blonde poker forum

A new blonde, who'd like to remain anon for the moment, sent me this PM.....

"Tikay,
I have been playing nl holdem for about a year but am becoming frustrated by tournaments that are either like bingo or the blinds increase every 20 mins. My local casino is Gala in Nottingham and I like to play at weekends. Do you know of any tournaments in my area that don't cost too much (ie £30 or less + rebuys) and are like 'real' poker or am I being a bit unrealistic...."

Can anyone asist?

He lives fairly local to Notts, has transport, & is happy to spend around £100 for an evening's Poker.

I share his frustration - it is  VERY difficult to get serious clocks & structures for guys who wish to play at the £25 to £100 level, it really is.

Anyon got any ideas? He plays mainly at weekends.

If any Casino had the bright idea of sticking on a really deep-stack, slow clock £50 Freeze they would be putting up the "Sold Out" signs regularly.

i havent been there but the gala at birmingham has a £30 freezeout on a thursday night. noflops goes quite often and i think ifm has been too.

sorry cant help with the structure but if dik9 reads this thread he will be able to shed more light on it. either that or pm him

4000 pts, 25/50 blinds with a 30 minute clock and house dealers. Usually 55 runners. Register by 8pm for a 9pm start, (as we found out to our cost last week! :D)

Gala Notts used to have a £50 Single Rebuy affair on a Thursday, 6,000 starting chips - this was the best comp in the Midlands by far, but it may have been scrapped now, I really don't know.

But he really wanted a weekend comp, as presumably he needs to be able to get up for work next morning!

I honestly can't think of anywhere near me that fits the criteria, Walsall has £10 and £20 games but the clocks are 20 mins.
Broadway has a £50 rebuy which i think is a good clock but too expensive considering the maniacs there.
Maybe try a little bit North, i'll have a scout about.

Ok, had a bit of a look and all i can see within striking distance is a £50 freezeout at Annabelles in Leicester on a Sunday night, dunno about clock etc. though.

From next month Luton is introducing a £50 freezeout every friday night, 5000chips 45 min clock

It has lost a lot of its big punter business to the bigger games at the Sportsman and the Vic on  a Friday and will now cater for its more usual poker player on a Friday night too

I really DO think the Casinos are missing a trick here.

There would be huge demand for such comps.

I am not so sure - I ventured to one of Glasgows casinos on Friday night for what turned out to be a a rebuy fest. Tenners were flying in all over the place. The poker player in me thinks I like this because I believe I have the ability to outplay most of these people once th rebuy is over, so in my mind they are adding more money for me to the prize pool.

This tournament attracted 60 odd players, and resulted in a near 2.5K prize pool. Do the maths. And incidentally the juice was only £1 per player, for which you got free coffee/soft drinks and a bit of grub at the interval.

Undoubtedly the casino isnt making any real money from this venture. It will be getting additional revenue streams from people playing other games whilst they are there, but not from the casino itself.

My question is this - if the casino could get 60 players paying £40 + 4, would they not rather do that, and get £240 income, rather that a paltry £60 ?

Casinos I think know their market, and their customers preference...To me it lies on all levels with places like cincinnatis, the sportsman, and eventually DTD to offer real poker, to real poker players...

Nice post, but honestly I think you would be surprised how little market research major casino groups do about their poker playing customers wishes, what the competition is up to, what night to offer which comp etc

In my experience this is allied in at least one major group to not really being that concerned with the profitability of ther card room as long as ancilliary income on the gaming tables makes up for it in the round

The fact is that £10 rebuys will attract more people than a £40 rebuy because of the prizepool.
I have said this before, and you alured to it, that poker players are attracted by the bigger prizepools and a £10 rebuy will make more prize money than a £40 freeze.
More people means more punters on the house games.

But in a rebuy no-one is out for the first 90 minutes, in a freezeout the players are out a lot faster.

The problem is the 'poker player' doesnt play as many table games, the £10 rebuy gambler does.

There's the £30 freezeout on sunday afternoons at gala. I've enjoyed it everytime i've played, would be worth a try.

I doubt you'll find a tournament with much longer levels than 20mins at that price though. If there was one i'd love to give it a crack!

Exactly the guys point!

its now 2 rebuys and 5000 starting chips.get 60+ players everyweek,and is still a good comp. ;)

Thanks Fran, that's great news - that really is an excellent comp.

Just wanted to say I can really identify with this...

I play a lot online, and would love to play live more often - but can't find/am not aware of tournaments that suit. 20 minute clock or less is essentially just a crapshoot imo, and I don't want to play them, or the random £5/£10 rebuys that seem to be typical.

£50 freezeout, half hour clock would be perfect. I'm in Yorkshire, so anyone with any ideas let me know!

2nd post by the way, I've been lurking for a while, so Hello, excellent forum you have here!

I got into poker by playing on the internet. When I played tournaments, yes the blind levels may only have been 10 or 12 minutes, but at 60 hands an hour I got used to the cards whizzing about. On the odd time when I'd go out and play live I'd accept that things move slower, only 20-30 hands per hour.

In these days when you can go to just about any online poker room and find tournaments with moderate buy-ins with 20 or even 30 minute levels, is it just that we are now spoilt? When online players decide to dip their toes into the live arena, isn't it to be expected that they're going to find the blind levels lead to a level of crapshootiness that they're not used to when playing in 50-200 runner tournaments online.

I would assume that live tournaments in casinos now attract more entrants than they used to back ten years ago (maybe one of the old school players might be kind enough to sit us young whippersnappers on their knee and tell us about what poker tournaments were like in 'the time before computers'). Has this led to shorter clocks, as there are now more players to eliminate before the casino closes?

Is this a old problem, or did casinos used to have tournaments which would have no more than 20 people and so the players could luxuriate in 30 or 40 minutes levels?

Time for a bit of spam, hope this is ok?

A mate of mine has just opened up a small (to begin with) poker club in the stoke area (first game was on sat...), I've yet to play there but when I do I'll pop a report up on here for anyone interested.

Now the interesting thing for this thread is that they are currently planning on a £30 freeze on sat and a £40 freeze on sunday. It seems these should have decent chips and at least a 30 min clock (I'm constantly moaning at my mate until this is confirmed!!!  :D)

Current plan would be to have these in the afternoons with a small (limited) rebuy comp on afterwards.

Sound good? Any suggestions I should pass on?

It is NOT Spam, & is EXACTLY the reason we started the thread.

Thanks for your suggestions. Luton on friday sounds interesting as does nottingham on thursday, although weekdays are a problem with work. Maybe I should concentrate on improving my game so that I don't so frustated with over active tables on cheap unlimited rebuys!