholarships for college students, etc... Doug's claim is that he is re-investing this money into his investment that the state would otherwise be taking in other jurisdictions.

I wont harp on this point anymore, but would Vegas/Oklahoma/Louisiana games cost less in rake, if they didn't have all the government overhead? I dont know. But it's food for thought.

Anyways, if Doug is getting 2k entrants or whatever someone else said, probably doesn't need my business anyways nor is someone like me, his target clientele.

the examples you post are the exact opposite of what you describe and only exist to allow nits to wait for aces. it's a tournament, people need to go bust sometime, if you want to play 200bb deep for twelve hours the cash games are that way

This kind of begs the question as to why you are in this discussion whatsoever.

Because the title compares it to a WSOP event and the title of the forum contains the word Views and I have a View + I have played a WSOP event.

As a consumer, am I not allowed to perform my own research regarding the value of a tournament and provide my viewpoint?

9 handed live poker is already quite slow; I for one pretty strongly prefer a fast structure. I don't play live poker very much, but I'm considering driving 2 hours to play a 1500, 500k GTD in Cincinatti this weekend. You're in the money (or perhaps still right on the bubble) by the beginning of Day 2. I wouldn't consider it if the schedule was much slower.

In one sense, a winning player has his winrate decrease as the average stacks get very shallow, on the other hand, busting quickly allows such a player to join and quickly earn in other games.

fwiw, playing around with solvers for MTT play makes it clear that many/most people make a fair number of mistakes in shallow play, even with <10bb stacks

You seem to be bitching about a tournament that you will never partake in, in a place you will possibly never even visit. You're welcome to your opinion though, but really this is a big nothing-burger of a thread which is not even remotely NVG-worthy. the only reason it's here at all is because Doug Polk is a part owner. I'm sure he appreciates the free publicity this thread has provided though.

The Lodge needs a full set of Paulson chips, real talk

I asked you a specific yes or no question.

The words yes or no, do not appear in your response.

Can you answer my question? I answered your question.

Right or then would be bitching that it's a $600 why am I in Day 2 and not in the money yet, or hey I played Day 1A and bagged so couldn't play the other flights, and then busted on Day 2 pre money why can't we be in the money Day 1???

This argument has been around for 15 years, exhausted through Kessler. It doesn't work. Recreational players don't want more levels, they want luckbox card catching contests. Tournament directors and poker venues also prefer fewer levels because they can churn out the rake quicker on a per hour basis and it also means less hours paid to staff for completing the tournament. If customers reached a point of finding this too egregious, they wouldn't play. As it stands, the room is getting filled. It sounds like the structure is not a problem from a profitability standpoint. You can say "but adding a few levels makes it better!"... maybe not. Maybe those few levels makes it run a little longer and you get some recreational players not wanting to show up. The room just cares about filling the room, and if the room is filling up on their "bad" structure they could care less.

Tournament directors see someone shouting into the void asking for more levels and they say "that is not my customer". You as a private citizen can respond by taking your business elsewhere or building a competitor.

I don't mean any ill will to you, I just notice that you either attack people or whine and it doesn't seem to be getting you anywhere. You can at least count on the main event to have the number of levels you'd like, and I think LA/Vegas have those random ironman tournaments. And there are the other big tournaments throughout the year that aren't luckbox shovefests. But the economics of a poker room are not conducive to more levels and you, as the person asking for more levels, are not the target customer. That's all there is to it.

I'm not trying to be a tough guy, just stating what I've observed through countless years of Kesslers getting more levels and it reaching a point where the play got too slow. I also reached a point where I got to be a more recreational player and I see the value in these 1 day tournaments because I can blow off steam for a day and have fun and then go back to my family. Multi day ironman shenanigans, while more pure for people who pay bills with poker, are just not worth the time investment. I can choose to not play (and I do) but enough people choose to not play and the poker room notices. The structures we see are the happy equilibrium of people showing up and the room getting their rake.

A lot of recs absolutely do want more chips, more levels, they want to "get to play poker for a while." Many of them SHOULD want luckbox card catching contests but don't.

But those interests have to be balanced against the interests of the other players, as well as the room.