Last year I sent $500 to Doctors Without Borders with our WSOP pool.

This year, I hope to send even more.
You can help me do that.

I'll be running a WSOP on PokerStars from July 16-August 15

Everyone can make guesses as to the best countries and best players.

The more correct guesses - the more $ I'll send to Doctors Without Borders.

$10 for every correct guess of best poker playing country.
$100 for every correct guess of best player on best country.
$1000 for every correct guess of best player overall.

Maximum of $3000 (I'm not made of money!).

I'll start accepting guesses on July 1st and continue until July 15th.
Everyone gets 1 guess per day so you could submit 15 guesses.

Play along: if you are a PokerStars player, you can play and try and help your country win.

Know nothing about poker? - just tell us you want to help raise money and we'll put a random guess in for you.

Much more info to come but I figured I'd put this here a few days in advance so we'll have lots of Doctors Without Borders volunteers ready to go on the 1st.

I approve of this

Thanks Xander.

Hope everyone spreads the word.

A series of tips for those making their own picks: Picking your country.

We're going to use some "play money" tournaments as well as the "real money" tournaments to determine this.
That means that all countries are in the running. Even USA, France, Spain, Italy, Australia etc who cannot play for real money will be in the running for best country.

I've ran similar before and usually the mid-sized countries do the best. The ones with too many poker players or too few are at a disadvantage.

Expecting at least 1000 entries here (at 70 people X 15 entries each).
Doctors Without Borders is working to stop the spread of COVID-19 in poor countries.

No $ needed to help out.
Don't even need to put in an entry - just say you want to.

The more entries - the more $ to Doctors Without Borders.

Will def in to in.
Will 90% submit an entry too.

I'll also match 5% of whatever you end up donating.

Thanks iraisetoomuch.
Appreciate it.

Info for those making their own picks: the schedule

We'll be including the most prestigious weekend tournament for each game type
+
All the tournaments played by our participating 2+2ers
+
up to 4 tournaments per day nominated by our entrants

to have a tournament nominated, just add a post with the tournament # (before the tournament starts)
(this also applies to our participating 2+2ers - add a post with the tournament #s that you plan to play that day)

No tournament with more than 999 entrants will be allowed (would swamp our other data)

Just to get the ball rolling, I'm announcing my July 1st picks early.

I'm taking Ireland with POGger rtspurs leading the way
For overall, I'll take nilsef from Germany.

Hopefully, this will light a fire under other 2+2ers who still play poker.
Hope you will join us by not only making your 15 picks but playing along as well.

If you want to guarantee your 15 picks just post saying "count me in"
Doesn't cost anything and won't take more than a few seconds
You'll be helping those less fortunate than us

I'm in (and will play)
iraisetoomuch is in
xander biscuits isn't in yet but he gave us a thumbs up so I'm sure he will be

That's 45 entries - looking for at least 1000

just type "count me in" in a post here to join us and help Doctors Without Borders

count me in and kudos to raising $ for and/or donating to a good cause

I would submit an entry, but not sure how to pick players when I haven't been on Stars in years

Thanks AllInNTheDArk. That should get us up to 60 entries.

I don't play as much as I used to and I needed to set something up for the random picks.
I decided to look at recent big money tournaments and collect the names of those who cashed.
One thing I haven't announced yet is that a player needs to play in at least 2 different games to qualify. So make sure your player can at least play PLO

I made my first MVP pick POGger rtspurs. A perfect pick I think.
Can play all the games? check
Is good at all the games? Check
From a country not too big or too small? Check.

However, for your overall pick, it doesn't matter what country he/she is from.

For myself, I'll probably be picking the old-timers who I remember playing with and who are still cashing (like nilsef).

count me in (and I definitely know nothing about poker)

Thanks lgl. That gets us up to about 75 entries.

for those doing their own picks: which tournaments are allowable

only ones with a unambiguous finishing order

no knockouts
no satellites
no rebuys
no restricted entry

re-entries are OK but each re-entry counts as a separate entry

count me in
(what else do I need to do?)

count me in

I'm feeling lucky

count me in. will need help with random pick.

Nothing to do. It's that simple!

However, if you wanted to cheer for your picks when play starts on July 16th we wouldn't stop you!

We were so confident that you would help us out that we already counted your 15 in the total.

You can make your own picks if you like or just sit back and let our randomizing program do it for you.

Thanks Swingto.

That brings our total to 105 entries.

Don't worry about you picks, our randomizing program will do all the work for you.

I would pick people, but I have no idea what my consideration set is.
Is that something you can post?

Also, EVERYONE SIGN UP. You literally can just post 'in' and that's it if you want.

Thanks iraisetoomuch. That brings our total to 120.

I've been adding the rules a bit at a time because I don't want to scare the "I don't know anything about poker" crowd into thinking they need to do something.

Look below for the way it'll be scored.

for those who are making their own picks: the scoring

I've already explained which tournaments will be included. Now for the scoring.

For every tournament, every player gets 1 win for every other player they finish ahead of and 1 loss for every other player that finishes ahead of them.
All Out-Of-The-Money finishes are considered to be ties.
This creates a zero sum total (all wins = all losses for all players)
Every player has 2 scores:
Quantity: wins minus losses
Quality: wins/(wins + losses)
They are ranked on these two criteria against every other player.
The two rankings are then combined to get a final ranking.

The country scoring is just the same except we add up all the data from all players from that country.

To qualify for Country MVP or WSOP MVP a player must appear in at least 2 different games.
That would be 2 game types (holdem, omaha, draw, stud or mixed)
OR
Two limit variations (no limit, pot limit, fixed limit or mixed limit)
OR
Two hi/lo variations (high, low or hi/lo)

Even if they don't qualify for an MVP their stats are still included in their country's stats.

As you can see, all countries that have too few or too many players have a slim chance of winning.
Countries with only a few players will have poor quantity.
Countries with a lot of players will have poor quality.

That will get rid of a lot of players: all the NLH only players.
That will get rid of a lot of players who can't win Country MVP: all Russian, German, British and Canadian players.

Some countries will be given a boost because of tax or PokerStars reasons: Mexico, Austria and Malta.

Some countries chances will be totally unknown: USA, France, Italy, Spain, Australia etc because they are only allowed to play in "play money" tournaments.

If you want to make your own picks but you have a question about any of this, let me know.

Why this WSOP is better than the "real" WSOP being run by Caesars Entertainment.

1) Their WSOP is really WSOFG - The World Series Of Flop Games. We include the draw, stud and mixed games. All of poker. BTW, "badugi" is not a poker game - It will not be used in our WSOP.

2) Their MVP awards are open only to those who play a lot of tournaments. You can try and buy your MVP by enrering everything and rebuying in everything. We take into account all the OOTMs too. Quality is just as important as quantity.