Quote:
Originally Posted by ACR Rep
Thank you for your suggestions, yes this is definitely something that needs improvement. We will move it up on the list.
You’ll have to make a first time deposit in order to get the bonus.
We are currently working on a new tournament schedule (scheduled to launch circa October 1st) and this is being taken into consideration for this creation.
Micro MTTs are definitely needed, but I urge you to take a look at your entire <$10 tournament situation before you make any more changes.
At one point I wrote to you and urged you to add some micro SNGs, and you have done that. However, in my mail I also urged you not to offer more levels, types and variants than your player pool will support. (This eventually became a problem on PokerStars when I played there, even with their huge player pool.)
I signed on to play on ACR about an hour ago. I realize that early afternoon (US eastern time) on Monday usually isn't prime time, but this is a US holday, with most federal employess having the day off. I expected at least a little SNG traffic.
I signed on a little after 1300 and set my filters for any tournament under $10. The first NLHE MTT with a buy-in under $10 was going off at 1600. (There were inexpensive satellites, but nearly all of those have rebuys, often unlmited, so I don't check those any more.)
I looked at all of the NLHE SNGs under $10, and none was more than half full. I choose a $3 9-max SNG that had 4 players registered, and I registered as the 5th player. 10 minutes later, no new SNGs had started play, and there were only 3 of us registered for my SNG.
Your small SNG player pool is divided into way too many pieces: $1, $3 and $5; regular, turbo, and hyper-turbo; 6- and 9-max; Final Table Experience SNGs (which with 6-minute blind levels and a starting M of 32 might as well be called turbos); and 6- and 10-man DONs. During the ten minutes I waited I kept scanning, and nothing filled up.
If you took out some of the options, for example, dropping the $3 level and all the hyperturbos, a few of the 1 or 2 players waiting to play in one of those might have tried something else, and I might have actually been able to play a SNG on a US holiday afternoon.
If you are going to add micro MTTs (and I agree that they are needed), that makes it even more important that you cull the SNG field, and knocking out a level plus the hyperturbos won't be enough. I just checked again, and traffic is increasing a bit, with 9 SNGs currently running, but there are still only 11 players registered for a SNG, and those players are scattered over different types and levels.
If the SNG player pool looks like that on a US holdiay, what's going to happen to micro SNGs if they have to compete wth $1 MTTs?
I know that this sounds drastic, but I believe that you need to consider cutting the SNG offerings way back, maybe just $1 and $5 9-man regular speed SNGs to start (all nine SNGs currently running are 9-max). You need to get people used to going to the SNG lobbly and being able to play a SNG without waiting for 10 minutes or more.
Once that's done, the micros become viable again. Consider this scenario:
Joe has four hours free to play online poker, and at 1242 he enters an ACR $1 MTT scheduled for 1300. After 90 minutes Joe busts out of the MTT, but he still has more than two free hours. He looks at the SNG lobby, finds a $1 SNG, 4 minutes later he's playing, and he cashes. Joe is happy, and he makes a mental note to sign on at the same time tomorrow.
Of course, this could work the other way around. If it's 1242 and Joe wants to play a micro MTT scheduled for 1500, he can play a SNG while he's waiting.
If someone has a better idea I would love to hear it, but IMO radically cutting back the number of SNG offerings is the only way that both micro SNGs and micro MTTs can be viable on ACR, given the current size of the player pool.
Last edited by Poker Clif; 09-03-2012 at 02:20 PM.
Reason: Inserted "NLHE" in paragraph 4 for accuracy.