March 2011 GF Feedback

[Swanky]

Couldn't find anywhere else to post this, so this seemed as good a place as any.

G’day guys, I was thinking we have all had time to absorb the Grand Final and hopefully recover from it as well, so now is as good a time as any to provide some constructive criticism.

Please don’t flame, if you didn’t like something, try an offer up a suggestion how to fix it.

Here’s my list.

Likes:

Crown – awesome having dealers from the get go, no one taking money from blinds to get their change. Hardly any rule breaking, everyone did the right thing. Easy to get to via public transport and plenty of post tournament things to do. Gambling, shopping eating etc.
Tournament structure – personally I loved it, big start stack, relaxed blinds, awesome tournament.

Now I have more dislikes than likes, but that is mainly because I liked the whole event as a whole, these dislikes are small things that would only improve in time at Crown.

Dislikes:

A/C down the registration end of the card room. Unfortunately not much we can do about that, the rest of the card room was awesome as far as I’m concerned, so this is just a comment.
BREAKS – biggest concern of the weekend, nothing longer than a 10 minute break. No real lunch or dinner breaks. I’m sure this one will be addressed by 888pl. But if we had a 30 minute lunch and a 30 minute dinner break it would have been awesome. It’s Crown, you exit the card room, head up the escalators and you exit straight in to a massive food court, you can be eating any number of foods inside 5 minutes. I know personally I didn’t easting after breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday until the day and my game came to a close.
Our 888pl staff having limited use off the mic. Our staff are one of the draw cards. We like them and they have become our friends over the years. We like listening them give each other crap, giving the players a serve and telling us what’s going on in the tournament. This event seemed quite sterile in comparison to the last 3 GF’s.


I have more, but right now they escape me.

What do think could improve the GF at Crown?

Remember to be positive, don’t just whinge, give us an idea of what you think could fix it.

[Bacon]

One of the advertised breaks was 20 mins, and honestly that would have been sufficient for lunch.

Finishing the first day by 7 was a great move, cos it gave the rail birds time to spend with those still in to digest, while still giving those in time to either party or relax. I think it'll be pushed out a bling level next time, o shorten Sunday, but that's still cool.

Friday night I missed the bounty cap, starting at 6 was too early, but understandable.

[bennymacca]

BREAKS – biggest concern of the weekend, nothing longer than a 10 minute break. No real lunch or dinner breaks. I’m sure this one will be addressed by 888pl. But if we had a 30 minute lunch and a 30 minute dinner break it would have been awesome. It’s Crown, you exit the card room, head up the escalators and you exit straight in to a massive food court, you can be eating any number of foods inside 5 minutes. I know personally I didn’t easting after breakfast on both Saturday and Sunday until the day and my game came to a close.

agree with this - even though i didn't last much past the "lunch break" i would personally like to see 30 min breaks at lunch and dinner, even if that means NO breaks in between. 10 minutes is just too short. having said that, it was the same in the JHDS event, so its probably crown policy and might be hard to get around. maybe even just a 30 min dinner break would be good.

Our 888pl staff having limited use off the mic. Our staff are one of the draw cards. We like them and they have become our friends over the years. We like listening them give each other crap, giving the players a serve and telling us what’s going on in the tournament. This event seemed quite sterile in comparison to the last 3 GF’s.

this is a tough one, because 888pl didn't have exclusive access to the room. you cant really have the 888pl guys messing around on the mic when other people in the room would be like WTF.




in general, i thought the weekend was AWESOME. i loved the fact that there was plenty of other tourneys and cash games to play, both 888pl only and regular crown tourneys.

i was disappointed that there wasn't 888pl only cash tables though.


another thing that might be cool is to have the mistress poker stand really close to where the tourney was playing out. the reason i say this, an 888pl hub could be created, in one corner of the poker room, where the mistress stand is, where the grand final is played out, and then we could possibly have 888pl only cash tables in that area as well. this way, there was a place you could go where you could always find something 888pl related, whereas on the weekend, it was spread all over the poker room.

this made you feel like just another punter in the casino - which isn't a bad thing, but i think one of the best things about the grand final is to come and meet and chat with other 888pl guys from other states etc etc. so i think making an 888pl only area would achieve that better.

this might be silly, but you could also have an area where you had a screen that showed the achievements of 888pl players on that weekend - kind of like to show off that we aren't "pub donks r us" as one dealer put it. there were numerous cashes and final tables by 888pl players in the regular crown events, so it would be cool if these were recognised - maybe even give out a few t-shirts to the people that win the most money in tourneys over the weekend (excluding the gf)

i have to say that moving to crown could be the best thing that has ever happened to the grand final - it further legitimises this as a major event (i.e having dealers etc)


just another note - just about everyone else in the casino had no idea what tournament was being played out - most of the crown regs, and dealers included, thought it was some wild turkey tournament

[Caleb]

That would be because APL has held events there numerous times, all sponsored by wild turkey.

The dealers there wouldn't care what the difference is.

[Garth Kay]

Before we progress further there are some considerations that you need to be aware of:

1.) We spent $8,000 in branding the room - 15Metre silk banners and railing inserts and felt on tables, unfortunately with Fevola being an absolute douche Crown's Legal department became concerned about the 888 in our branding and decided to pull it all down Firday lunch time, the room looked freaking magnificent.

2.) Lunch breaks were removed by Crown, they are paying for the dealers and did not want them inactive for more than 10 minutes. When we pay for the dealers we can request lunch breaks. Day 1 finished at 7pm (pretty pointless for a dinner break on day 1) and on Day 2 players received a 50 minute dinner break.

3.) The Mistress Poker stand will always be located there and cannot be moved anywhere else. This is the only spot merch retails can take place on any of the gaming floors, fell privellaged that Crown Marketing allowed this to happen. If the Mistress Poker stand was set up earlier and had the shop fittings arrived on time andall the POS completed by someone other than 888PL team members it would have been better, but I worked my arse off in the leadup on Mistress Items and in the end it was old-man daryl and I left holding the bucket with very little assistance from anyone else (in terms or prep work) come Thursday I could not concentrate on the stall anymore and it was entirely left up to one man.

4.) We were told that we couldn't have use of the Microphone on the gaming floor, Christian and Jonno soon corrected me on that - we will be on the mic full time for the next one. They only have 2 mic's for the floor and with the amount of tournaments on we were sharing them out non stop.

5.) Dealers make mistakes, it happens, they get paid but they are not infallible.

6.) We are not permitted to make rulings or penalise players so we don't exactly run the floor, although I did have to help some dealers and supes out with a couple of things.

7.) Despite scuttle but I did nothing wrong on the Saturday night apart from have a good time, and as things go that was the most well behaved I have ever been in the Poker room during social hours.

8.) The structure was the best yet, even though we were playing with 12BB's as an average stack during the bubble and money periods, but until the majority of qualifiers start understanding tournament strategy and push/fold optimum play we will never be able to implement a structure that runs for 24 hours with at least an average of 20BB's. I heard some people laugh about the average but the truth is that most Crown tournies are structured this way and you soon find yourself with 18BB's and also chip leader.

That's about it from the feedback I received. Apart from the Grand Final should be shared around regional centres such as Sheperaton and what not but I promptly shot that down.

Now to continue holding it at Crown we will need to charge an admin fee and the next decision I have to make is whether we increase the buy in to $500 + $50 to cover the costs that will be incurred for the next one.

[bennymacca]

1.) We spent $8,000 in branding the room - 15Metre silk banners and railing inserts and felt on tables, unfortunately with Fevola being an absolute douche Crown's Legal department became concerned about the 888 in our branding and decided to pull it all down Firday lunch time, the room looked freaking magnificent.

so that was the reason. hopefully next time it will look as you want it to.

2.) Lunch breaks were removed by Crown, they are paying for the dealers and did not want them inactive for more than 10 minutes. When we pay for the dealers we can request lunch breaks. Day 1 finished at 7pm (pretty pointless for a dinner break on day 1) and on Day 2 players received a 50 minute dinner break.

fair enough, you can't really argue with that

3.) The Mistress Poker stand will always be located there and cannot be moved anywhere else. This is the only spot merch retails can take place on any of the gaming floors, fell privellaged that Crown Marketing allowed this to happen. If the Mistress Poker stand was set up earlier and had the shop fittings arrived on time andall the POS completed by someone other than 888PL team members it would have been better, but I worked my arse off in the leadup on Mistress Items and in the end it was old-man daryl and I left holding the bucket with very little assistance from anyone else (in terms or prep work) come Thursday I could not concentrate on the stall anymore and it was entirely left up to one man.

also fair enough, i know that you guys were under the pump pretty much the whole weekend, old-man daryl looked like he was about to have a heart attack most of the first couple of days, i reckon you guys did an awesome job with the MP stand.

7.) Despite scuttle but I did nothing wrong on the Saturday night apart from have a good time, and as things go that was the most well behaved I have ever been in the Poker room during social hours.

except for spitting that blue girly drink stuff all over me

8.) The structure was the best yet, even though we were playing with 12BB's as an average stack during the bubble and money periods, but until the majority of qualifiers start understanding tournament strategy and push/fold optimum play we will never be able to implement a structure that runs for 24 hours with at least an average of 20BB's. I heard some people laugh about the average but the truth is that most Crown tournies are structured this way and you soon find yourself with 18BB's and also chip leader.

agree with this as well - structure seemed really good, even though i didn't play that long.

suggestion - what if you removed the 25/50 level and added another level somewhere around bubble time?

Now to continue holding it at Crown we will need to charge an admin fee and the next decision I have to make is whether we increase the buy in to $500 + $50 to cover the costs that will be incurred for the next one.

if at all possible i think this should be avoided, but if there is no other option then i dont see it as being a major issue.

i would rather the ticket prices be increased to 500+50 rather than being $455+45 or whatever, just so the prize pool doesn't suffer. people wont notice the fee unless the prize pool goes down.

[David]

Most people win tickets - just means that you need another runner in a $50 freeze out, or 5 more rebuys in a $10 rebuy for each ticket to allow for the admin fee.

[Caleb]

except for spitting that blue girly drink stuff all over me

Not girly.

Try awesome.



Not to hi-jack this thread too much, but if anyone sees this is any store in Adelaide please let me know. It's incredibly hard to find. And please make sure it's Hynotiq and not Alize. Alize is an extremely poor rip-off of the same recipe.

[David]

You're an extremely poor rip-off.



And for the record, the event by all accounts was brilliant - if I'm this jealous then you did something right!

Were 888PL compensated for the change in branding that you paid for?

[bennymacca]

i didn't say it wasn't an awesome girly drink

soooo easy to drink that stuff.