So I know it's really early on in the year but I'm starting this discussion early because things planned well in advance have a greater chance of being successful.

I have got 3 games planned for WSOP 2018:

WSOP Fantasy League

- Pick 10 players with a given salary and most POY points scored by a team wins.
- $20 entry
- Winner/High Finishers get money

WSOP PEEHS

- Prediction based questions will be asked and you have to come up with the most obscure correct answer
- Free to enter
- "2018 WSOP PEEHS Winner" as an undertitle for the winner (I have not checked this yet with the powers to be, but can't see too many problems with this

WSOP Guesstamania

- Numerical prediction based questions will be asked and you have to guess the answer. Closer you are to the actual answer then the better you score.
- Free to enter
- "2018 WSOP Guesstamania Winner" as an undertitle for the winner (I have not checked this yet with the powers to be, but can't see too many problems with this

If you want to make comments or suggest changes/improvements then this is the place and the time to do it.
If you play in the summer and point out to me how I should have done things differently then I will point you to this thread.

I'll bump this when I have more definite things to share.

Fantasy League

Working out the salaries is something I do each year and it's a real PITA for a few reasons:
1). There are a lot of players
2). There are a lot of slight name changes
3). There are POY formula changes practically every year and because I weight the past 3 years performance then it creates a lot of issues

Last year's POY list seems really limited because it's only got the top 100 players.

I plan to simplify things by moving away from what I've done the past few years:

Here's the GPI WSOP points list.
It's complete, it's easy to look at points for individual events and it's updated fairly promptly through the year.

I propose that I will use the GPI 2017 points only to determine the salaries. The salary will be one third of the 2017 points earned capped at 800 points. Every player will cost at least 75 points. You'll have 1500 points to spend on exactly 10 players. Highest GPI WSOP Points for their team wins.

Some potential issues I'm aware of:

-It gives some insane value for a player who regularly crushes but skipped the WSOP last year/had an off year.
-It vastly over prices people who ran hot last year.

But to both of those I'd argue that it's a level playing field and part of drafting your team is to realise who's good value and who's overpriced.

Other changes from last year will be what happens when your team is over budget:

Last year I would give you time to change it and if you didn't I'd remove players to make the team within the budget. Others rightly argued that if you wanted 9 players on your team then all you'd have to do is pick a 10th player, ignore requests to change the team and then wait for me to remove the 10th player. To prevent this potential angle If your team is over budget and you don't change it in time then I'll remove players until your team is within a budget of 1425.

Cliffs on changes from last year:

-2017 WSOP Points from the GPI used to calculate salaries
-GPI Points used to score the competition
-Overbudget teams will be more harshly dealt with

Comments and criticisms welcomed

I'm in.

yup

I also need an escrow for the Fantasy League

that_pope did a great job last year but as a murican he can't accept starts transfers as payment.

I would prefer someone reputable who can accept both paypal and stars, but I will seriously consider all offers.

Alternatively, perhpas could you base the salaries on the overall GPI rankings from last year? This would lessen, but not totally eliminate, the relative effect of last year's WSOP.

i.e. a great player who didn't do much at the 2017 WSOP (or skipped it altogether) would still have his/her other tournament results factored into his value. Similarly, a lesser player who happened to run hot at the Rio last spring would have his/her overall value reduced.

Using the overall GPI rankings would raise the value of the likes of Bryn Kenney and Jason Koon, who were among the world's top tourney performers but ranked lower on the WSOP POY list; while reducing the value of players like, say, Chris Ferguson and Ray Henson.

Then once the teams are formed, you would proceed as planned: use the 2018 WSOP POY system to actually score the teams.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. As you said, the playing field remains level, and success comes down to identifying overpriced vs. underpriced players, regardless of the system. Just suggesting a possible system that might even out the differences.

Another possibility that might reduce your workload is to restrict the player pool to a specific list (e.g. only the top 300 from last year's GPI, or bracelet winners only). To be honest, I haven't thought it through as to whether this really saves you any work. But if it can reduce the "PITA" factor, then I'm all for it.


I like it. It is effectively penalizing a team by reducing its cap by 75 points, which is fairly substantial in our league. Or you could really disincentivize over-budget neglect by removing players from the top down.

I appreciate both ideas but I'm not really sold on either of them to be honest.

I think if we use GPI yearly points instead of WSOP points then it's one too many steps removed from what we're judging people on. It involves different tournaments than the WSOP and only uses your best few tournaments to calculate it. It doesn't make anything easier for me and it doesn't seem to add much to the fantasy league other than making different players over/under valued.

I agree that limiting the pool of selectable players would make things easier for me, but it would dramatically reduce the enjoyment factor. It's a great feeling when you come up with a really good off-list player for your team.

The reason that the harsher penalty is in place for over budget teams isn't to punish people who are careless but to remove the potential angle. I don't feel vindictive enough to remove their highest value player out of spite.

I'm also very open to running this how people want it run. So if other people agree with Wilbury and disagree with me then please speak up and I'll change things to suit the players.

I've calculated the salaries if we go with what I've suggested and there are 2021 players with a salary of 76 or higher. It was soooo much easier to calculate than in previous years.

I'm in. For all the games...

And I'm good with whatever format you choose. You've put all the thought into it, so there's nothing I can really add. As always, thx!

I've looked a little further at the sorts of teams you could make and I've come to the conclusion that 1/3 of last year's points is too high. If you picked anyone from your team from the top 50 then you'd be restricted to mostly unsalaried players for the rest of your team. There would also be no possibility in having 2 players from the top 100 in your team.

I'm now thinking that 1/4 of last year's points is more appropriate.

It has been suggested that I act as escrow for the Fantasy League.

I'd be willing to do it if others are happy but here's the deal:

I'm in the UK. I have a UK PayPal Account that I've used perhaps twice in my life to send money for fantasy leagues. I'm not sure if there are fees to sending internationally. I would also like to know about potential pitfalls such as time/money restrictions or other security measures I should be taking when collecting money. Some help with this would be appreciated for a n00b. I'd normally just muddle through and figure it out as I go, but I obviously want to be responsible with the money of other people.

I also have a PokerStars account that I can collect money on which should be good for non Americans.

I would obviously pay people out on their preferred method of payment, but I figure there will be fees involved which I guess are unavoidable.

What do people think?

So long as this is true, then I'm happy with whatever you choose to do. You're the one doing all the work. When I ran WSOP fantasy leagues at PokerRoad, we had maybe 12-20 people and eight-person teams. So I totally appreciate how much effort you and the other spreadsheet warriors put into this!

As for your PayPal questions, I just looked up my own account to see my sending options to the UK. Looks like it costs 0.5 percent of the transaction amount, assuming I use my PayPal balance. EDIT: note that this could be of concern to you when it comes to awarding prizes at the end, as you would end up incurring a sizable fee from being the sender.

Looking forward to it. I don't care who the escrow is since I doubt worrying about how to get paid will be an issue for me.

I’ll be in this year again.

Would be cool to do a draft if people want to do a smaller league with also the main bigger league. Basically like a snake draft would be amazing. Could run ITT and people can watch on.

I’m in.
Love the prediction comp, similar to the one I did a few years back.

The snake draft is fun, but it works better after day 3 which means it has to be done quickly after the day ends, as we did with the last longer a couple of years ago.

Guesstamania ideas

• Number of main event entries (obviously)
• Combined age of final 9
• Age of the oldest person in final 9
• number of chips of the chip leader of final 9
• total entries of colossus
• dnegs total cash value (or any other well known player)
• chainsaw min cashes
• highest day 1 main event chip stack
• shortest day 1 main event chip stack
• reported number of men to enter the ladies event (last year was zero? so maybe not)
• Phill hellmuth main event seat time, as reported on the blog, to the minute.
• number of events played by phil ivey (or other recluse)
• Combined cashes of the mizrachi brothers
• number of combined bracelets won by anyone who appeared on high stakes poker
• number of kevmath tweets from official start time of the wsop (Wed, May 30th 11:00 AM) to the end of the last days action (midnight that day, whatever day it be)
• total number of entries for all events
• number of re-entries for event 34 or 62
  

I already have a few of those on my list and I might also steal a few of those suggestions

I would add one that I used the other year.

Event number when a player achieves a second bracelet of the summer.