Black Belt Poker Nottingham Live II

[snoopy1239]

Hey peeps. Just a quick message to say thank you to Babis Lappas and Sam Razavi for sponsoring six players into the Nottingham Live, and then donating their 50 percent of winnings to Cancer Research.

Also, many thanks to Kerryjane Craigie for donating her entire prize, and bounty Marty Smyth who, without provocation, made the same gesture. Finally, congratulations to last clown standing Shane Norman for really bumping the figures up with his final table finish.

In total, Cancer Research will be receiving $2,500. Back-pats all around. We may have done chunks in the overlay, but at least everyone had a good time and a good cause received some dough.

Final Results were as follows:

1st  Kevin Williams -- $15,000
2nd  Jack Sambrook -- $10,000
3rd  David Craigon -- $7,500
4th  Matthew Heap - $6,000 
5th  Chris Keyworth -- $4,600
6th  Shane Norman -- $3,800
7th  Russ Swift -- $3,100
8th  Luke Bindon -- $2,500
9th  Jerome Bradpiece -- $2,000

[tikay]

That's a grand thing, snoops, sorry to hear about the overlay, but well done Babis & Sam, both of whom entertained me regally in Vegas recently.

[cambridgealex]

One reason for the overlay maybe that you pay 20% of the field. I know loads of people who played it last year but not this year because they remember how bad the payout structure was. If you could buy-in live at the club too it'd snap make the guarantee obv, but I see why you don't do that.

Congrats Kevin and Skippy too.

[Skippy]

One reason for the overlay maybe that you pay 20% of the field. I know loads of people who played it last year but not this year because they remember how bad the payout structure was. If you could buy-in live at the club too it'd snap make the guarantee obv, but I see why you don't do that.

Congrats Kevin and Skippy too.

Thanks very much everyone.

I don't think it's got much to do with the payout structure (although it's not ideal). I think the problem is that by the end of this month there will have been a £150, a £200 and the "£141" Black Belt event at DTD alone. That's before you start with Goliath and there are probably other similar events for which the spam hasn't made it to my inbox. As Rob says in his blog on the DTD website, live poker players are spoilt for choice at the moment. You can't play them all.

[rfgqqabc]

One reason for the overlay maybe that you pay 20% of the field. I know loads of people who played it last year but not this year because they remember how bad the payout structure was. If you could buy-in live at the club too it'd snap make the guarantee obv, but I see why you don't do that.

Congrats Kevin and Skippy too.

Thanks very much everyone.

I don't think it's got much to do with the payout structure (although it's not ideal). I think the problem is that by the end of this month there will have been a £150, a £200 and the "£141" Black Belt event at DTD alone. That's before you start with Goliath and there are probably other similar events for which the spam hasn't made it to my inbox. As Rob says in his blog on the DTD website, live poker players are spoilt for choice at the moment. You can't play them all.

Beast! Congratz man! Told you something would come in Jan- about time too!

[Bad Beat]

 Im really quite cross now. Why would people come on here and try and underrmine what we are doing in this way?

 Firstly Notts Live last year paid 18% of the field. I don't know whether you think it supports your argument better to say 20% but I think it's quite important to get your facts straight if you are going to make a point like this. The payout structure was displayed a long time in advance as it seemed obvious we were going to sell out.

 This year we made the buy-in $200+20 for a number of reasons. Players had said they would rather it was slightly bigger to make it worth tracelling, we had gone with that price at Aspers in Stratford and beaten the guarantee and we wanted to be consistent.

 When it seemed that we wouldn't sell out and that Saturday would have five times the players that Friday had we were reluctant to put up the structure. If you pay out 15%+ you run into the problem of reaching the money on day 1a.

 We ended up paying out 45 players from 258 entries which is just under 18%.

 For comparison the GUKPT pays 10% as do the Genting series and the WPT. The WSOP pays 12%, the UKIPT 13% and the EPT 16%.

 Who is to say who is right?

 You say you think lots of people didn't play because of it. I would say that I spoke to a few players who really like the fact we paid 18%. Many players in the event have got in via a freeroll or are in for $5. For them a win of $400 is a decent prize. They may not play optimally around the bubble going for a cash, but that is one of the reasons that our events are great value.

[Bad Beat]

 I also am aware that some plyers do not like having to buy-in online. Obviously the reason we run events and put up guarantees is to get players to open an account with Black Belt. If we were to let the lazy players who can't be bothered come on the day and pay in cash it will be hard in the future to get people to buy-in online in advance.

 In the end we tried to make it the best of both worlds for players and our staff were on hand at the club taking five minutes a player opening accounts and then transferring in money for those who hadn't thought to bring a card with them to deposit.

 I do find that most of the people who tell me they would have bought in for cash still seem to manage to operate Facebook where they post daily bad beat stories from the tournaments they play on PokerStars. Why they would turn their nose up at a $23,000+ overlay is totally beyond me.

[Bad Beat]

 I would also point out that if we had paid 15% of the field instead of 17.5% that would have meant $3600 would be "freed-up". The winner may have got an extra $750. Is that really enough to stop you playing an event with a $23,000 overlay?

[Woodsey]

I really don't think the % pay out had anything to do with the overlay. I doubt the majority of people even check that sort of stuff before playing a tourney, I know I didn't lol 

[Skippy]

Im really quite cross now. Why would people come on here and try and underrmine what we are doing in this way?

You shouldn't be saying this Neil.

I wish I'd said this in person at the time, but I'm a big fan of yours- every time I get bored in a casino and pick up one of these free poker magazines your column is always the first bit I look at, whenever you've appeared on the 2+2 pokercast I've always made sure I listened to it (in fact I went through the archives to make sure I listened to all the interviews you've given them) and I love reading your posts on here. I'd kind of given up playing these two day poker events, but the reason I decided to play this on Friday was because I saw there was going to be an overlay/ only 50-odd people turned up and I wanted to show you some support*. Obviously that's worked out great for me, but that was my original reasoning.

But whenever you get anyone saying anything that can be construed as even slightly criticizing or negative, you get really bitter really quickly, and fly off the handle.

All Alex was doing was offering some constructive criticism. You can agree with it, you can disagree with it, you can post and debate it (which is what these forums are for, after all). But to accuse him of coming on here trying to "undermine" you or your business is ridiculous. I'd have said he was trying to suggest ways of avoiding the overlay, because he wants you to be successful. That's supportive, not undermining.

* actually it's obvious why I didn't say this at the time- it makes me look like a loser. But oh well.

[redsimon]

Main reason I didn't play was it clashed with the Olympics, sad I know. Live only 15 minutes from DtD and like overlays

Well done Skippy btw!

[The Camel]

I don't think the shortage of players has anything to do with the payout structure.

I think the fact the tournament was on during the last 3 days of the Olympics was much more likely the reason.

Certainly that's why I didn't play.

Congrats to Kevin.


EDIT: Wasn't DTD's biggest overlay when Chelsea played Man Utd in the CL final? Sports events obv have a massive effect on tournament attendance.

[Bad Beat]

 I think if he posts something that just isn't true as a reason for people not to come I would say undermining is a good word. This thread literally starts with Scotty saying the payout structure is absurd and then Alex chips in to say we are paying out 20% when we are not.

 I think the summer, the weather, the Olympics, the big amount of £100-£200 events that popped-up after we had announced ours were really the reasons people didn't come, but I don't think Alex or Scott did anything to help.

 I appreciate the kind words Skippy. I will continue to fight hard for my business when it is attacked though.

[cambridgealex]

Wow, pretty surprised at this. I wasn't "attacking" your business at all! It was constructive criticism for sure! Or at least certainly intended to be so. I thought following our phone conversation a few weeks ago that this was encouraged?

I'm sorry about getting the 18/20% bit mixed up. Mitch spoke about it after he near-bubbled and told me it was 20% and that was why I said 20 (if it had been 20 he would've cashed ironically), so apologies for not checking out my facts on that front.

18 is still a lot more than standard, and I know it put some people off because they told me so! However it's possible it encouraged people to play also for the reasons you gave. I dont know, I was just saying something that I thought might be helpful.

[Bad Beat]

16% EPT against 18% our tournament. Would you not play an EPT? What constitutes a long way away from standard?

 You said loads of people didn't play it for that reason. I don't actually think that is the case I think it's some of the other reasons people have mentioned, but I don't think it helps us if people are going around putting out misinformation and if the thread to publicise the event practically starts with someone saying don't play that.