Poker BIF Abrasive

Agent....yeah....you're the outright winner. I wouldn't suggest you have to play further. Your spot is undisputed. The rest of us who stand to get or pay beer...would be involved. And I'd be ok with this.

 

Thanks, sorry, I just wanted to clarify, I didn't think that's what you were saying, but it seemed a little ambiguous. I don't want to come across as a poor winner obviously, so I hope no one takes it as that way. Obviously it's easier to be gracious in victory, but I can say we had some fine players and regardless of my skill (or lack thereof) in the game, I had some nice breaks and there were players I thought at the table who were better than I was. I hope we play again, and after this is final I'd like to help work on the next series if there's interest.

 

As an outside observer;
If you and the girlfriend are both playing in the same tournament, doesn't that make for an unlevel playing field?
I picture you both in the same house on separate computers and telling eachother your hands... You know when one is strong, and don't go in against it, and you also have an unfair knowledge of the odds because you know if certain cards are already 'out of play' because the other folded them.

 

They're not in the same tournament. He's the actual BA. His girlfriend, who is not a member of the site, is playing the games for him.

 

Although not quite the case, the truth is that any two (or more) BAs could do this either in person or, more realistically, on an IM program. An annoying thought, but going forward I just play on the faith that people wouldn't do that to screw others out of $20-$40 worth of beer.

 

THANK YOU DAVE! (don't let this sour you on running other BIF's, they can be really enjoyable)

I would like to point out that a) I've been raising issues about the scoring since before the first game of this series and been, for the most part, shouted down to the effect that "we all knew the rules going in" and b) knowing how the points will for each game in the series VASTLY changes the way you play. /pats self on back //ducks empty pint glass

In the first game I read the payouts on our PokerStars tourny page which said "1st - 100%" and played accordingly. In this week, based on the flurry of beermail, I PRESUMED that we were paying the top four place in this match because that was the format of the tourny. We had discussed at length that a series allowed people who played well in one match to essentially miss one other match and still place. People thought that was a good idea. With that I mind I was only thinking of winning on Sunday since a win would have given me enough points to theoretically tie for 2nd or 3rd depending on the order of the other finishers.

I really thought London was kidding about his gf playing while he was getting drunk behind her. Guess I missed when that became a 'real thing'. Don't really care, but certainly opens the door for shennigens.

 

This is a very good point, because without the points being consistent with the first two games, players without any points in the first two games would not have had a chance to place.

 

Yeah, she uses my BA account when she wants to look up beer, and used my PokerStars account to play the tournaments. I watched silently while we both consumed copious amounts of beer. We did discuss the possibility of us both playing separately prior to the start of the series. But if we had, we would've been at separate houses, or at the very least would've been certain not to collude. If anybody can't tell yet from all of the posts I've made (I guess most got lost in the BA forums format switch), I'm a bit of a stickler for the "rules", fairness, etc.

I agree wholeheartedly, as I can only assume everyone else does. I'm sorry for all the headache involved in running this thing. I foresaw this point dispute being an issue when there were only 10 people in the final tournament, and sent Dave a private message explaining the situation, following the conclusion of that tournament. Sorry if sending that made you feel like I was expecting you to resolve this personally, or even worse that I was somehow blaming you or holding you personally responsible for anything. It was more of an attempt at a heads up out of respect since it seemed like you had [perhaps unwillingly] fallen into something of a leadership position here.

As an aside, if you're completely fed up with running the tournament, even after we've likely learned enough to make the next one run more smoothly, I'd tentatively be willing to put together the next one. But either way, I hope you (or anyone else) haven't completely lost interest in playing after all this nonsense.

The 12 person games were paying out 4. The 10 man game I guess would likely get rounded down to paying out 3, though the language in the rules are unclear as to whether it would round down to paying 3 or round up to paying 4. Regardless, though, it would pay fewer points. And I didn't say it's "easier to score points" in a 10 man game. Just that it's easier to place in a given spot. I don't think anyone can argue that it's just as difficult to beat 9 people as to beat 11. In a 10 person field, you only have to beat 9 people to get 1st. In a 12 person field, you have to beat 11. Hence, that achievement is not quite as great, and should not be awarded quite as many points.

I can live with this (and of course nobody disputes AgentZero's clear victory - it would just be the 2nd-4th place players), or some sort of prize split (though that would be difficult to figure out fairly with what would end up being 4 pairs of beers to split 3 ways). The only issue on this end is that the girlfriend's going on some job interviewing trips over the next couple of weeks, so scheduling may be difficult. If it would be okay with all parties involved, I'd be willing to play in her stead if the scheduling would be too much of a pain in the ass.

Very fair. Everyone should have a BA account anyway. And certainly anyone who appreciates good beer as much as she does.

 

If I'm not mistaken....in a 12 player tournament, 12 points are handed out to the top 5. In a 10 player tournament, 10 points are handed out among the top 3.

So...while the argument can be made that it's harder to work through a 12 man tournament, it's harder to get points in a 10 man tournament.

In a 12 man tourny, 5 get points. That's roughly 44% of the field. You only have to finish just inside the top HALF of the field to get awarded points. In a 10 man tourny, only 3 get awarded points. That's 30% of the field. You have to be inside the top THIRD of the field to get awarded points. In the smaller tourny, there are fewer points to be had....and your chance of getting any of those points is tougher still. Again...just an opinion. It may appear on the surface as though accomplishing anything in a 10 man tourny is easier, but the math speaks otherwise. It's really just hair splitting, if you think about it. I still think the answer lies in playing one more game to get 2nd and 3rd sorted out.

 

I thought in a 12 player that 12 points are handed out to the top 4, but I could be mistaken as well.

 

This is accurate. If you bomb 2 out of 3 tournaments in a series, it could be difficult, if not outright impossible to end up being at the top of a leaderboard for the entire series, especially when other players are placing in multiple tournaments. This makes sense to me.

People should be awarded points based on a pre-set structure (which we had), which awards points based on your level of achievement. It's clearly a far greater achievement to get 1st place in a 500 person tournament than a 2 person tournament, and by the same token is a very slightly greater achievement to get 1st place in a 12 person tournament than a 10 person tournament. Thus one should receive very slightly fewer points. Like some percentage of the difference in people in the two tournaments, for instance, just as this was structured.

Unfortunately Dave had some issue setting up PokerStars to automatically give us points after each tournament, and rank us over the course of the series, but had that been set up, this is how it would've calculated the points. And we agreed from the beginning to follow a point structure that emulated that structure.

I agree that it's unfortunate, however, that the other two players didn't play. Obviously it would've been a completely different tournament, with likely different results. Maybe one of those two would've won it outright. Maybe not. But I don't see how we can pretend they played, got exactly 12th and 11th placed respectively, and somehow didn't have any effect on the outcome for the rest of the players.

You are mistaken. Definitely 12 points to top 4 in a 12 man tournament (by the structure set forth by PokerStars as the default for the HomeGame tournaments).

Yeah, I can still agree to this.

 

If I could have played, I would have as I had a chance to place. My daughter had some health issues that had us away from home for days and only got home about a half hour before shooting Dave a message during the game. If it would have let me sit down late I would have asked Dave if I should just have it ante/blind me out but at that point it wasn't an option.

 

This shit is redic! Hahahaha!

 

I certainly wasn't implying that you guys had no good reason to not play, or blaming you for the issues here. Just saying that it doesn't make sense to pretend you did play and award points as if you did play, when you clearly didn't. Obviously you don't owe any of us any explanations for not playing.

 

Well...how 'bout us four make arrangements to play one more time? I will say, if folks can swing an earlier start time, my 5AM start to Monday mornings would be greatly appreciative. LOL

 

Done and done. We're playing a tie-breaker at 8pm on Thursday. I set up a new Home Game on PokerStars so we wouldn't have to bother you with it, Dave (this series has caused you enough headache). And just to insure that there are no hard feelings, we've agreed that we'll all receive something at the end. AgentZero, of course, still gets his 4 pairs of beers since his 1st place was never up for debate. And 2nd-4th will get 2, 1, and 1 pair of beers, respectively, depending entirely on how we finish in this final 3-player rubbermatch tournament.
We all agreed the draft could look like:
1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st

 

Damn, that's some fine compromise.

 

I agree, great compromise, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the game plays out.

One question about the draft, I had assumed originally (I say assumed because I don't have any actual firsthand knowledge) based on the conversations that were going on that the top 3 places paid out. With three winners that would leave 9 pairs of beer. I'm bringing it up as this draft has 8 picks. It makes sense of under the compromise the 4th place person is now not sending out. Obviously it also makes sense if the 4th place prize was to keep your own beer originally as well. I'm good with any of it, just wanted to make sure I understood it right.