Important - New Tournament Charges at Dusk Till Dawn from 1st April 2012

[Jon MW]

Whilst it's not the case at DTD, Skippy makes a good point that the all-in buyin is used in Vegas to skim the pot without the players realising how much juice they're paying.

You can just imagine how some less poker-orientated UK casino chains may take advantage of tourney buyins not being described as £X+£Y were that notation to become standard.

If a tournament is advertised as £x with y% deducted then I think it does make it a lot more straight forward.

There are already tournaments around advertised as £x+£y - but they don't tell you that they also deduct z% for the regulars league from the pot - I think each venue or chain is just going to have to be judged on their openness about the whole thing.

[LonOhRay]

You're only "saving" £18 and £8 if your plan is to go to Dusk till Dawn and play a tournament with no intention of cashing in it.

You "save" £3 on a super 50 and "save" £3 on the £150 deepstack - £5 less going into the prize pool for a super 50 per entry and £15 less going into the prize pool for a £150 deepstack.

Huge positive effect for the players if and when guarantees aren't met.



If I read correctly the effective rake is now 11% as opposed to 16% on a super 50  (45+5 - 50+8) and 11% as opposed to 12% on the £150 (135+15 - 150+18).

Anything that "saves money" is going to be good but when the difference is 1% I'm all for creating a bigger prize pool. Hopefully the reduction of total cost attracts more players to boost said prize pool and generate more revenue for DTD themselves.



Lets hope the field sizes increase and everyone makes some money!

[kinboshi]

one other point if me and mrs fish both play the super 50 and both re-enter then thats £32 saved and probs a meal at dtd before we leave !! ....

If she just plays it, that's £50 saved

good point i may just stay home on sat now and look after the kids !

You'll have to go and win it now!  See you tomorrow most probably.

[paulhouk03]

I hope this will attract alot more players

Doesn't effect me that much as I would pay what ever price to play there

[leethefish]

one other point if me and mrs fish both play the super 50 and both re-enter then thats £32 saved and probs a meal at dtd before we leave !! ....

If she just plays it, that's £50 saved

good point i may just stay home on sat now and look after the kids !

You'll have to go and win it now!  See you tomorrow most probably.

hope so bud

[robyong]

Okay, let me deal with a few points that have been raised and let me address these points:

1. Course I don't expect a big uplift by doing this, players love DTD for many reasons, for our tournaments I would have thought we could actually get away with increasing reg fees if we so wished as so many people qualify so the juice is less of an issue, plus 82% of our tourney players are from outside of a 30 mile radius, a few extra quid in their pocket isnt the difference between getting in the car and getting ripped off my the government on fuel costs!

2. 10% from total buy-ins is very transparent, we have the biggest GTE's, we are unique in that we guarantee all our player prize pools, minimum prize in the marketed at the GTE, and the lessor experienced players and the 90% that's are not going to win can outlay less and work out what their minimum return and budged spend, including the possibility of an extra bullet or staying for another comp in the evening or next day

3. DTD has more loyalty that other other poker business in UK, it's because we keep making the right decisions for our players before short term revenues,  the gaming world is full of mistrust, and the vast majority of players trust us because we make decisions like this that we don't have to do, without sounding patronising, even the savvy value hunter players know that we are a decent bunch, you cannot put a price on goodwill, we should we wiped out now with the increase in live poker in the UK over the last few years, but we are not, we are the market leader in live poker, and we operate from a touched up industrial unit in Nottingham! Generally, we do good stuff and we get that back in loyalty over a longer period, and reducing our reg fees is a nice gesture and I know that will pay back over time, no, players are not going stop me in the club and hand me over a tenner at the 500 deepstack, but they might stick with us when the next casino or online tour sets up in the UK!

4.  Prize pools get less at DTD, are you fkn serious? We are going to keep making bigger and bigger prize pools, we are going to keep smashing every record at every buy in level and if players pay less reg fees and we still keep smashing our numbers, everyone is a winner, 100k for a 150 comp in 3 weeks time FFS - does anyone remember when we GTE 100k for a £300 comp last year - players thought we were mad, now we are doing to 50% of that buy-in for 100k just a year on!

5. I think the only 2 day event that we do less that £50 is the Grand Prix, where we charge €10 juice, that will stay the same, we have no plans do do any 2 day events at less that £50, II think we have that market covered with the GP!

6. All these rumours about DTD running at a massive loss are bollocks, yes, the profit and loss is not looking rosy so far this year, but with all of the events we have booked in we will cover our costs by the end of 2012 and that includes the CPP, which by the way we couldn't run a crazy event like that if we didn't have the goodwill and loyalty of the poker community, so those of you that worry about us taking less rake and reg fees, thanks, but we are okay to make these tweaks, however if you're feeling flush, stick the extra reg fee in the charity box by the cash desk!

7. We have made changes with cash games aswell, they have been mentioned on this thread, the 50p 1 game and 1-2 are both down by 25% in terms of rake, you can't rake a low limit game at 5% with a 10 cap, even th Vic use 10% with a 5 cap and their poker room is all about attracting players into the whole venue, so they can afford to run at a loss, we need to run at breakeven or better after deduction of promos

8. DTD, dare I say it, is more of a club culture than a gaming venue, we have members and we know eachother, and the club can afford to do the odds little tweak for its loyal members, so happy days. We have experienced a min of 35% growth year on year in terms of footfall for last 5 years trading, I feel this 2 way relationship has worked well so far, sometimes we do things and people think WTF, like the no deals thing, look at our numbers since then, not saying we have got bigger fields due to no deals, but now only 1 out of 4 comps at DTD go to chip count and so many people have said to me, wow, I won a comp, damn that feels good! Of course, why the hell should the venue not want deals, spreading the money around is better for the venue and comp finishes earlier, but players are happier now, has so much positive feedback from this decision


Hope this helps, any more questions just stick them on here

Cheers rob

[BulldozerD]

Personally think it's good news. Just wish I could get there more often and play there regularly

[EvilPie]

I think it's brilliant. No more of those pesky pound coins to worry about.

[EvilPie]

I think it's important for transparency that people realise the difference between charging 10% rake and taking 10% from the prize pool.

Previous fees were 12% apart from super 50s which were a bit higher.

New fees are 10% of the prize pool which is actually 11.1% when you look at it the same way as before.

It's a reduction but not a huge one.

The main benefit is that it keeps everything nice round numbers when you buy in. That's the thing people will like and I'm pretty sure that's why it's been done.

Personally I preferred it as it was because it made the comps a bit more expensive. I'd rather play a £50 comp than a £45 comp. I'd rather play a £500 than a £450 etc. but it certainly won't stop me playing.

Keep up the good work.

[robyong]

Matt,

How many Chips do I need to win to qualify for the Chip Leader comp?

Cheers Rob

[The Camel]

Read this thread 3 times and I cannot possibly see why anyone would think this was a negative.

If DTD ran rebuy tournaments of course there would be negs. But as far as I know they don't, so it's 100% positive news.

[Sweetman]

Quick question, will any future Monte Carlo tournaments be subject to the "10% rake of total prizepool"?

If so, this would make it £900 + £100 (11.1% rake), a rake increase of 59% compared to the previous £1000 + £70 buyin (7% rake).

[skolsuper]

Read this thread 3 times and I cannot possibly see why anyone would think this was a negative.

If DTD ran rebuy tournaments of course there would be negs. But as far as I know they don't, so it's 100% positive news.

Think they did just start a £40 1r but that was £6 rake before so not a huge difference before and after, assuming some % of people don't take the rebuy.

The 2 main things people are missing is that:

1. For losing players, yeah it might not make much difference to whether they decide to play a tournament whether it's £50+8 or £50 flat, but it will leave an extra £8 in their pocket. Over time that will add up and, assuming they spend all of their spare cash on poker (which they probably do), they'll probably play more comps with it, or at least spend it in the club.

2. For winning players over a certain ROI, the reduced volume more than wipes out the rake saving. Say for example I am a +50% ROI player, in the £560 deepstack that would mean I average a return of £840 for £280 profit per tournament. ROI is always worked out including reg fees so that makes our real ROI on the prize pool proportion of the buyin 840/500 = +68%. Changing that to £450+50, assuming the field stays the same so our ROI on the prize pool does not change, that means we cash for £450*1.68 = £756 on average, subtracting the buyin gives us a reduced profit of £256 per tournament.

So, the net effect is to take a small bite out of winning players' profits and return it to losing+breakeven players who will most likely spend it on future tournaments, increasing churn and the club's turnover and eventually the bottom line. As usual, the conclusion is that Rob is no mug, this will be good for the games, good for the punters, but also good for DTD. Everyone's a winner, except me and Keith.

[jakally]

Everyone's a winner, except me and Keith.

Surely the simple solution to this is for you to stake losing players......

[Mitch]

Thats it, set up the tap-in.