People That Rock = You

First things first, many thanks to everyone who's already signed up for the Omaha 8 tournament at Noble. You guys rock. Really and truly. I've wanted to try setting up a league like this for quite awhile, but was honestly worried that I'd bug someone at a site to get it setup and then find myself sitting alone in the tournament lobby when it came time to play, with nothing but the sounds of crickets chirping to keep me company. So yeah. You guys are awesome and you definitely don't make the baby Jebus cry.

Here are the details again, just to float them up above the fold, followed by some additional details:

What: Omaha 8 Limit Tournament
When: Friday, March 18 8:00 PM CST (Server time of 22:00)
Where: Noble Poker
Cost: $0 ($50 freeroll provided by Noble Poker)
Who's Invited: You (bloggers, readers, whoever)
Tournament Name: TPTK.com Omaha
Tournament Password: hammer

KingSix noted that the 22:00 server time start for the tourny would equate to 9:00 CST. I checked this morning before work, in my sleep-deprived, non-caffeinated state, and I still get a 8:00 CST start time, when I count it up on my monkey fingers. I'll check again later at home when I can access the site.

Apologies for those who can't make it. When the league truly gets rolling after the first round of tournaments, I'm going to see if it's possible to do a staggered schedule, so that one week the tournament is on Monday, the next week Wednesday, the next week Friday, then wrapping up the month of tournaments on Sunday. But for the first run it had to be on one day, so I went with Friday. Hopefully people will stick around afterwards for some hardcore blogger/reader Omaha cash game action, so even if you can't make the tournament you can still get your Omaha fix.

Also keep in mind that it's a freeroll, so go ahead and signup if you think there's any chance you can make it. If you can't, no worries, no money lost.

Keep in mind that while the first few of these are $50 freerolls, I'm going to be kicking in cash for the top three finishers in the first stage of this. I'll just go ahead and go out on a limb and say that I'll pay out the following additional prizes, for those who accumulate the most leaderboard points (still working on this, coming soon) after the final stage:

1st place: $60
2nd place: $25
3rd place: $15

That's the minimum, though, and could be more, depending on how I do at the tables myself the remainder of the month. Heh. That's also gravy prize money, on top of the actual prize money for each tournament.

And with that we now return to ScurvyDog's regular poker programming...

Man. Full Tilt, you hire some great people to work for you, but you have to do something about that bonus structure if you want to significantly expand your player base. I'm not saying that solely as a greedy bonus whore. I completely understand the economics and risk/reward ratio involved in both offering bonuses and the corresponding rate set at which they clear. The problem is that you generate a steady, unending stream of negative publicity by offering your current 100% match up to $600 bonus, which I don't think is your intention. Yes, the terms are on your site, yes, this is true. But player after player saves up their pennies, finally scraping up $600 to get the full bonus, only to deposit and discover that they'd have to play approximately 4 hours a day for 2 months to clear the bonus at 1/2. 9 times out of 10 they get discouraged, abandon your site, and speak poorly of it to anyone who will listen.

You can easily solve this problem in one of two ways, neither of which will cost you substantially more money. Either keep the exact same system and lower the maximum bonus to something like $100 or $200 or ease the bonus clearance rate but cap the maximum bonus at $100. Offering the $600 bonus at the current glacial clearance rate isn't differentiating you from other sites. Well, it is, but in a negative fashion, as it almost seems like bait and switch tactics, when people discover how long it takes to clear in real world conditions. It's the size of it that's problematic, as people fixate on it, especially those trying to build a bankroll. That size and attached importance, though, more often than not bites you in the ass when people feel jilted after getting up close and personal. Just my two cents, though. Worth exactly that.

On the bright side, clearing bonus money at Ultimate Bet seems like a breeze after Full Tilt, which, umm, is saying a lot, as UB isn't exactly ripe bonus territory itself.

Things are picking up lately, on all sorts of fronts. I've been pretty busy, with no end in sight, but it's the good sort of busy. So yeah. Rock on.