Quote:
Originally Posted by SendIt22
Why did you reduce the guarantee of the High Roller on 28th May?
This seems highly unethical given that you have already been running sats for this event. Players might have only played the sats because of the previously advertised 'guarantee'.
The decision to reduce our guarantee to $1.25M was not taken easily or lightly, but our $10K buy-in is bringing with it some risk that we were not willing to accept so early in our life, as an operator hoping to be in for the space for a long time. We’ve said from the start that we’re going to try to be as transparent as possible and also listen to the playing community. I ‘d like to think that this post reflects our commitment to both.
The main and obvious risk to offering a guarantee over $2.5M today is financial, and we'll make no secret that the scale of expected overlay into a single Super High Roller event will put pressure on our business in only its second month of tournament operations, that is simply not sensible. Furthermore and a major consideration was our uncertainty in being able to deliver the development and configuration in time for full testing, to ensure we can even successfully run a 3-day event. The risk of the event not working perfectly is not one worth taking, so with these things combined we decided to change the structure and reduce it to a 2-day event, and where we have successfully already run a tournament (last weekend).
I’ll openly share some notes around this;
• We ran very few satellites so far to this event and most of the value has been in added money. We also wanted to take any such decision as early as possible. Changes to events is not uncommon and happens in our space... If we do it, we'd prefer it wasn't a surprise on the day of, or even week-of.
• We contacted the TWO players registered about this. They were given the option of staying in the new event (with over $1M Guarantee) or provided with a buy-in refund. Pleasing to already have 3 players registered in the event since the change.
• We consulted with members of our Pro Committee who are the most likely players in said event – something we established for key decisions and changes. The general feedback was that this was a sound business decision.
• We will still be offering $4M in Guarantees in May. We are not trying to make a saving of the difference in guarantee, but rather spread the spend across the month. The $1.5M GTD difference will be invested throughout other events in May to give more players at more levels and limits the opportunity to play, and also give us more $1k and $5k events.
• We decided at the same time to still offer players tremendous Sunday value through our 21st May $500K GTD event ($320 buy-in). This is going to overlay significantly but this wasn’t just about overlays. We’ve knowingly and happily put tournaments out to overlay thus far.
• We finished our first month of MTTs with well over $100k+ in overlays, and already over $150k in the first week of May, that has been honoured and paid out.
• A $1.25M guarantee on the 28th remains no small feat. We require 125 Super High Roller level entries. For a site in just its second full month of tournament operations, I believe that to be unprecedented in our industry. We will continue to satellite many players into it this month, and I’d love see a recreational player take it down.
• And finally but critically, we’ve been getting messages such as this –
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...4&postcount=62 – requesting that we reintroduce our smaller daily guarantees instead of the feeder satellites that we’d need to run to make that $2.5m guarantee anyway near viable. We’re still getting up and running, finding our feet and what’s best for our players. Our Daily schedule and guarantees will grow and stretch.
We believe everything we’ve done to-date is with best of intent, and we will continue to do so.
To your comment about ethics or guarantee advertising, we won’t be hiding when the going gets tough. It is worth reminding that we are offering Freeroll satellites up into $500k GTD; $1k and $5k buy-in events, and for as little as $110 into the $10k buy-in - and will continue to do so, while ever people support what we are doing. I would be surprised if you are able to Freeroll up into a GG Masters HIGH/SUPER or Sunday Million, let alone a SCOOP-H. For any step satellite or freeroll players trying to break through, they will need to make a call for themselves if still willing and interested to do so, with $2M still on the table for Sundays in May.
We’re doing our best to be different, and hopefully better, but this was a necessary risk-based decision to ensure we can safely and smartly continue to do so.
Last edited by Heytch; 05-11-2023 at 09:19 AM.