A Structured Debate

[snoopy1239]

I thought this article on the homepage might interest some of you.

http://www.blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/7720

If anyone has anything further to say on the issue or simply want to bash me on the head with a mallet and scream, "What the eck are you going on about you moron!" then please feel free to post your views on this thread.

[RED-DOG]

Great article.

Imho all the GukPT needs is a little fine tuning so that we don't have those "almost everyone is short stacked, I don't want to push but I must" levels.

Having said that, can I still choose the screaming and bashing you with a mallet option?

[AndrewT]

As Snoopy alluded to in the article, the problem in these tournaments is simply the number of players - there are too many to be able to get down to one winner in the allotted time without having a pushfest at some point.

Fewer players, extra days, starting earlier - at least one of these would need to be implemented to get a better structure. Each have their problems, but they are the only answer - fiddling with the blind levels doesn't actually help, as it just moves about when the pushfest happens - it can't eliminate it.

The easiest solution is to restrict the number of players, but we know that's the least likely to happen with every event being sold out so far.

[TightEnd]

Neil Channing made a fine post on the live update, which I repeat below. Whilst not agreeing with every word, I do think it deserves another airing..

" can't believe some of the things I've read and heard about the structure here.

Let's first look at what the organisers are trying to achieve.

The first decision they have made is that these are four day events. It was to be that some would be three days, but it seems this is going to be a very popular tour. I think four days is just right as it gives normal working people a chance to partake and gives the pros the chance to play all the events without spending their whole lives on it.

This is a very popular tournament with more people wishing to enter than spaces. The organisers have tried to physically squeeze everyone in, and have also tried to squeeze the tournament into the time available. The tournament is four days long and basically Sunday is intended to be just for the final. In my view this is a correct deciion as it means that enormous numbers of extra players do not have to stay longer, putting in more hours, building up extra expenses and receiving little or no prize money. It also means that the final will start at a reasonable time allowing the big money decisions to take place earlier on, while people are not exhausted from a marathon day. This will also mean that a live audience will be on hand and awake to add atmosphere, and that the TV crew and casino staff will be not have to work on late into the night. If any hitches occurr or if the final becomes a really long battle, there will be no time pressure and the threat of a chip count will be averted.

Given that they have made that decision to try and get very close to the final by the end of play Saturday then they just need to construct a structure to do that. As they started at 4pm, got down to 12 players by 3.45am and the casino is legally bound to close at 4am I don't see how they could have squeezed much more play into the time available.

The only choice left to them now is to take play away from the early part of the tournament in order to make a better game later. It is possible that by bringing the antes in slightly earlier or by skipping the odd level they could give themselves leeway to slow things down later. The problem here is that more people would be affected by the quickening of the structure leaving more people to complain.

There may be some tweeks that can be made but they should only be tweeks. Basically the GUKPT have got it right.

The people who have commented already have covered a lot of good points. A lot of the people who have complained are simply not used to tournaments with running antes. I think it is a great development that the bigger UK tournaments are all starting to have antes now. All American and online NLH tournaments have a running ante and to me it just isn't a proper NLH tournament without them. I have no idea why they have not always been used in past Grosvenor festivals but I think a lot of the rocks who are not used to antes, and who were unable to adapt to a new situation were the ones shouting the loudest.

The second really good point is that changing things that have been advertised because people are shouting and moaning is generally bad. The time for these people to complain was either when the structure was first displayed on the website or long after the end of the tournament. I thought one quote yesterday was very telling. Top tournament player, wily super agggressive veteran and altogether classy individual Alan MacLean had taken considerable risks to accrue an enormous stack, possibly because he realised that the pace of the tournament was rising fast and that people had not realised. He did not shout and scream like some, but was heard to quietly exclaim:

"The rocks have won."

Any time you change the structure midway, even if you think you are benefitting the game, you are penalising somebody else. In this case it was the people who just got on with it, adapted to the structure they were facing and played to win. Some of those were knocked out on gambles they may not have taken and others had won chips with gambles that were now not as valuable as they thought.

The final person who made a lot of sense to me was Rob Sherwood. The sentiment he was trying to get over was, I believe, this one. Its a poker tournament. The blinds have to go up, people have to be knocked out, that's what happens. It has to finish sometime. If you don't like the idea of that go and play a cash game, which is exactly what I'm off to do now."

[dik9]

I actually thought the Structure was great, what I found extraordinary was the obvious involvement from the TV production company. I understand the need for Television and think it's fantastic, but the final that lasted for 9 hours only had 137 hands dealt? And that is including short handed, 15 hands an hour average cuts the play down drastically. And makes for a crapshoot at the business end, when it actually matters?

[M3boy]

I actually thought the Structure was great, what I found extraordinary was the obvious involvement from the TV production company. I understand the need for Television and think it's fantastic, but the final that lasted for 9 hours only had 137 hands dealt? And that is including short handed, 15 hands an hour average cuts the play down drastically. And makes for a crapshoot at the business end, when it actually matters?

How about "freezing the clock" for when no action is taking place?
Or increase the time of the levels for the TV play to compensate for the "delays"?

Just a thought.

[yellowmagic]

My 2 cents:

I thought the Walsall GUKPT structure was excellent: for the 2 levels I lasted, I never felt under blind pressure...

Both Broadway (in general) and GUKPT have good structures. For me, the blinds need to be a smooth progression, and set to apply gentle pressure to move the players towards a result in the time allotted, without pinchpoints - this much is obvious.

One thing I always notice at Broadway, the quality of dealing is so variable that different tables get very different numbers of hands per level, and this is only partly mitigated by rotating the dealers. Walsall had some of the best dealers from around the UK Grosvenors drafted in, and they were uniformly excellent. Broadway don't have this luxury (apologies to Shaftesbury).

[dealerFROMhell]

Walsall had some of the best dealers from around the UK Grosvenors drafted in, and they were uniformly excellent

Apart from my mate Steve, the legend from Newcastle.........

3 people all in pre-flop, in the £100 re-buy on Sunday. Burns a card. Deals the flop. Picks up aforementioned flop and mucks it!

RUUULIIIING!

Coming from London, these festivals are easy to deal in, and are a really good laugh if you get a decent hotel that serves beer throughout the night!

Where was the Dealers Choice cash game though?

[I KNOW IT]

I actually thought the Structure was great, what I found extraordinary was the obvious involvement from the TV production company. I understand the need for Television and think it's fantastic, but the final that lasted for 9 hours only had 137 hands dealt? And that is including short handed, 15 hands an hour average cuts the play down drastically. And makes for a crapshoot at the business end, when it actually matters?

How about "freezing the clock" for when no action is taking place?
Or increase the time of the levels for the TV play to compensate for the "delays"?

Just a thought.

The clock during the final was in the hands of the TV producer (I believe) so they could pause it due to any technical breaks.