Two EPT Oddities

[tikay]

I gather from the blonde Day 2 Live Update - http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=21227.0 - that....

1) They did a table re-draw at 3 tables &, I think, 2 tables.

Why would that be?

2) The hand-for hand play on "the bubble" (I think about 40 got paid) resulted in several players reporting they they only played SEVEN hands in an entire one hour level, with so many players waiting to see if someone on another table was about to bust out. This is so wrong that there must be a very good reason, as John Duthie & his EPT Team do not miss too many tricks, they've done a magnificent job with the EPT. So why not pause the clock during "the bubble"?

That apart, another splendid Event, & kudos to Lord Duthie.

Today's Final Day Live Update is here.....http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=21275.0

[doubleup]

I think the time that players are taking to make decisions is becoming ludicrous.  On most internet sites you get 15 secs so why does everyone's brain seize up when they are playing live.  I now see ppl dwelling in £10 rebuy tourneys ffs.  Something has got to be done.

[Dewi_cool]

Carlo has a lot to answer for

[Ironside]

the 27 player and 18 player redraws are only fair so that the players on the broken table are not put at a disavantage being put on a table wihere 2/3 of the table have been playing together while they have only been playing with 1/3 of the table

[byronkincaid]

I thought it was cos they had a live TV table and wanted to get new people on it as often as poss.

tikay didn't you say you were spellbound or something by someone taking 20 minutes over a hand recently. personally that puts me off playing live. you should have a set time limit IMO for every decision and if you have a particularly difficult decision you can ask for extra time. you could have an "extra time" chip like they had "all in" chips at the wsop. perhaps you could get one a day or every so many levels.

[RichD]

I think the time that players are taking to make decisions is becoming ludicrous.  On most internet sites you get 15 secs so why does everyone's brain seize up when they are playing live.  I now see ppl dwelling in £10 rebuy tourneys ffs.  Something has got to be done.

Just what I was thinking when watching the EPT live website for a bit last night, every single tiny descision took a couple of minutes - higher stakes money is exchanged on FullTilt where they dont even have a time-bank, and it works.

[tikay]

I thought it was cos they had a live TV table and wanted to get new people on it as often as poss.

tikay didn't you say you were spellbound or something by someone taking 20 minutes over a hand recently. personally that puts me off playing live. you should have a set time limit IMO for every decision and if you have a particularly difficult decision you can ask for extra time. you could have an "extra time" chip like they had "all in" chips at the wsop. perhaps you could get one a day or every so many levels.

Yes, I was spellbound by a hand in the Bolton GUKPT that took an age - Praz Bansi & Mick Fletcher were the guys involved - but that was not a "bubble" situation, it was genuinely a difficult & dwellworthy hand, in which neither player finished with a pair, but the pot was huge, all-in in Praz's case. And I said 20 minutes, maybe that was an "embellishment", but it sure took a while.

I think that's a very different scenario. At the EPT, they had 40 players who only got 7 hands plyed in an hour. I just can't see that's the way to go.

[Ironside]

I thought it was cos they had a live TV table and wanted to get new people on it as often as poss.

tikay didn't you say you were spellbound or something by someone taking 20 minutes over a hand recently. personally that puts me off playing live. you should have a set time limit IMO for every decision and if you have a particularly difficult decision you can ask for extra time. you could have an "extra time" chip like they had "all in" chips at the wsop. perhaps you could get one a day or every so many levels.

Yes, I was spellbound by a hand in the Bolton GUKPT that took an age - Praz Bansi & Mick Fletcher were the guys involved - but that was not a "bubble" situation, it was genuinely a difficult & dwellworthy hand, in which neither player finished with a pair, but the pot was huge, all-in in Praz's case. And I said 20 minutes, maybe that was an "embellishment", but it sure took a while.

I think that's a very different scenario. At the EPT, they had 40 players who only got 7 hands plyed in an hour. I just can't see that's the way to go.

final table of a double shootout blinds reverting back to 10/20 with 1200 chips 30 minute level we played 7 hands before the start of level 3 oh the buy in was £15

[Milkybarkid]

hmmm was going to write something about this on my blog.

Several players were arguing with Gerrard and Lee Jones about what happened during the bubble. It was 7/8 hands in 80 minutes as far as i remember. At one point we entered a new level, and by the time we played the first hand at the new blinds we were already 12 minutes into the level. The worst thing about this was that for some reason the structure had become a crapshoot anyway, so this just made the situation worse.

For the last four levels i played yesterday there was maybe 2/3 hands  on my various tables where there was some post flop play (except blind v blind). I'm not sure if it was to do with the record numbers but for the last 4 levels the average stack had around 11-14 big blinds. This obviously led to all in pre flop poker. For a tournament where people are playing for a huge first prize something clearly went wrong. Every player i spoke to was complaining about the lack of play in their stack. Even the chip leader only had something like 25-30 big blinds. I'm no expert in structures, but i always thought that in closing stages of EPT average stacks normally had 18-25 big blinds i would have thought.

Other than that it was a good event :-)

[Eyeofsauron]

Can't you ask for the clock to be put on a player who's taking forever to reach a decision? Never seen it done personally, but only played a few live events.

[dealerFROMhell]

Can't you ask for the clock to be put on a player who's taking forever to reach a decision? Never seen it done personally, but only played a few live events.

You can ask for a player to be put on the clock as soon as you make the bet. I've seen it done a few times. Especially the hand before the break.

Someones dwelling up forever? easy solution. Stick them on the clock. End of.

[CRIPPIN]

Andy black put the clock on himself at the EPT London last year !!!!!!!!

(It was all done in good humour though)

[matt674]

I cant remember seeing Bill there - who was the other one?

[JaffaCake]

Have to agree, the blinds seemed to make this tourney a joke, and while it's very easy to say call the clock, you would have to do it 6 or 7 times in one hand sometimes. With around 40k and the blinds at 2 4k and 55 left on Saturday I knew I had to get busy very soon, but with 25 minutes of that level left I thought I had a little time. However, we played 3 hands in that last 25 minutes, one of which took more than 15 minutes as the two chipleaders on my table went at it, every decision taking around 2 minutes for each. That left me with 38k and blinds now at 3 and 6k with 600 ante and in the big blind next hand after the break...now with no play and no time to find a hand. After playing for 15 or so hours I didn't feel that satisified at that...and that was 4 off the bubble. After those 7 or 8 hands in an hour those lucky enough to cash had no play at all, I hope this is addressed before Monte Carlo.

Great job by the updaters as ever, and my Ladbrokes teammate Andreas Hoivold, one of the nicest guys I've played with....good to see he took my advice on board 

[tikay]

Have to agree, the blinds seemed to make this tourney a joke, and while it's very easy to say call the clock, you would have to do it 6 or 7 times in one hand sometimes. With around 40k and the blinds at 2 4k and 55 left on Saturday I knew I had to get busy very soon, but with 25 minutes of that level left I thought I had a little time. However, we played 3 hands in that last 25 minutes, one of which took more than 15 minutes as the two chipleaders on my table went at it, every decision taking around 2 minutes for each. That left me with 38k and blinds now at 3 and 6k with 600 ante and in the big blind next hand after the break...now with no play and no time to find a hand. After playing for 15 or so hours I didn't feel that satisified at that...and that was 4 off the bubble. After those 7 or 8 hands in an hour those lucky enough to cash had no play at all, I hope this is addressed before Monte Carlo.

Great job by the updaters as ever, and my Ladbrokes teammate Andreas Hoivold, one of the nicest guys I've played with....good to see he took my advice on board 

.....and of course, it WOULD be in the deep stacks interest to slow it down.......

3 hands in 25 minutes!