In one of my many moments of idle day-dreaming I had an idea for a tournament format. I don't know if it really is something new, or if I'm re-inventing the wheel. If it is a new idea, the question then remains - Is it a good one, or have I in fact invented a square wheel? So, for what it's worth, here it is .... The goals ~~~~~~ Make it more likely that skilled play will be rewarded at each event, and rely less on the long run of several events to convert an edge into a profit. Make it less likely that a player may be eliminated early on. That is, offer a structure which guarantees that you get to play a number of tables (without the need to rebuy). Borrow some ideas that will be familiar to poker players, to make them feel at home. (Possibly a controversial goal, that one.) The Idea ~~~~~ Borrowing from the points-awarding, league model that has been discussed in the past, and the old GPC Sit-n-Go league table idea, have a tournament in which - For your buyin (plus entry fee) you receive a notional amount of 'funny money'. You may then use this to fund your entry into a series of relatively short Sit-n-Gos. Periodically, an amount equal to one Sit-n-Go entry fee will be deducted from your balance, in addition to those for the actual tables you play. Periodically, the entry-fee for a Sit-n-Go will be increased, much like raising the blinds/ante in a poker tournament. (Thus, if you just sit on your hands and don't play, then you will eventually be eliminated when you don't have enough left to cover your entry into a Sit-n-Go.) That's basically it. Such a tournament could go on for a considerable length of time, as the remaining players increase their bankrolls, and the payout structure could be quite deep. There are some issues and details that would have to be addressed - To avoid collusion and to prevent the best players from being shunned by the rest of us, you would have to be allocated to tables randomly each time you register to play your next one, rather than actually picking a seat. I'm not sure whether a range of Sit-n-Go buyins should be offered, with the minimum buyin being periodically raised, or if all the tables at any one time should be subject to the same buyin. Similarly I'm not sure if the number of players per table should be fixed (perhaps all heads-up), or if a range of options should be offered. What happens when you get down to the last few players (and ultimately the last two), is a tricky question. Possibly there should come a point where it reverts to an elimination format (perhaps with the bankrolls gained during the Sit-n-Go phase used as the starting chipstacks). I'm not sure I like that, but a way would have to be found to prevent all the players who are 'safe' from declining to play, leaving the 'short stacks' unable to recover and doomed to be eliminated when the entry fee goes up. Feel free to tell me that's the most stupid idea you ever heard.
tournament formats I've thought some on this - and think that some things can be done to make tbj more attractive and skillful - first - get rid of single advance tables - if you look at poker tourneys - while they don't 'advance tables' as in tbj - there is a point where enough players are eliminated that they have to combine tables - this is pretty equivalent to the tbj 'advance to the next table' - in poker this occurs when about 40% of your players are eliminated - so over half of the players get some feeling of sucess - they 'made the first cut' - in tbj - 5 out of 6 or even 6 out of seven "fail" at the first table with single advance - also - single advance tables reduce the skillfulness of the game - look at the math - if you look at 15 hands - the odds of winning 8 or more out of the 15 are only .317647 - while the odds of losing 8 or more out of 16 are .43739 -a negative expectation game - but - with 6 players at the table (assuming the players hands are independent) - the odds that 1 or more players will win 8 out of 15 is .89897; while the odds that 2 or more will is .61712. so - one of the ploppies - at least - who is mindlessly throwing out big bets is going to hit and run away from you - a very good arguement against Wong type betting - the game actually favors that if you are sitting at a table full of drunk-all-in-guys - one of them will beat you - the more players advance - the more skillfulness impacts the game - as the odds of players running away with wild betting impact your chances of advancing less - and - importantly - more players leave the table feeling they have been sucessful - so - we need all tables to be three advance - that is critical - to both increasing the popularity of tbj and increasing the skillfulness - second - we need more to follow the 'limit' model of poker than the 'no-limit' game - we need bankrolls that are multiples of the max bet - say - $1000 bankroll - $50 max bet - and - with reasonable min bets - say $20 in that scenario - and - play an extended number of hands - say - minimum 30 hands per table - that combination - 3 advance of 6, low max bet and higer minimum bet - relative to bankroll - and extending the number of hands - that would really make tbj more skillfull and more popular - at the Golden Nugget-Laughlin tournaments - a very good tournament player remarked that he didn't play 15 hand tables any more - and didn't like even the 20 hand ones - we need to make tbj less of a quick and dirty crap shoot and more of a skill contest - a few simple changes would do a lot in that direction - and make the game much more popular, I believe
RK, I agree with all of that, but the idea I had was for a radically different format, not as a replacement for n-advance, elimination tournaments, but as a novel alternative. In fact there is nothing fundamentally BJ-specific about it; it could be applied to any game in which individual contests last a few minutes, and a fairly large group of players gather to spend a day or two playing. It came to me because, in the course of my online Sit-n-Go play, I inevitably play a private 'meta-game' of tracking my results and watching my balance rise and fall. So it occurred to me that, with a few tweaks to avoid the possibility that people could finish in the money by choosing to hoard their starting balance and not play at all, this could be the basis for a tournament.
Tourney format I liked your ideas London - wasn't meaning to dis them by suggesting some others - your suggestion would make tbj play much more like a poker tourney - with increasing blinds - and antes - but - doesn't it end up being an accumulation event - in that as you carry your money from table to table - the ones' with the biggest bankrolls will survive? - and - I don't understand how the sit n goes would work - are you playing just to increase bankrolls - or would players be eliminated? good thoughts though - maybe if people throw in suggestions and comments we can develop a new tourney format to try out.
No problem. I was just a bit concerned that if we try and discuss too many things in the one thread then it can all get a bit muddled. Well, I've by no means thought this through fully. It's an accumulation of sorts, but what is being accumulated is the notional profit from victories at Sit-n-Go tables. The bankrolls aren't what you play with at the tables (except possibly right at the end of the tournament, if it proves necessary to introduce some kind of special endgame), they are the funds which you have available to cover your notional buyins into the Sit-n-Gos. What you win at each table, assuming it's winner-take-all, is the buyins of all your opponents, just as it would be if you were playing a regular Sit-n-Go for real money. It might be better to talk in terms of points, rather than dollars. Suppose each player starts out with 1,000 points, and the buyin starts out at 100 points. That means you have enough to play 10 tables. But the buyin cost will be continually rising, plus there will be an occasional levy deducted from your total, meaning that if your results fall short of a certain level then you will be losing points faster than you acquire them (or even if you are marginally in profit, the escalating buyin cost means that you have less and less wiggle room; a short sequence of losses will see you eliminated). For example, after an hour's play in a heads-up tournament, if you have a net loss of 4 tables then that's a loss of 400 points, and let's say a further 100 points have been deducted as the levy, and the buyin has now been raised to 200. So you have only 500 points left, which is only enough to fund two more tables at the current rate. The idea of making a periodic deduction, rather than charging say 100+10 to play, is to try and make it difficult for anyone to profit from sitting back on a lead. In poker, if you sit out every hand, the blinds and antes drain away your funds; this is the only way I could think of to achieve the same thing, without compelling the players to play a certain number of tables. As I said, I'm not sure whether the buyin should be fixed or whether a range should be allowed. E.g., perhaps the opening level could allow buyins from 100 to 500. Some players might choose to play for bigger stakes early on, trying to build a lead, others might play for the minimum to maximise their chances of overcoming the variance. But then what do you do if the players at a table can't agree on the stakes they want to play for? I think it would have to go to the lowest bidder. That is, if you want to play for 100, and the others would rather play for more, then they must do as you wish. Towards the end, there could be times when it's in everybody's interests to play for high stakes, as the only realistic way to chase the leaders, but I would want to keep the maximum buyin low enough to prevent a massive recovery by a player 'doubling up' two or three times. It would seem unfair if someone who has painstakingly built up a lead via many small victories should see it wiped out by a hanful of big ones.
sounds like fun Now I am seeing clearer what you are suggesting - it does sound as if it would be fun - maybe pay off the top two places at each sng? like they do at UB - and I would think just have a progression on the tables - first one so much - next round a little more - so on - just as they raise the blinds in a poker game - maybe could allow a player to skip a round - but - he would be fined 1/2 the buy-in for the round skipped? - instead of doing a periodic drain of funds? - when it got down to the final table for the money - just play off as a regular elimination table - it would be a very workable format - would like to try it
Possibly, but I had in mind limiting the number of players at a table, so that each contest lasts just five or ten minutes, and as a result the skillful players rise to the top by the sheer volume of games they are able to get in during the period of the tournament. I think it could be a good framework for a heads-up tournament, in which obviously only first-place gets payed . I suppose four players might be a reasonable upper limit, and paying the top two would then make sense. That might work, but I was trying to get rid of the whole idea of fixed rounds. My intention was that people play as many or as few tables as they see fit. You can take a rest when you are tired, or when you assess that playing and losing would hurt your situation more than playing and winning would help it. And if you win a table quickly, you can jump straight into the next one, rather than wait for the allotted start of the next round. I had in mind that much of the money would be payed out further down the field. The longer you survive, the more you win, without needing to reach a final table. But I do think the endgame is likely to be the hardest part to make fair and workable. Some kind of final table might be necessary. Although the tournament could simply be a timed event, with the surviving players payed according to their positions when the final bell sounds.
format I would actually like to try something like this - as you are laying it out - might take some tweaking - but - would give players a lot of action and tables
oh no You've revealed your playing ability by posting how much you've won on blackjack21 - I'm toast - so we have to get some more players in this - maybe Skip can sell his casinos on offering a 'novel' tournament format
Late to the game here...I like this "round robin" type of format...not really sure how else to describe it. I've not been happy with "1-forward" tourneys as it's more card luck combined with bet strategy...and while I've dug out of near bankruptcy, I've missed by a BJ or DD a couple of times. I'm tempted to run it past my local house's Pit Manager and see if we can do a trial tourney for fun one afternoon...there's enough of us who love to "just play" we could see if it would work.
