Boylesports this is just wrong!!!!

phantom_lord

ROY BRINDLEY wrote: »

Resultantly part of the field have an agenda different to those who have put their cash on the line and play to win. Consequently, towards the business end of proceedings, the non-internet qualifying part of the field are disadvantaged as the play of those simply wishing to progress furthest can be and is farcical.

huh? you're saying that the internet qualifiers play due to the promotion is facical? and that everyone else is disadvantaged by this?

i think both promotions are fine, idk i'm not really too worried about how compressible live poker tournaments are tbh.

bops

I don't mind the ppp promotion too much, if they want to give extra cash to their last longest qualfier - fair play! I'd actually think that the qualfiers are at a disadvantage if anything; firstly it's easy to spot the qualfiers (always good imo!), and secondly when it gets down to the business end and there are only a handful of them left, they are an easy target for you to put pressure on considering that they are playing a tournament withinn the tournament with a big bubble.

As for the IPO and the clear disadvantage the non-boylepoker player will be facing, I think it's an absolute joke. My simple way of dealing with this is not to play. This holds for the below:

With major poker sites behind the majority of major land-based tournaments – way beyond a traditional sponsors role – and fully aware that poker has no governing body the question is not will change ever come around, it’s how bad will things get?

I, and most players, will vote with their feet, if there's no value, or the sponsors are playing sillybuggers - just don't turn up!

good post roy

BigCityBanker

ROY BRINDLEY wrote: »

From a commercial viewpoint it is brilliantly simple, for players taking this game seriously it is incompressible,

I was reading this, and then I stopped at the highlighted word, decided Id take a look at www.dictionary.com (I dont have all the answers and sometimes seek help) and the below screenshot is what I got!



At this point I did have a good laugh to myself though. It was like Dictionary.com decided for just one day to be a magic 8 ball, and that my question was something along the lines of 'what do you think of this article by Roy Brindley?'.

smoothcall

ROY BRINDLEY wrote: »

Consequently, towards the business end of proceedings, the non-internet qualifying part of the field are disadvantaged as the play of those simply wishing to progress furthest can be and is farcical.

How you've been playing this long and view that situation like that is beyond me. It's a huge disadvantage in terms of the overall tournament to have that side action.

As for Boyles, I think it's fair enough. There running the tournament at a big loss and want to create accounts and get people playing on there site. For a tournament with that size buy in there has to be something like that to make it worth the sponsors while or else it simply won't happen.

robinblinds

Not like something you'd read in the Racing Post then...

Ollieboy

Firstly Roy is 100% correct here and both of his examples are correct.

Paddy Power.

If I had got deep and found a PPP qualifier at my table, I had planned to steal his blind has much as possible as its in his interest to sit out and play for the 100k bonus. This put any PPP qaulifier at a disadvantage but did reward him very well with a 100k bonus. In the end its his decision how he wants to play, but hopefully he'll have the skill to play as correct as possible.

Boyles.

I really hate there promotion as it gives a unfair advantage to certain players who rake on the boyle site. As Boyles put a lot of money into this event than you can say fair enough, but its rewarding some players and has Stephen already mention Dutch players will lose out on this promotion due to gambling laws in there country.

Where Roy is 100% wrong is the badge he also wears on his sleave. The game as given him a good living and Ladbrokes have sponsor him into loads of events and many pro's like him. Why should pro's get sponsorhip or paid into events by the site running the event, everyone else put up there money. These players are paid by the rake that customer pay to play on the site, but I don't see any pro moan about these goal posts been moved.

I'm afraid Roy your picking holes here in something you don't like or more likely can't get any reward from.

But I do agree its a bad precedent to start and moving the goalposts will be the norm in the future as sites try to enhance these products to the customer.

By the way Roy. The Ladbrokes festival in Kerry is only allowing online qualifiers.

YULETIRED

He is even older than me forgive him, , but what I think he is trying to say is, the Poker sites are creating a game witin a game which in essence is damaging the purity of trying to play a proper game of poker using your advanced skills agianst a less gifted player with a common prize and playing field. These players may be there just to last as long as possible and win a substancial bonus, which in turn can mean A) it's next to impossible to drag the chips from their lifeless hands and They are at a disadvantage themselves as their tournament life is more valuable to them. I'm not sure if this is the root of the rant but I don't really see how it's killing the game really. The main thing is you get in there and play with your edge to hopefully take down a prize, the rest is putting bums on seats (fodder if you likel) and achieving a player base on their sites, which can't really be bad for the sites or the sharks.

phantom_lord

bops

Ollieboy wrote: »

By the way Roy. The Ladbrokes festival in Kerry is only allowing online qualifiers.

huh??

Ollieboy

bops wrote: »

huh??

sorry qualifiers....in general.

The Tourist

Ollieboy wrote: »

Stephen already mention Dutch players will lose out on this promotion due to gambling laws in there country.

I didn't mind the Boyles thing so much (it only took me 2 hours to earn 250 points), but then I read the above.

That's just not right. Hopefully this experiment will be measured a failure and dropped for next year.

Ollieboy

The Tourist wrote: »

I didn't mind the Boyles thing so much (it only took me 2 hours to earn 250 points), but then I read the above.

That's just not right. Hopefully this experiment will be measured a failure and dropped for next year.

I remember it been mention and Stephen mention something about a work around etc. I'll let him confirm it as I'm sure he's going to respond to the above.

I don't like the points but as its a small amount and its to increase traffiic on there site and rewards there players, I don't really have a big problem with it, but its like Ryanair telling people to buy there tickets online and given them no other option, which isn't good customer care in my book.

hotspur

He has a point I think. Obviously the Boyles thing will result in inequality irrespective of how much we think Boyles has the right to do it. It's a good idea by Boyles, it's entirely their right to do it, but it alters the traditional equality with which tournaments tended to be run.

PPP's promotion also alters the dynamic and the idea of a level playing field. It's probably true that a table late on with several last man standing players will produce less action and thus less opportunity for chip accumulation than tables with none.

The big jump that Roy makes is the prima facie assumption that this inequality is wrong. But it is demanding of a more complex analysis than one which merely assumes anything which produces inequality is inherently wrong.

When you factor in everything which PPP brings to the party for the IO and appreciate that this is contingent upon it making sense from a marketing perspective for them then I'm pretty sure that any reasonable cost-benefit analysis will result in an acceptance that they constitute an overall good.

Now this doesn't necessarily mean that anything they do within that context is justified, I mean they can't add €1m to the prize pool and then publicly execute the first ginger person to get knocked out (although if anyone *would* try it...).

But given that the presumed primary aim of PPP with the IO is to drive traffic to their PPP site both before and after the tournament then the last man standing competition strikes one as being close to necessary for pre-tournament traffic growth. Given that, I think that whatever small inequality *may* occur at some tables due to the presence of last man standing qualifiers is dwarfed by the contribution they make.

It really is quite difficult to introduce any bonuses or incentives into any system and not have it produce inequality. But that doesn't mean that such inequality renders them undesirable.

If the last man standing competition of PPP is a sine qua non of their sponsorship then it must be considered to be part of an overall good.

I haven't followed the Boyles IPO one too closely so I don't know how much they are bringing to the table, but if it is anything remotely comparable to what PPP bring to the IO then the same argument applies albeit with a greater threshold as differential staring chip stacks is more obviously a real factor than presumed theoretical influence of the last man standing competition.

So I went into Easons on O'Connell Street via the Abbey Street door on Friday and there facing me in a fairly prominent position as I walked in was Roy's book. I had a quick gander but ultimately plumped for buying "The age of structuralism: from Lévi-Strauss to Foucault". Now I thought to myself "Jesus how do you address the whole history of 20th century structuralism in one book, surely that's incompressible"

carrigeen

I agree with most of the lads above.

The Paddy Power promotion is fine imo (well i did win it a few years ago:P) and its up to the individual players to play as they like.

I dont like the Boyles promotion though as it really forces players to open an account to play on a level playing field , this really annoys me (again I have an account with them but the principle etc etc)

the most annoying is having to have an online account to play a bricks and morter tourny. Just wont do this and if I did my laptop would be full of such gems as mermaid poker , all in one etc . Again the only thing to do is vote with the feet and dont play.

on the other hand I try to support online companies who I feel support the game in Ireland and there are many imo PP Boyles ETC

BigCityBanker

Hotspur - that is an excellent post.

IrishKestrel

BigCityBanker wrote: »

Hotspur - that is an excellent post.

+ 1

Wombatman

hotspur wrote: »

The big jump that Roy makes is the prima facie assumption that this inequality is wrong.

Playing in this event with 8000 chips when most players are starting with 10000 would be all wrong.

carfax

Will respond properly later to this when I have a chance to read everything properly but just want to say one quick thing. I really hope this is not going to be published in the Racing Post, I will be up the walls if PPP and Boyles get singled out when Ladbrokes are not mentioned, that is not even handed journalism!

We are all only (online sites, tournament organisers, players in general) trying to improve the value for poker players, and of course make a profit along the way (in our case we definitely need Boylepoker.com to feel they are getting positive feedback and a return on their investment because of the amount of time, effort and €€€ they put behind the event).

Articles like this will not help the game of poker in any way, as commercialism is all around us in every walk, but we do have the free will to say, ok I won't play in this tournament because of X or that tournament because of Y. It is simply not right to select/ highlight/ pick on one or two and conveniently not mention another.

I am going to try to cool off to think about this, but Roy, I am not a happy boy!
__________________

PS, only players that make the 250 VIP points in August & September are entitled to the bonus chips. Because Dutch players cannot play online they cannot receive any bonus chips, but the few that have decided to travel get to experience an amazingly good value tournament, and Boylepoker are looking after them with a VIP package to the longest lasting Dutchie

carfax

Wombatman wrote: »

Playing in this event with 8000 chips when most players are starting with 10000 would be all wrong.

Very true, we're aiming for every single IPO player to start with 10,000 chips. This just means that we really want to see every single player at the IPO playing online regularly on Boylepoker.com

Cheers,
Stephen.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

mickc

carfax wrote: »

PS, only players that make the 250 VIP points in August & September are entitled to the bonus chips. Because Dutch players cannot play online they cannot receive any bonus chips, but the few that have decided to travel get to experience an amazingly good value tournament, and Boylepoker are looking after them with a VIP package to the longest lasting Dutchie

How did they register if they can't play online?

BigCityBanker

this was already published in last saturdays racing post.

robinblinds

ROY BRINDLEY wrote: »

Thought I'd share this with you, the players, who are having goalposts moved on you...

They say money makes the world goes round. I’m not so sure but clearly it oils the cogs of the poker phenomenon. Poker is a multi-million pound industry, it is also a gambling game. A game where ones hard-earned is put on the line. That’s the way it is and that’s the way it should be.

I’ve heard countless claims that some of the bigger ‘made for television’ events should be free to enter by and for the superstars of the game. Folly! Poker is a game of skill but not one which sees the sport's elite win repeatedly as is the case with disciplines such as darts and snooker. Any such exclusive free-to-enter events will take away the very essence of this, the quintessential card game.

Therein, believing the players should shuffle up and deal from a level playing field, I am forced to condemn the implications of industry commerciality on conventional land-based poker tournaments.

Paddy Power set the ball rolling by offering a cash bonus to the online qualifying player who progresses furthest in the two major tournaments they sponsor, the Irish Open and Irish Winter Festival.

Resultantly part of the field have an agenda different to those who have put their cash on the line and play to win. Consequently, towards the business end of proceedings, the non-internet qualifying part of the field are disadvantaged as the play of those simply wishing to progress furthest can be and is farcical.

Now Boylepoker have tossed their spanner in the works, likewise doubtlessly induced by commercial pressures, with a gem of a promotion which offers players who have played on their online poker site an increased starting stack for the forthcoming International Poker Open (IPO), an event they sponsor.

It’s a simple strategy for getting people to play on their site: Do so and you will receive 2,000 extra chips at the IPO giving them a 10,000 starting stack as opposed to other contestants, who have paid the same entry fee, 8,000 chips.

From a commercial viewpoint it is brilliantly simple, for players taking this game seriously it is incompressible, akin to a darts pro playing off of 401 as opposed to his opponents 501 as reward for playing in a few pub games in the build up to a major tournament or a Derby runner getting a 5lb allowance for running at Epsom as a two-year-old.

Lunatics are not running the asylum… Quite the opposite, its organisations, seeking to increase their profits, which are. It’s the lunatics that are allowing this to go on.

With major poker sites behind the majority of major land-based tournaments – way beyond a traditional sponsors role – and fully aware that poker has no governing body the question is not will change ever come around, it’s how bad will things get?

This is an insular view and one which has failed to evolve, particularly in the last two years. Basically its a crib.

NOT ONE IDEA WHATSOEVER has been put forward in Roy Brindleys Racing Post piece as an alternative way of pushing poker on in this country.

Business evolves. Poker evolves. Players style evolves. Games evolve. And when the game does eventually get regulated in this country (which the top businesses are constantly pushing for, in order to protect their position within the market), it will be the same horse bolting after the stable door has shut.

Some peoples thinking stands utterly still.

Pity that.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

gorrrr72

bops wrote: »

I don't mind the ppp promotion too much, if they want to give extra cash to their last longest qualfier - fair play! I'd actually think that the qualfiers are at a disadvantage if anything; firstly it's easy to spot the qualfiers (always good imo!), and secondly when it gets down to the business end and there are only a handful of them left, they are an easy target for you to put pressure on considering that they are playing a tournament withinn the tournament with a big bubble.

As for the IPO and the clear disadvantage the non-boylepoker player will be facing, I think it's an absolute joke. My simple way of dealing with this is not to play. This holds for the below:


With major poker sites behind the majority of major land-based tournaments – way beyond a traditional sponsors role – and fully aware that poker has no governing body the question is not will change ever come around, it’s how bad will things get?

I, and most players, will vote with their feet, if there's no value, or the sponsors are playing sillybuggers - just don't turn up!

good post roy

Put yourself in Boyles position Bops. If you had a pokersite and you wanted to promote it you would do the same thing. And it's not like they are being unfair. 250 VIP points is nothing. If it was an absolute joke then it wouldn't be selling out so fast. You can't please everybody but most people can see the added money to the prizepool far outweighs the conditions to get the extra chips.

DeVore

Transparency + Caveat Emptor = meh.

I wont be playing it, I'm not sure why anyone would play who ISNT going to work up the extra chips but its not like they are shooting puppies.

Seriously, take some personal responsibility and stop looking for other people to control your world. Play or dont play. If you want to send a message, post here that you are boycotting it. But you cant really say what they are doing is "wrong" or "unethical". We dont have a framework for right/wrong ethical/unethical.

Now if they had SPRUNG this on the tournie on the day, that would be different. (What are they doing about people who registered before this was announced btw?).
So long as they are clear about what you are buying... *shrug*.

DeV.

Enzo Scifo

I have no issue with either pp, boyle or lad and what they have done around their tournies. We are going through tough times with companys going to the wall left right and centre. Those who overstep the mark will find that their business will see a decline and I dont think any of the 3 mentioned above are in any danger.

Now, on the other hand, Roy the lad having a pop at the other 2 . Its a cheap dig and coming from him it stinks.

CourierCollie

DeVore wrote: »

Now if they had SPRUNG this on the tournie on the day, that would be different. (What are they doing about people who registered before this was announced btw?).


DeV.

I'm pretty certain the bonus chip situation was announced simultaneously with the opening of registration to the tourney. http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055612969
Even if one registered on the first day, the vip point requirement was only for the months of August and September. And even if one didn't read boards, or the Boylepoker website, they did send emails to those who have registered informing them of the of the bonus chips/requirement.

Fruitfull

You have the backbone to make an article which tens of thousands of people might read giving off about online poker companies doing this and yet you don't mention ladbrokes when they are just as guilty as anyone!

Lets look at the pro's and cons of each of the 3 sites mentioned in here..

Paddy Power

Pro's

• No online reg needed
• Huge added bonus of last longer
• Met guarantee of Irish open buy adding huge amount

Con's

• What you said in your article (which is your opinion)

Boylesports

Pro's

• Huge amount of added money
• Huge amount of work from the actual boylepoker team

Con's

• What you said in your article (which is your opinion)
• Only online reg

Ladbrokes

Con's

• nearly everyone has to register through their site
• 50 euro 'handling' fee for booking packages
• Not one bit of added money or anything from them that is good for player

Ive left the pro's for ladbrokes blank as there is not one thing i can think of. They give their name and thats about it. The paddy power team and boyles team work so hard for their festivals.

The only reason killarney is such a success is because of big slick poker and the efforts that Neil kelly and his team put in.

I wonder why you failed to mention Ladbrokes in your article...

Fruitfull

Fruitfull wrote: »

You have the backbone to make an article which tens of thousands of people might read giving off about online poker companies doing this and yet you don't mention ladbrokes when they are just as guilty as anyone!

Lets look at the pro's and cons of each of the 3 sites mentioned in here..

Wonderfully balanced argument there Mr.5 post.