You're a Bunch of Factors

G'day

Congrats... to the people whom made monies & the winner .

It was good to see Friends old & new , & to catch up with them .
That being said ,

I thought state finals was a qualifying event as to try and get the best players to play against each other . top 5 of venue or home board games .Which was not the case for these finals .
i.e , There was peoples names on qualified list who were banned or who had not even played 15 away games .
Qualification Methods

(quote)
"Did you know that you need to play 10 Away games in a season to qualify for the Semi and/or Grand Finals? It is a new condition of the 888PL that players continue to support our venues to qualify for any of our Finals."

The game was held almost 1 1/2 months after every other state .It seemed very disorganized ,With very little too offer to players that where knocked out earlier , "except a $10 re-buy event" Which i had a few of those players complain to me about the prize pool for that game .

+ i think the head of 888poker league might of made an appearance .

1 person stood for the 1st 20+ minutes because his seat was broken .

I am not the only 1 that thought this VIC S/F was not well thought of. 1400 qualifiers ????
But i do say cheers [_]) to the T/D,s or T/C,s that run this event to the best of their capabilities .

Harps I think that it has been explained that there had been a problem with the original venue and that is why our finals were pushed back. To my understanding this was the earliest a replacement venue could be organized.

In regards to the amount of people that qualified again my understanding is that some people were invited who may not have qualified,due to time it took for the scoreboards to be sorted out. I did not like being spread over two floors but it was only for a short while and it was much better than other finals where we have been stuffed into one room and you cannot breathe.

Overall I thought the day was run well given the circumstances. I do agree that there could have been other things ran to keep the spectators amused such as sit n go tables. I went out too late to make the rebuy tournament but still had to wait another 7 hours for my friend who made final table.

Finally I dont think it was necessary for Garth to attend. He works very hard 24/7 to keep things running smoothly and has taken a week off to play in the Crown tournaments. Michael was more than capable of running the finals and did an excellent job. We as players cannot deny Garth a life outside of 888. I dont think that Garth being there would have made any difference to the day and given the amount of work he does really deserves a break.

Well done to all of the winners ( by the way do we know who won I left when the last Bendigo person went out in 6th)?

[quote="madali"]Finally I dont think it was necessary for Garth to attend. He works very hard 24/7 to keep things running smoothly and has taken a week off to play in the Crown tournaments. Michael was more than capable of running the finals and did an excellent job. We as players cannot deny Garth a life outside of 888. I dont think that Garth being there would have made any difference to the day and given the amount of work he does really deserves a break.

[quote]

Here Here

Well Said.

Sounds like some pretty valid concerns that need to be adressed, but yeah, I can agree that there's no real need for Garth to be there.

Harps,

We opened up the qualification method to the top 7 from each Scoreboard; we felt it unfair to only allow the top 5 considering the amount of technical issues we experienced in season 1. If there were banned players on the list, you can be assured that they would not have been playing. This list was placed on the website some time before the finals as you point out. 15 Games has never been a benchmark to play the Semi Final nor will it ever be. In some areas there is only one game happening and in a 12 week season it would be near impossible for these players to qualify.

The reason that you may feel that far too many people have qualified is that in your area there are 12 weekly games where people can qualify though, normally 60 players this season 24 extra.

The Semi Finals were much later than they had been previously because we had secured dates and a time with a venue and they cancelled the event during the last week of the season. We could have had the final at a closer date but it would have been less than 2 weeks’ notice for all players.

I personally didn’t think anyone would have an issue with the finals being much later; it gave everyone time to plan for it. If I was wrong in this assumption please let me know and please also give a reason why you feel this way.

In every Semi Final going back to the start of NPL, we have only ever had 1 additional event on the same day as the Semi Final. I heard no complaints on the day from any players in regards to anything except limiting this game to 138 players. What exactly where the complaints about the prize pool? Top 12 got paid; there were additional incentives for coming in the top 3. This was a Satellite to the Grand Final.

I am sorry, but where did we fall down in terms of organisation?

Did this person who allegedly stood for 20minutes due to a broken seat alert at member of the 888PL Team about this? There was one gentleman who stood for 20 seconds whilst we fetched him a new chair, but he was fully seated by the time the tournament started. Which room was this in?

Garth did not make an appearance you are correct and I know he is held in high regard by many players, but I thought you might take solace in the fact that both the General Manager and CEO both attended this event.

I am sorry if you fell 1200 qualifiers is too many, we had set up for 700 players, and out of the 500 that turned up this is the only complaint. I realise that holding a tournament in 3 rooms is not an ideal situation, but we did what we needed to do to ensure that this was not a 2 heat event as we have previously had negative feedback on these.

Please elaborate on some of your points so I can see where exactly the organisation of the event let you down, and I will ensure that if the problem can be fixed that the next Semi Finals do not have this as well.

Michael Ratnik

Hi Madali

I am typing the news story on the Semi Finals now, it should be on the website within an hour or 2.

Michael

For the Record in the top room there was no-one waiting at all except the late comers and they had to wait till the speeches and intro was done !!!
There was one guy whos chair had broke and as soon as we were informed it was sorted out there and then (in saying that he told Andrew and I it had just broke and was already being sorted)

Just wanted to say well done to all those that ran deep, to the staff who (from what I saw) did an excellent job in running a tournament with so many runners across different rooms and also to everyone else that made the day quite enjoyable.

Was happy with my performance, I'll hopefully live up to expectations next time

Looking forward to the online champs and the GF in August, unfortunately I won't be able to make the next semi as it falls in the middle of my exams, but best of luck to everyone.

Cheers
Nick ("The Law") Karolidis

Well guys I was very surprised to hear that the venue that was booked for the semis cancelled out on us. The only news I heard was that it was being organised and that we would be told once a venue had been organised and nothing more. Maybe this should have been told to players at the venues so that they could have been informed of what was happening and not be left in the dark. It just made us all think that it was very disorganised to have it so late in the season.

I must say that the day was run fairly well by the staff.

I was a bit disappointed that there was a dead stack on my table for 2 blind sessions and then a player that came late filled the spot. I was surprised that he was able to play coming that late. Previously if you weren't there when the cut off time for rego came about, you missed out????? Oh well, no harm done I suppose but it was noted by a few.

In relation to the $10 re-buy event, I was not interested in playing an event with a 1000 chip start stack and being a re-buy. This would mean on an average it would cost players between $30 - $50 to play (some more - some less). Might as well have just had a $50 buy in with 3000 start stack and be a turbo. I think a lot more would have been interested.

It is a shame that there were no further games for the players that went out early or even on the Saturday.

The teams event was really good last season - can we have this again. It was great fun for all and very competitive.

Just my thoughts and suggestions.

Please don't come back with sarcasm just because you don't agree. Constructive criticism is fine - I appreciate that. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

It was a shame that Garth wasn't at the semi's especially seeing he is the one that did a lot of the organising and he is the one that the players converse with the most. Hopefully he can take his well earned rest at a different time next season and come and enjoy the tourney with the players he has organised it for.

Well done to all players who made the money and all those that didn't (meeeee).

Good luck to all players who qualify for the Grand Final. What a whopper it's going to be.

15GIZMO wrote:I was a bit disappointed that there was a dead stack on my table for 2 blind sessions and then a player that came late filled the spot. I was surprised that he was able to play coming that late. Previously if you weren't there when the cut off time for rego came about, you missed out????? Oh well, no harm done I suppose but it was noted by a few.

That was actually my fault i had a phone call from those people before Rego Closed saying that they had broken Down on the way from Ballarat and they werent that far away , We were actually removing them when they walked in and seeing they had called twice and they had driven from Ballarat we made an exception !!
Sorry i thought the player would have explained that .

If they hadn't called through we wouldnt have let them in !!!