blonde poker forum

Luton, fabolous venue that it is, has disappointed many with it's "League Contribution", which is a meaty deduction from the Prize Pools. I believe Luton add money to this contribution from the players, which I acknowledge is a good thing, of course.

Walsall also do the same - add money to their "League" but take a deduction for it off the Prize Pool of regular Tourneys.

I imagine other Casinos may be doing the same thing.

Whilst I appreciate the good intentions here, & the Added  money, I am wholly & fiercely AGAINST Prize Pools being messed with.

It's a fundamental thing to me. In Tournament Poker, with the exception of the Reg Fee, it's a zero-sum game - the players stick their money in, & we get it all back as Prizes for that Tourney. There is a House edge in Blackjack & Roulette, Bookies take an edge, but there is NO edge in Tourney Poker. Which is why so many of us play it. We stick all the money in, & we get it all back. It's that simple.

Deducting money from Prize Pools is a terrible thing in my opinion, & opens the door to abuse of players money. If, for example, I only play at Luton or Walsall rarely, I am funding something for others when I do, & even if I do play there regularly, there's no guarantee I will be available to play the League Final, in which my money gets "returned".

Fundamentally, this is the most shocking thing that's happened in Tourney Poker in my time in the game, & I'm strongly opposed. OUR Prize pools belong to US, the Players, & NOBODY has the right to take money from those Prize pools without our 100% consent. I do not give that consent.

I hope they will reconsider this decision, & I'm seriously concerned that one thing will lead to another if we accept this, & Prize pools will be plundered by Organisers for all manner of Promotions.

ALL the Entry Fees we pay for Tourneys MUST be paid out after that Tourney. No exceptions.

Please Vote now.

i expressed my dislike of this when i was in luton for the APAt comp


does walsall deduct from there £300 game?

I heard that they did last weekend.

Im hugely against these leagues and deductions from prize pools

When the league lasts 15 weeks what am i to do

Should i stay away from the casino for 15 weeks

Added money = more likely I will play

Deduction = less likely I will play

I know it's not that easy in all cases, but the live poker market is getting more competitive, and there is only one good way to demonstrate that you are not happy with something - go somewhere else.

Having qualified for the 30G league final at Luton in the first section, I am now hardly attending Luton G whilst the second and third sections are ongoing as I don't see why I should subsidise the prize pool. In effect I can attempt to do my bit to ensure that the added value provided by the casino is higher.

As such the promotion is a disincentive for me, a regular, to attend.

On balance I must agree with tikay, its not a welcome development

Absolutely not. I hate extra cash being put aside in regular tournaments for things such as 'tournament league' / 'satellite tickets' / get this a  'tournament bad beat jackpot' yes Cool Hand Luke's aka the Merrion, aka pubpoker@Dublin.com has done this. To see the small amount of method behind the madness I suppose you have to consider the angle which the casinos are shooting, which is to retain regulars as prisoners of value each day of the week wether fair or unfair to occasional / nonlocal  players. I probably fall into the category of a player getting value for all the additional funds other people are putting into these various side pools from all the tournaments I play. However I still think its bad form on the casinos part and cringe when I hear the prize breakdown of 2000 for 1st + a 500 ticket without as much of a sniff of the house declaring that 500 of the pool was a satellite deduction before the final table starts. I mean come on, just give me 2500 and let me decide if I want to enter the next 500 game or not. Even in England now its much easier for TDs to mess around with prize pools with the removal of the infamous 'Guidelines 3' which wasn't perfect but served a purpose at least to keep cardrooms from completely freestyling things. If a casino wants to run leagues with additional prizes and incentives then this should be totally separate from any funds paid into the individual tournament prize pools.

FWIW I will send the thread to Luton and Walsall when it has attracted a range of comments

We might get a view back but at the very least it will allow us to feedback our views to them

I'd be disappointed if I turned up to play a comp to find money was being taken out for some sort of league thing. 

As long as the fact that the money is being taken out is clearly indicated prior to the tournament, then by still taking part in the tournament you are giving your consent.

If you disagree with the policy, don't play.

I have no idea how well publicised the deduction is at these casinos - are players taking part in them unaware there is a deduction? If so, this is the part which is most wrong.

When turning up to play say the £75 on a Friday no communication of this deduction is made.  Last time I attended, I took a new member and no communication was forthcoming to him either.  Agree this is very wrong.

To me the whole thing just seems to be Luton thinking on a local scale, when infact they are the best Cardroom I have visited in the UK and attract players from a big geographical area, an area that is so big that it prohibits quite a large slice of its customer base from benefitting from this League format.

Why should I be held to ransom to support the Grosvenor marketing machine. This machine is failing badly in my opinion and let's be honest not just mine. Yes I know they are going to have to spend money topping up the pool but this promotion was just foisted upon us. If there were a dtd in this area it would just clean up.

If this were my operation I would be out of head office and listening to the punters. Maybe they would if everybody boycotted the UKGPT for one tourney. One more rthing if the session charges were increased so that the cardrooms made money in their own right why do I pay twice once for the room and once for the marketing of the room.

Very disillusioned as to how they can be treating customers in this way.........too much power in the marketplace.

this stinks to me and shows the repect the casinos has for non locals, just because you play dosent mean you have agreed to the deduction you have paid under protest ,but yeah the best protest would be to not play,its a slippery slope where will it end,75% pool payouts, its very important that tikay and sites like this can highlight this sort of thing otherwise it will just get worse and ruin casino tournaments,

Deductions........and I bet they still expect a tip if you happen to win the comp.

To be fair,no they don't

Maybe you haven't experienced that but I have at other places.

yes fair enough, I was talking about Luton only

At Walsall 9th place can often pay less than the league deductions. So you spend 4 or 5 hours getting to the final table and take away less from your own prize pool than the amount that has already been lifted from it. Bit of a scandal really.

same at Luton, often commented on negatively by players during comps...nothing changed though

In my humble opinion this should never happen
non mai - nunca - jamais - nie - nooit -- anywhere in the world

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=23787.45

just to highlight that some cardrooms do  actually give players a fair shake.

LOTS of Cardrooms do, &, on the whole, Luton is a terrific Venue. with a great bunch of Staff & the best range of Scheduled Tourneys I can find anywhere.

But we are talking here about the principle of allowing our Prize Pools to be plundrered at the whim of others.

Thank you Rich. Should be an open & shut case, with 97% voting against!

Just tell our friends at Luton to keep putting on a nice range of well-structured Tourneys, as they already do, & with Staff that actually smile, make eye-contact & are friendly, all of which also applies at Luton, & that's ALL they have to do.

Luton is not perfect, but we'll discuss that on a different thread. Please ask them to stop messing with the - OUR - Prize Pools. We don't like it. Thanks.

When I played at Luton the other week I was surprised to see a cut being taken for the league, and a bit peeved as I knew I'd have no chance of seeing any return from it.  I had just presumed it was something the regulars were in favour of.

I have yet to meet a Luton regular who IS in favour of it Claire!

Knowing the Luton Management, they will drop this once they realise the negative vibes it is causing, they are excellent at reacting to Client wishes, on the whole.

The league runs until the end of November, roughly, with a final in mid Dec

With £15,000 already collected from prize pools and a guarantee of £30,000 in the prize pool come the final there would be complete and utter uproar if it was dropped mid promotion

what would they do with the £15,000?

I hope though the promotion is not repeated again though

as I said earlier though, it also penalises those regulars who have qualified

what possible incentive is there for me to attend now I have qualified, knowing that part of my buy in will bump up a pool for which there is a guarantee...?

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=28430.0

for an excellent exposition from Justin Turner on the flaws in this scheme

Thanks Rich, but it was NOT my wish that the current Promotion be abandoned, it's too late now, I'm just hoping they will not repeat it.

Rich, can you give Justin's thread to Luton, too, please?

I think I saw a suggestion that they did something similar at the Grosvenor in Brighton when I went for the first leg of the APAT regional tournaments, so I don't know if it's generally widespread amongst Grosvenor casinos.

In previous national APAT tournaments (and blonde Bashes) the first thing I've looked at is what other tournaments are on over the period that I'm in town.

If I have the time and the funds, and like the look of the tournament, I'm eager to get as much live experience as I can - but I now know to look out for these deductions, and no matter how positively a tournament scores in the other factors - I'm not going to play in any tournament when any of the entry fee isn't returned in the prize fund.

A great Post by Jon.

Prize Pools always have been, & should remain, sacrosant. This is the thin end of the wedge, & before long, monies will be removed for all manner of "promotions" which the punters - who are the OWNERS of the Prize pool - have no say in.

Another "no" here.

Was this league thingy the reason there was a bloody big box with flat screen TV being played for in the Luton card room on the day of the 1st APAT regional?

I imagine so.

As I never qualified, it's hypothetical in my case, but I could not have played anyway, as I had work committments elsewhere, & I have no use, desire or need for a flat screen TV. Which I helped to pay for......! Not because I'm kind & caring, (well, some might say....) but because someone took it upon themselves to use MY money to conrtribute towards a Prize I never wanted & could never win.

I fully agree with you Tikay.

The casino management are a strange bunch (by which I don't mean the card room staff Who I've found to be generally excellent). I sent a thankyou after the regional, via their website, because I enjoyed it so much and thought the dealers did such an excellent job (as they had at the European Amateur Championships in August) and that they deserved to be thanked.

I hope they got it, but I have no idea whether they did or not because the venue (or whoever deals with queries via the web site) chooses not to bother acknowledging receipt of stuff. It was the same with my first attempt to contact them that way much earlier in the year at a time when I was still a potential customer who had yet to set foot in their door.

It's all a very odd way to deal with your customers, however  infrequent a visitor they may be.

Great post and great responses.

I vote NO as well.

I am sure the one person who voted yes made a  misclick on their mouse.

Luton numbers are strong and would be even stronger if it was not for league (stealing from the prizepool) contributions.

That's probably just a fault with their website and the people who manage it.  Every time I've pre-registered for a casino online, I've turned up and had to fill in a form with all the same details on it again as they haven't received the form I submitted online.

Most of the casino sites are just poor in general.  To get directions to a casino (which is often what many people want to do), it's usually easier to use a third-party site than the official site.  If you're looking for the poker tournaments they are running - best of luck to you if you use their sites. 

This is another area I expect/hope DTD will out-perform the rest.

I came accross this in Brighton recently. To be fair to them they did announce this before the tourney. I did think it was unfair for those players like me that can't or have not chosen to take part in the league. I didn't query this, but wonder what would have happened if I had objected. As it happened i bombed out so forgot all about it until this thread.

The decision to run leagues is made at a local cardroom level and is in no way a directive of the 'Grosvenor marketing machine' as you put it. These are local decisions, not a bi-product of a national situation of Grosvenor having 'too much power in the marketplace?'

If you don't like these leagues, speak to the managers involved. It might surprise you to find out that they do listen. Since September 1st there has been greater freedom for cardrooms to run tournaments, leagues, etc in different ways. There is clearly a degree of experimentation going on. Everything eventually finds it's level and if some of the new ideas about how to run certain events are unpopular and there is enough dissent, I'm sure they will be changed or not run again in the future.

Why do you think the GUKPT has great slow structures, a deep stack and is encouraging improved dealing standards within the whole estate? Because we do listen to what players want. I have been well out of head office and in the cardrooms for much of the last three years and I do report back what I hear. Russell Tamplin, the current National Head of Poker at Grosvenor is very forward thinking and does take on board what customers want. It is still a business though - don't expect poker to be run for free. Anyone who has played tournament poker in the USA will testify that the tournament fees charged/deductions made are far higher over there than they are in the UK. Tournament poker in the UK is generally good value for money.

As for whether a dtd in the area would clean up, lets see how they do once they've actually opened. How exactly has a club that is not even open yet suddenly become a benchmark for high standards? I know Simon Trumper is listening to players and will run a good show, but within the poker world there is no single consensus on how things should be run. What pleases some people displeases others.There will likely be ways that dtd run things that not everyone will like.

Me and a mate had started playing the Friday night £75 freezeout at Luton and were planning on making it a 'regular' trip (albeit only once a month). But after finding out about this League deduction on the last visit, after the tournament had started, we have decided not to play there anymore so long as this is going on.

It is interesting that it is a decision made at a local level.

However the problem is that I suspect that the majority of people who play in any one of the local casinos does not post on a poker forum, doesn't realise that they have any such influence and will just take what is offered to them without giving it that much thought as to whether it could be done better or not.

So I think there is a certain imperative that the managers involved don't experiment too much and just get it right to start with.


And just to prove you can sometimes get positive feedback, somebody in my office doesn't play poker at all - but he is watching some of the GUKPT programmes, so you've obviously got something right there.  :)up

(Tellingly he says that he would watch all the episodes if they were on at a more sensible time, but I know that it isn't in your control)

I dont have an issue with leagues, they can and do encourage people to play more.  But I do agree that taking a cut of regular tourney prize pools to finance them is out of order.  i have never played in Luton or Walsall, but hope to one day soon, and when I do Id like to think I was playing for a cut of the total prize pool, we pay the charges to play in Grosvenor, that should be enough.

Leagues do not benefit all players, therefore the players who wish to participate are the ones who should carry any additional costs.

My local Grosvenor has a jackpot accumulator every tournament, where decent prizes are paid for a variety of hands at the final table, but it is paid for by the players, and not every player enters or is interested in it, therefore it costs players who will gain nothing, nothing.

We have had some decent leagues up here but they were funded purley by the casino, who in return benefited from sell out weekend tournaments, well supported midweek tournaments and a great deal more opportunity for these extra players to play the house games.

By the way I agree with the earlier comment about speaking to local management, I find the card room manager at our local Grosvenor receptive to sugestions, and quite constructive in her outlook.

I don't mind cardooms operating leagues but I am vehmently opposed to them stripping the prize pool to fund these leagues. 

The league, IMO should be an incentive to regular players, it should be added money not money deducted from the players.

Can the casinos not have one night a week set aside specifically for the league?   :dontask:  In one of the pubs we have a league night and there's an extra charge to everyone on that night.  Everyone knows it and they know they can show up any of the other 6 nights of the week for no added charge. 

It was a good idea but inappropriate for Luton. I wish they could get the basics right before going the complex stuff wrong. The staff are fantastic, but i think they need a leader. Im looking forward to the comp though :)

I was at G-Luton last night, & asked if I could speak to Nina or Carmel to chat about this, but they are both on holiday. They said they will pass on my request to them both, & I expect to meet them next week to discuss this thread with them.

I am confident they will take the comments in this thread on board. With 97% voting against, it's clearly hit the wrong note.

I remain wholly supportive of Grosvenor, & G-Luton, which is far & away the jewel in the Grosvenor Crown.

fyi all the relevant threads on blonde were sent to Carmel/casino yesterday..so you should have a headstart of them being aware of them

By in 100  deduction 20  rebuy 100 deduction20 you do not know how lucky you are..........

I spoke to Carmel at Luton earlier this week, & the negative feedback has been taken on Board, & they will NOT be repeating this exercise once the current Promotions ends.

Well played them, for listening.

So, if it happens at your Local Venue, & you don't like it, speak to them, they are usually happy to listen & make changes if they've missed the target. It was, after all, well-intended. But Prize Pools belong to the Players, & Casinos musrt be reminded of this now & then. There is no negotiation on this. IMO, of course.

Can you expand on that, please?

played a £10 rebuy at brighton grosvenor in the summer        total entry cost  =    £18    inc  £3 session fee   and £5  bounty       both compulsory     and   5%  withheld from £10       also compulsory.

no %5  withheld from greedy session fee, mind you.

sickening

Worst comp I played was the $1000 buy in at The Belagio last year.

They took a huge %age from the prizepool ONTOP of a 10% reg fee.

Well I'm sure if you make reasoned & polite representations to Management, as was done at Luton, they will listen to your views. They HAVE to. Deductions from Tournament Prize Pools must never be allowed to gain credence.

We, as poker players, need to walk the walk, not just moan & do nothing. We have the power & ability to influence the Venues & help bring about change. APAT are working away at it, going very nicely too, but not everyone supports APAT or it's methodology. Well everyone has the ability to do something about issues that affect our game, & if they don't, then they can't really complain..

That is the norm in the US of A.

Which is EXACTLY why everyone should join the fight to ensure Tourney Prize pools in the UK remain sacrosant. Luton have come in line, & easily. so there is no reason why others should not be lobbied along the same lines.

experienced this at walsall the other night. I play there infrequently and was not informed of the deduction beforehand.

£200 was taken from the pool and it seemed to upset everyone and apparently they take like £100 off the afternoon comps which have small prize pools, but at least the players are more likely to get a pop at winning some it as the points are easier to win.

All the bigger players said they will be going to play at dtd when it opens and i'm sure they won't be doing it