blonde poker forum

The sunday night pot limit at the gala used to be one of the best live competitions around. Unfortunately due to a incredibly steep blind structure the latter stages are now just a crap shoot.

I know what you are saying, this is the rant of somebody who just bubbled and is basically sour grapes. Well true I did just bubble but I have been pissed for a while now and believe this forum is the best way to see how others in the comp feel.

Ok the facts.

The £50 sunday at the Gala makes £10 - £12k  which puts on average 440,000 chips in play.

at approx 2am there are 2 tables left(20 players), average chips are 22,000 and the blinds are 1500 / 3000 so a full pot raise is 10,500. half the average stack. hard to get away from

with a 20 minute clock by 3am (11 players ) average chips are 40,000 the blinds are 4000 / 8000 and a full pot raise is 28,000. (now immagine you have done a TK and misread your hand?)

whats more you are 5 / 6 handed so it costs you 12,000 every 6 hands. In real money terms you are paying £300 a round !

At this point I ask myself why I play poker instead of  visiting the casino and playing roulette. I believe poker to be a game of skill as well as chance and would like to feel that near the end of the comp as at the start.

When I have queried the cardroom managers about the situation the only explanation for the new blind structure is to avoid a chip count at the end of the night. I think this is a very weak argument and would prefer the option of a chip count than shoving my stack in with A 6 and hoping nobody calls.

I wont rant on though but merely suggest the soloution to be a capped blind structure or slower clock when you get to 2 tables or less. This will in fact allow for more creative play. i.e. TK can raise with his 9 4 off but not be pot committed when Yo YO Thew re raises him all in with 5 6

There is a lot of money at stake in this comp and its your money not the casinos.

I enjoy my Sunday night poker at the Gala and won't give it up  even if the structure remains the same
I also appreciate the hard work that Rob and Co do for everyone there to make the tournaments go smoothly not an easy task by any means.

But the blind structure !!!!!

IMHO

Comp should start at 7:30

Blinds should start at 25/50

Levels should be 30 min

Starting chips should be 1500

Re buy period should be one hour

Play online!

chris.
i think the crux of the problem is within one line of your post:

"I enjoy my Sunday night poker at the Gala and won't give it up  even if the structure remains the same"


You are unhappy with the situation (like most people are) but..... you will still go! - so what's the incentive for them to change? - if people still turn up then things wont change for the better as the management will just think that it cant be that bad if people still come and play.

I think the place is becoming a bit bad tempered at times (the minority but enough to make it unpleasent) and it is far too smokey - polls have been done, constructive suggestions made but still... no changes for the better. 

I also enjoy my regular sunday live game (but thats as far as it goes for me now i think) - if they improved the blind structure, starting times and the smoke then i would go 4 times a week but for the moment all i can really stand is once a week.

Agreed with Junior, and I have been voting with my feet for some time now.

Personally I prefer the tournament to finish than the chip count.

But I also know that Nightfly has tried his utmost for earlier starts to no avail.

As it happens, we got down to the final and got some posotive support from the Managment,

The gave us another 20mins on to the 6000/12000 level and we got an extra 30mins play till 4.30.

This did help as in the end Myself and Kim Costa did the chip count.

Me for the £4700 Kim £4100 so they do listen a little, 
Lets hope they take more notice an early start time would be great as we find ouselves waiting around on a Sunday evening anyway.   

Nice result Nick  :cheers:

He musta got lucky.........

ahem, cue a couple or storys from mine and Tikays table

hand 1 he mis-read his hand as usual. raising war between him and Dave Smith Tikay announces he has AA, comedy double take and shows J,7. for some reason Dave is at it with 6,4 though and Tikay wins it with J high.

Hand 2 4 players all in before him and he's already bet at it once. he has   3d 4d and board is  6s 7s 8d. he figures he has four outs (the fives) and calls all in. one of the guys has  5c 9s so Tikay has to settle for plan B, runner runner diamond.

then I move in short with AJ and theres a call from 6,6  9,4 and Tikays A,K and he has the nerve to moan when I make a Jack high straight. Your so hard done by Tikay. how ever do you survive with your bad luck

first round of freezeout period and he makes Quad Kings. claims he was setting that up by playing crap earlier

most people don't take four years to set up getting paid off with a monster.

Sorry, can you go into a little bit more detail here?

THE gala where? There is more than one gala. I will presume you are talking about gala casinos and not gala bingo :) But where do you refer? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Manchester, Notts, Walsall, Hull, Bradford, Leeds, Sunderland, etc etc etc?

Nottingham.

You know, home patch of Robin"tikay" hood and his merry men

WHAT?

 :redcard: :redcard: :redcard: :redcard:

Goin back the original subjuct

ill offer my humble opinon

For a £50 rebuy comp the chips should be 1500 pts with an 1hr 30 min rebuy period. then the blinds should increase every 25 mins, then the blinds should be capped at 4000/8000 unless there are over 500,000 Chips in play then the blinds should go up one more level 5000/10000

all comps should be played out to a conclusion, if it goes to a chip count so be it.

Does Tikay actually ever win money?

I got 7th in the £10 comp at Grimsby a few years back. Does that count?

Guess if I was REALLY mischievous, I could suggest we compared our respective records in the Player Databases on The Hendon Mob, or Poker in Europe.com.........

xx to Ginger.

And dived the results by years we have been playing??  :D

You may be surprised to learn that Tikay has only been playing live in casinos for a few years.

On the "circuit" as such, 2 years next month, to be precise, but almost 18 months in reality, since I stopped working. Seems a whole lot longer, but boy, I've packed a lot of fun into that two years! And for the sake of record, I love that Flushy kid. Well, a bit.

"Dived" the results? Who dived?

This thing needs a spell check, i actually noticed an error of yours the other day in a post regarding a badge, i let it slide!! NO MORE MR NICE GUY!!


I also love Tikay....like a grandfather....

I actually know Tikay has not been playing that long, i never actually think how long you have been playing makes a diffrence. I mean you might some of these old grumpy gits in the Vic who go on about how they hate the new kids ruinning thier game, well i would bet my bankroll that the 2 times a week they play a tournament over the last 20 years is less than i have played in 2.

Tikay may win the battle for now, but the war will be mine!!!

There will be no war Flushy. You'll surrender. You can take over when I'm old & grey.....

But it IS an oddity that everyone seems to think I've been playing the game for years, as a result of which I can speak about the game with "authority". Sadly, not true. In either case, before Mr WiseGuy reminds us.....

It's called gravitas Tikay, thank goodness they don't waste that on the young too eh ?  ;)

"gravitas" - is that when your he-man chest becomes a pot belly? I'm that man.

I thought you were 21?

No, that was a misrread.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

It will take me a few days to respond to this post with a full justification of decisions made with regard to the blind stucture. (although why I should have to do this is beyond me!)

Any decisions to alter the competition structure are usually undertaken to allow for more play and to improve the flow of the competition. These decisions are usually made following suggestions from players and from the fact that as competitions attract an ever increasing number of players, and therefore put more chips in play, the competition structure needs to reflect and cater for this trend.

These decisions are not taken lightly and are only implemented after careful consideration of the competition statistics over a number of weeks.

In this instance... the structure being complained about is actually less agressive than the one it replaced.

As such it represents an improvement for all players and NOT what it is represented as here.

Here is a massive dilemma for all card-room supervisors - improve things for the players and face criticism from people who can't work out that they're better off

or leave things as they are forever!

More to follow!

Thx for taking the time to reply, Nightfly.

I'm sure everyone will appreciate your input.

 :)up

Nightfly

I do not have the figures to compare blind structures now with what they were before for a comparison but can only compare with how I remember the competion as I have played it.
I do not agree that the structure is softer now than when it was the old £30 1000 chips set up. True this may be due to the fact that the competition is more popular and perhaps has more rebuys during the rebuy period?

My point is that I can see no reason why the blind structure can not be slowed down or capped when there are 2 tables left. (around 2am in my experience) the blinds are still fairly large at this point but not silly amounts. during the latter stages of Sundays tournament (i.e. 15 or less players) nobody was happy with the 20 minute clock and all agreed it was a crapshoot.

little tip

is increase the blinds faster just after the rebuy period and slow them down as you aproach the end game

this can be done 2 ways

1) change clock then slow it down
2) remove a blind level or 2 early doors and put in a level or 2 nearer the end of the comp


i find 2 the better way to do this

I have considered both of these options

1) is a viable solution but those who have the power of veto are not sure if we are allowed to do that etc.

the problem with 2 is that as it affects a greater number of players the ratio of complaints is higher.

In actual fact the majority of the players who make the business end of the tournaments just get on and play. Only a small minority actually complain about how unfair the blind structure is. And these complaints have usually been preceeded by a bad-beat or an outdraw. Oddly enough only one person who has won a competition has criticised the blind structure. But you can't please everybody.

The other solution that has been put forward for Notts comps are that we move the starting time forward. Is this a viable option (i can't see why not) but i don't know whether the casino has other views on this. I think 8pm is a realistic start time for events instead of 9:15 it gives another hour, also i think the rebuy period could be shortened as well to maybe 75 mins.

This is actually not true. The so called 'new ante structure' is more or less exactly the same as the old one if you halve the blinds.

The explanation:

Instead of giving 1000 points per buy in we give 2000.
Instead of starting the blinds at 25/50 we start the blinds at 50/100

both of these transformations were achieved by multiplying by 2

So why do this?...

Current stock of 25 point chips = 199
this allows 99 starting sets to be made.
99 starting sets are not quite enough for 120 runners.

Current stock of 50 point chips = 400
this allows 200 starting sets to be made
200 starting sets are more than enough for 120 runners.


Plenty of 100 pt and 500pt chips allow tables to be started with sufficient amount of change ie: more yellows than before.

Pot limit competitions with 25 point chips can lead to fiddly raise amounts ie: 175, 525 etc which can lead to more arguments about the correctness of pots.
Multiples of 50 are easier mathematically 350, 1050 for comparison.

4 denominations of chips at any one time is more than enough.
5 denominations can lead to confusion and disputes.

Only 4 round ups are required during the course of the tournament instead of 5. (This may not seem like a significant difference but from a supervision point of view it is probably the best of the justifications so far)

More hands are dealt during the rebuy period because the pots are less fiddly to work out and dealers tend to be more efficient. Players also tend to call with the correct change rather than requiring change from oversized chips.

Having first trialed this on all competition nights it was deemed that it constituted a massive improvement to the structure and flow of the tournament from both points of view (Players and Staff wise)

(So far this has absolutely nothing to do with preventing a chip count)

So has anything actually changed for the worse? Is the blind structure more agressive than it used to be?

The value for money with regard to buy in amount has not changed: you get twice as many chips but the blinds are twice as big.

Starting at Level 1:

25/50 becomes 50/100
50/100 becomes 100/200
100/200 becomes 200/400
150/300 becomes 300/600 (This level was added in July of this year actully slowing down the previous structure)
200/400 becomes 400/800
300/600 becomes 600/1200
400/800 becomes 800/1600 (This level was introduced in October 2004; before that they went from 300/600 to 500/1000 [and then to 800/1600]. In fact 500/1000 was removed and replaced with 2 levels 400/800 and then 600/1200 which if you average them out is like a double level at 500/1000)

I apologise if this is becoming repetitive but it seems necessary to show that nothing untoward has been performed on the old structure and that all new levels are simply double the old ones....

Until this point:

600/1200 becomes 1000/2000 and not 1200/2400
800/1600 becomes 1500/3000 and not 1600/3200

This must surely represent 40 minutes of value gained... the blinds are not proportionately high as they used to be... IS THIS a bad joke??? IS THIS SILLY???

Do you see my point?
 read the subject line of this thread and please explain to me how this is worse - Double chips and LOWER blind levels.

I spend about 3 unpaid hours per day working on ways to improve the way we do things or administrating the poker league and i think very carefully before i implement any changes (Hence four trials). To have the improvements that i have worked long and hard to implement, trashed as a 'bad joke' is utterly disrespectful of that work (carried out on behalf of all players in response to appropriately offered feedback and suggestions).

Sure people are entitled to their opinions. But so am I.

I have been into work today, even though i am on holiday, and have made some progress on trialing earlier starts for some competitions.

I have spent about 5 hours this evening racking my brains about this thread. I am on holiday and that is not fair. I work so hard to improve things in nottingham and when I do i get this.


take the chips multiply them by 2
take the old blind structure multiply it by 2

the blind structure has always gone up to 5000/10000

10,000/20,000 is only twice as much as that and you have twice as many chips.

600,000 chips puts 30 big blinds in play with the new blind structure
300,000 chips puts 30 big blinds in play with the old blind structure

Here speaketh the truth!!!! Nice reply. If ever you want to change casinos or wish to move to Brum. Get in touch.
Whats wrong with you guys? Here is someone that obviously cares about his game more than most. We try and improve things for the players benefit, but get criticised by the people that liked it before any changes were made. Changes are almost always made because a MAJORITY dislike something. We don't change things just to pee players off!! Please give Nightfly a break, he sounds like he is on your side !!!!! Keep him on side for gods sake.

Great post Rob. I've not played myself in the competition in question, but to me the changes seem to make sense for all concerned.

for me the frustration is actually that Rob isn't the card room manager.I wish he was because then I'd feel the chances of positive change would always be greater. I think the doubling of stacks/blinds and removal of 25s is great and would like to see it rolled out to al comps. earlier starts, shorter rebuy periods and most of all NON SMOKING are the main issues. I played both comps sunday plus some cash inbetween and when I got knocked out around midnight it was actually something of a relief. after 9 hours straight in there I felt like I'd smoked a pack of 20 (infact I probably did) and I was starting to feel pretty sick. driving home with the windows down was followed by two restless hours feeling like someone was sitting on my chest sticking a knife in my throat. why did I ever do that to myself.

The smoking issue is bizarre. I think most people would welcome a ban. I'm a smoker and I'd be more than happy for it to stop. Even as a smoker that room is a lot for me to take.

Rob

Thank you for taking the time to reply and explain the blind structure and reasoning etc. As I said in my post earlier I do not have the facts and therefore can only express views on my perception of how the tournament seems to have changed with the new blind structure. As you have now stated the facts and I am wrong I appologise to you for a badly worded topic.

I think this has been a healthy debate and I do not regret raising the subject afterall that is the purpose of this forum and I am pleasantly enlightened by other peoples views.


As I said if due to time restraints and numbers involved this is how the tournament has to played then so be it.

See you on Sunday

Chris

Chris

Thanks for your response I do appreciate feedback and if it were not for this forum there would be many a time when i am left scratching my head, not knowing what to do.

It is a sad fact that while we operate under such rigid time restraints it will always feel like things are rushed.

A Good tournament structure must allow x number of starting players to become y number of finalists with in the allocated time frame. It must also allow sufficient time for the final to be played to a conclusion.

Freeze-out tournaments are a lot easier to predict. You can establish a maximum number of chips in play and work from that.

Re-buy competitions are a different beast altogether. History teaches us that there will be somewhere between 3 to 4.5 total buy-ins per runner.

If there are only 3 then the blinds will seem larger in the later stages
if there are 4 or above then they will feel a lot more reasonable.

I am still trying to address your question as to why we cannot cap the blinds. I hope the eventual answer will prove both informative and explanatory.

Stay tuned for more.

"Whats wrong with you guys"?

Has there been a post criticising Rob?

Looks like the Gala are lucky to have Nightfly.  :)up

A rather hasty and ill-considered title for this thread. IMHO

I would recommend counting to ten and having several deep breaths before posting  :tikay:

Not directly, but there has been criticism of his cardroom. WE take this personally, even though some things are out of our control. This is why we get frustrated. If someone criticised the casino I work for, then I too would feel (as the person that represented it on this forum) that the posts would be pointing vaguely in my direction. Criticism is made for an outcome, therefore as representatives we feel we should pass it on to the changemakers. It is good to hear voices, so we know what you feel we are doing wrong. Somethings we can change and something we can't (this one is extremely frustrating, especially when WE agree).

Beer prices ;D ;D ;D

Exactly

I don't understand, your post seems to contradict itself

On the one hand you say "We take criticism personally"

On the other you say "It is good to hear voices, so we know what you feel we are doing wrong."

So what are we to do, speak up, or shut up?

Speak up so that we can pass it on (or if we have the authority, do somethings ourselves), and it does get passed on. Then errrrrrrrm.....well its out of our hands then

Capping Blinds and the myth of the Crapshoot.

All too often the £100 PLHE First Sunday of the Month ends in a chip count (6 times out of 9 this year) these chip counts are usually 5 or six way affairs.

The competition runs for 7 and a half hours and the blinds are capped at 5000/10000.

There have been suggestions made that they be capped at a lower level to allow for more play.

This was the situation in October (first: what could happen followed by what did happen)

104 players
£30,900 Prize pool
620,000 chips in play.

In an ideal world:

The final table would start with the blinds at 1,500/3,000 for one round of the table.
The 10 Players would have an average stack of 62,000 representing just under 19 Big Blinds.
During this round two players would go out making the average chip stack 77,500 representing over 19 BBs with the blinds at 2000/4000
During this level two more go out… average stack 103,000 = over 17 BBs with blinds at 3000/6000
During this level two more go out, Leaving four players … with the blinds at 4000/8000, average stack is 155,000 = just over 19 BBs

At the end of this level the blinds will go up to 5000/10000 (the final level)
If 4 still remain, 155,000 = 15.5 BBs
If 3 remain,  206,000 = 20 BBs
If 2 remain, 310, 000 = 31 BBs

There would be just over 2 Hours of play in this final and at no point does the average stack look uncomfortable in relation to the blinds.

This is perfectly possible to achieve and should be what all players are aiming for.

What actually happened:

With the blinds at 1500/3000 there were still 12 players left. (OK only ever so slightly behind target) By now the remaining players had all made the money… 20 places paid 20th to 11th all getting £300.
Blinds went up to 2000/4000 and after a short while one of the 12 went out collecting £300 on his way.

At this point with 11 players left, the average stack is just under 58,000 which is equal to 14.5 Big Blinds (enough options for play at this level)

The blinds went up to 3000/6000 – Now only 9BBs for average stack.

The blinds went up to 4000/8000 – BB ratio down to 7 and a bit as long as you have average chips.

The blinds went up to 5000/10,000 Average stack is now a little over 5 Big Blinds.

And still there are 11 players!

The Bubble was 10 positions ago.

Finally at 4.40 am one goes out and the lucky finalists are now able to play for the big money. For 30 whole minutes!

The whole farce ended in an 8 way chip count.

At what point should the blinds have been capped to allow for more play?

Because as far as I could see this had long before ceased being a poker competition where players compete against each other. People were passing all sorts of cards you would normally expect them to play.

Nobody was playing anything. Especially not Poker.


Something needs to change.

It ended up by being what most players call a crapshoot.

The structure is absolutely playable as demonstrated in the top example.

Who caused the Crapshoot? The structure or the players themselves?

You decide.

It's funny how poker players and cardroom manger's seem to have this diffrent idea of what play is....

14.5 BBs allows considerably more play than 5 BBs

and if you consider this instance I don't think any of the 11 players knew what Play is.

If play is sitting and waiting for AA while everyone else does the same then, yes my ideas are slightly different.

Players can choose to play while the Blinds are lower or they can wait until they are far too big and then moan about it.


It is also possible to manage a card-room AND play poker.

If the structure was long enough, then the best player would win EVERY time, as the game would go on forever....


Anyway....my point is if the average is 14.5bb then you will have some players on 30 bb and some on 5. Now how in the world are you supposed to make a creative raise in MP with T8s when the button only has 3 BB's and will push any half decent hand??

This leads too everyone having to just play the good hands as you can't put in many steals.

Isn't that known as a cash game?

Yes.

Flushy if the best player won EVERY time nobody would play.

This argument of yours is totally unsustainable  >:?

If you played a tournament with staring stacks of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 and the blinds fixed at 1-2, the best player will win.

Yes Flushy but we are in the real world here  :hello:

This is a decision which only the players can choose to make.

I think you have missed my point somewhat.

The competition structure is a constant. The blinds increase as they always have done they start at a certain level and they end at a certain level. They are a known commodity. Each and every player in the competition has to decide how they are going to approach this.

A competition with a 20 minute clock HAS a 20 minute clock. This fact should not come as a surprise to players in the later stages of the tournament... it should already be a part of their game plan.

We can give you the chips, we can give you the cards and tables but we CANNOT play the game for you.

Wait for great cards by all means, but if this means that the blinds are increasing around you then don't forget that waiting was a decision that you made.

This is NOT a cash game
It is a multi Table Tournament
The blinds increase
The blinds have always increased
There can be only one winner.

They are ultimately a test of an individual's ability to play poker

To some players the thought of actually having to play poker in order to win the money comes as something of a shock.

It is not supposed to be an easy feat to win £11,000 it actually involves mastery of all the elements that make poker the challenging game it is.


Fortune favours the bold!

There is no question that one must adapt one's game to the structure.

As long as the structure of any tourney is known beforehand the players know what they must deal with.

It is when structures are changed or "tweaked" with no prior notice that there are grounds for complaint.

Nightfly always makes every effort to publish the structures and stick to them.

After that it is the player's choice as to whether he wants to play or not.

Funny you should mention this...

There will probably be some such 'tweak' to the structure of the forthcoming £100 PLHE on the 6th November.

Nothing too drastic:

Rebuy period will probably be cut from 120 minutes to 100 minutes.

This being to reduce the potential chips in play and hopefully avoid the scenario as described above from last month.

This will of course be communicated to all players on registering as then it will be up to the individuals to decide.

1st sunday in December will have a structure all of its own as it will be a £200 NLHE Rebuy comp (5000 starting chips and 1st level 25/50)

Once all details are finalised they will be posted in the info thread.

Rob, as i'm sure you know, we believe you guys do a sterling job. We've seen a fair few card-room managers throughout the years, and I can guarantee that all have been far more chaotic than your reign - you fellas do top stuff (well benz aside obviously. when is the man gonna shave!?).

If anything the only thing that strikes me is that if there is any way the game's start time could be edged forward... well that would be of benefit to all.

And guys, if you're worried about a game becoming a crap shoot - well news flash, but unless you're playing in a £100+ event, your game IS gonna be a crap shoot. You can pretend all you want that it isn't while you're throwing your buy ins in early on, and mandatory-bluffing late in the day every time everyone passes to you, but it is just a pit-style gamble at the lower levels. Take your edge and run with it, cos a world series type structure isn't gonna be possible on a rainy sunday night on maid marian way.

feel free to cut the rebuy period too 60 mins i dont plan on bring many rebuys with me anyway

Yes Rob of course as i said earlier "the game is the same for all of us" my point is that your suggestion that "14.5 BB's average give lot's of play" is simply silly.

I am not one of those who goes to these comps and compains about the structure, i do not play live weekly comps because almost every one has a horrible, horrilbe structure. I would rather play a £50 freezeout online where i actually get some play, without being shouted at or having someone try to give me lung cancer!

i agree with you that players who moan about the levels who play week in week out our silly, if they do not like it, then there are other options.

Now i know all these things have to be done by 4/5am so you do give as much play as possible, however please do not tell the players that 14.5BB's allows plenty of play, it removes all confidence that you understand the players perspective.

the advantage the net has over live is that it doesnt need to do a chip count at closing time

thise means players know they cant sit back and wait for a good deal or chip count

so players are forced to play although you still see people trying to ladder climb passing hands

when they have 90% of there chips in the pot in the blind

as I said before an average stack of 14.5 big blinds allows considerably more play options than an average stack of 5 big blinds
(If you look very carefully you may be able to detect a slight edge of sarcasm in my typing during the example)

Anyway I think you are fixating on this a little too much!


If you go back and read the earlier thread my initial example had the BB ratio at over 20. This being deemed comfortable earlier in the final. in this example the BB ratio of Average stack never falls below 17.

Average stack means some ARE lower and some are higher.


About understanding Player's perspective:

Are telling me that all players value exactly the same thing
play the same way
want the same structure.

If so then this is very naive

Different players want different things
No player is the same

You prefer a slow game some prefer a fast game

There is no easy to define collective 'player perspective'

Your opinion is not the representatitive one and give up telling me I don't know what I'm doing> I actually spend an awful lot of time talking to regular players and trying to establish what their perspective is. These people that i serve day in day out have confidence that I understand their perspective.


If all players were the same my job would be easy.

It's good that you initial example had the av at over 20 that does allow for play.

I took your "allows plenty of play" to mean just that, i find it hard to see sarcasm in text.

I am not saying that all players want the same thing, clearly players who want a fast game go to a casino chip throwing contest, and those that want a slower game go to festivals or play online.

I didn't say you don't know what you are doing, i said you remove the confidence of the players with that coment.

It seems you are making improvements but maybe you need to stop taking everything to heart so much!! Acknowledge the feedback u get on here and compile it with feedback from the casino then see what you can do, rather than just smacking us all down!