UK festival poker....non added-value festival poker...the future...

[RED-DOG]

Why can't competitions start at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon? That would leave plenty of time for an excellent one or two day structure.

[Wardonkey]

Why can't competitions start at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon? That would leave plenty of time for an excellent one or two day structure.

That's a staffing issue, casinos are busiest on Saturdays. They close at 4am at which time they are usually quite busy. The gaming floor is not busy until the evening so the casino will open with as few staff as possible and then load up on the backend of the shift. If they start a dealer dealt tourney at 3pm the staff will have done a full shift by the time the casino getting busy. Getting staff to do a double shift on a Saturday is not only difficult it's also expensive.

[Royal Flush]

Fortunately, we have seen a good bit of added money reach UK Tourney Poker in the current 12 months - probably £250,000 or more in total from Blue Square/Grosvenor, Gala & APAT. The start of a trend, one can but hope.

We shouldn't really count private tournaments like APAT in figures like this.

Going back to my earlier point, its nice to see blue square add 13k to these events, it is however sad to see Grosvenor take 15k out of them.......

Not to mention the juice they charged me for a tournament a i didn't play! I haven't forgotten the rant, i am saving it for when i have the time to respond to the counter argument.

[TightEnd]

http://www.blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/9942

tikay's article refers



as to the point he asks about "normal" night numbers at Luton...either holding up or very good depending on the night....hard to predict which in advance though....and as you know we have 4 nights a week of good structured freezes/semi-freezes

[AndrewT]

From reading Tikay's article, it seems that the 'normal' runners for the £1000 event simply chose not to play (because of the self-fulfilling snowball effect), rather than were drawn elsewhere.

Perhaps, in ye olden days, these people would have turned up regardless because there wasn't anywhere to go. Whereas now, they'll think 'I can just stay in and play the big Sunday tournaments online'

Maybe simply the fact it was on a Sunday was a contributing factor - it's the day when the internet has its biggest pull for the high stakes tournament player.

[tikay]

From reading Tikay's article, it seems that the 'normal' runners for the £1000 event simply chose not to play (because of the self-fulfilling snowball effect), rather than were drawn elsewhere.

Perhaps, in ye olden days, these people would have turned up regardless because there wasn't anywhere to go. Whereas now, they'll think 'I can just stay in and play the big Sunday tournaments online'

Maybe simply the fact it was on a Sunday was a contributing factor - it's the day when the internet has its biggest pull for the high stakes tournament player.

The Newcastle Event was on the Saturday (&, for those that survived, the Sunday).

[Ironside]

jen and patrick say that casinos would need to cap comps at 50-60 runners to make them playable in 1 day and they cant see a casino doing this, but look for an answer and you shall find

lets look at aspers or walsall or luton all have capacity for about 20 tables

now if you wanted a 1 day comp to finish in 12-14 hours without turning it into a crap shoot but dont want to have 2/3 of the table sat around empty then hold 3 comps at one time

£50 a £250 and a £1000 (3 amounts to suit the players they could all be the same) gives you the abilty to run 3 differnet start times too say 2pm 2:30 and 3pm meaning meal breaks can be staggered easier ok it would be slightly more expensive (only slightly) than running 1 comp with 180 runners but everyone will feel they got more play for there money and wont feel so cheated
prize pools will be down obviously but then the chances of making the money increases

[AndrewT]

From reading Tikay's article, it seems that the 'normal' runners for the £1000 event simply chose not to play (because of the self-fulfilling snowball effect), rather than were drawn elsewhere.

Perhaps, in ye olden days, these people would have turned up regardless because there wasn't anywhere to go. Whereas now, they'll think 'I can just stay in and play the big Sunday tournaments online'

Maybe simply the fact it was on a Sunday was a contributing factor - it's the day when the internet has its biggest pull for the high stakes tournament player.

The Newcastle Event was on the Saturday (&, for those that survived, the Sunday).

I could have sworn that article said Sunday for the £1000 event earlier.

[vegaslover]

Is it perhaps that the market is starting to reach saturation point, especially for the amount of regular uk players. It's pretty obvious that a lot of the players (pros) around are losing money or making very little. Getting by on % swaps with other players. Has the costs involved in playing (rake, accommodation, travel etc) slowly burning up the money in the poker community?
The GUKPT and Gala tours offer the big payday and perhaps players are targeting them instead of the smaller fessies.
As has been touched already, sats, particularly online are now aimed at the main tours, this must be affecting the numbers for the other fessies.
Bearing in mind the costs are players opting to play internet poker rather than the fessies, as they are more cost and time effective.

[Indestructable]

I still think there are loads of potential players out there that would love to play live but are too shy/scared or however you call it to give it a try in a casino which can be a daunting experience for a newbie.

[phatomch]

Everyone always states "the casino's" make money out of us. Well in poker tournies we dont. Most comps run at a loss every single day, by the time we add up all the overtime, hotel costs, traveling, food, extra uniforms and other bits these comps are very costly to run. This week for the GUKPT brighton casino had to put me up in a hotel for 7 days £650. They then had to pay for all the other bits and i am not as slim as flushy I can eat. I also worked 97 hours (57 hours overtime) and 4 hours travel £1600.

So in total it cost Brighton casino around £ 2300 just to have me there for the tour week, now there are 3 tour managers they have to pay.

we had 12 visiting staff, they may not of worked my hours but thay worked hard and long (50 hrs average) £5300. 12x hotels for 4 days £4300.

So far that is around £15,000

for the main event we had 305 runners x £50 =£15250

Now you add all the extra tea girls, bar men, car jockeys, receptionists, pit staff, managers, door staff, cooks ,kps,cashiers and handymen. All these people put in overtime.

Then put in a full buffet x5 days for 200 people. (includeing Flushy/chopper)

Grosvenor are dedicated to running good comps for players we did not move away from cardrooms when poker was dropping of, these charges we make are needed to make these comps a option. Southampton was cancelled because of last years poor attendence in our other festivals, we could not operate as a buissness if we took the chance of running it. Now this is my home club and is greatly disheartened not to be able to run a festival, when I spend half my life helping to run other casino's comps for them.
 
But please keep surporting us, to keep the poker boom going I can not go back to dealing in the pit.

[RED-DOG]

Nice post phat.

BTW- That hotel was bloody expensive.

[Yogi-Bear]

That £15,250 is just the start of the money that comes into the casino. Hourly charges for instance. 

I would imagine that the bar had its busiest week of the year(probably more than double the usual amount), and the restaurant, and the table games probably had at least 2/3rds extra down the box. Whether or not the casino is able to capitalise on it is a different story. You can't just look at what they pay as a registration fee. They bring so much more into the casino.

Yogi

[Sheriff Fatman]

That £15,250 is just the start of the money that comes into the casino. Hourly charges for instance. 

I would imagine that the bar had its busiest week of the year(probably more than double the usual amount), and the restaurant, and the table games probably had at least 2/3rds extra down the box. Whether or not the casino is able to capitalise on it is a different story. You can't just look at what they pay as a registration fee. They bring so much more into the casino.

Yogi

Not to mention the TV rights to the tournament.  I'm sure Grosvenor didn't give them away for nothing.

[byronkincaid]

That £15,250 is just the start of the money that comes into the casino. Hourly charges for instance. 

I would imagine that the bar had its busiest week of the year(probably more than double the usual amount), and the restaurant, and the table games probably had at least 2/3rds extra down the box. Whether or not the casino is able to capitalise on it is a different story. You can't just look at what they pay as a registration fee. They bring so much more into the casino.

Yogi

Not to mention the TV rights to the tournament.  I'm sure Grosvenor didn't give them away for nothing.

thought standard poker TV deal was sponsor pays for everything, TV channel gets a free program in america some of the TV channels are charging to put the stuff on.