Returning the Favor and other Slices of Life

Returning the Favor
Returning the Favor
Now Available on Smashwords for Kindle and other ebook readers!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

This is what happens when comments go long...

This was originally a comment on Blinders' excellent post analyzing the juice at the Venetian WPBT tourney. If you haven't read that post, go do that, then come back here. I'll wait.


No argument here. And if the guy who set it up isn't going to argue, Blinders must be right on, right? And I'm being sincere, the juice on all the live tournaments in Vegas is ridiculous, and our private event was no different.

A couple of points as to why I went with a high-juice event which are outside of the simple percentages.

1) Nobody wanted to host us. The MGM does not have a large enough facility to host our event. The Imperial Palace, Harrah's, Bally's and Paris wanted to turn us over to their banquet division and treat us like a corporate meeting, with rental on all the tables, chairs, rooms, etc. We could have likely had a juice-free tournament under those circumstances, but there would have been a separate facilities charge that we all had to pony up for. The Orleans was not an option, and Caesar's wasn't interested.

The Venetian at that point became the only game in town, and I felt fortunate that they waived their typical $40 per person juice (plus the $10 toke) for a private tournament in favor of a $25 per person juice (plus the $10 toke).

2) I set the buy-in and suggested the juice. When we were first at Caesar's a couple of years ago, I remember looking down at my ticket and realizing that I was paying 27% juice on my initial $80 buy-in. I figured if I could keep the house portion (not counting toke) down around 20%, I'd be doing pretty good. 20% of $125 is $25. Mission accomplished. So actually, given that logic, we had a low-juice tourney compared to a lot of the daily tourneys in Vegas.

3) They allowed us to modify their standard structure. The changes weren't huge, but we did pay for the privilege of having a 75/150 level and another level in the middle rounds that I don't remember (maybe 300/600). Allowing us to skew the structure for more play early counted for a lot.

Good read on the 9-hour time frame. I think very few of us (you and I are two) expected it to be midnight when we finished when we walked into the Venetian on Saturday. I don't take any of your analysis of the juice as a slam on me or my efforts to set things up, I agree with all your statements and the comments and just added these few things to make sure everyone knew what went into my decision to have the tourney there. Let's face it, it was all about the comfy chairs and hot waitresses. The ones Don tried to bean with beer bottles :)!

I know everyone had a good time, and I certainly wouldn't play in a tourney with that kind of juice very often, so it is a good thing we only get together a couple times a year.

I can't decide if I said anything in here to piss anybody off, so somebody insert a comment under this one in my name to fire somebody up :).

8 comments:

lj said...

i haven't read blinders' post yet, but this seems like as good an opportunity as any to thank you for all the hard work you did organizing the tournament. i had a blast, thought the structure was awesome, and while it did end later than i expected, it was worth it to have all those hours of play with people who we normally only poker with on the internet.

i can't imagine how much time you spent working on getting the tournament together, but i'm extremely grateful, and look forward to playing in the next one in june.

SirFWALGMan said...

Fuck anyone who is pissed off. Seriously. It was a great structure as proven by the final table and everyone had a good time or is a fucktard. Thanks for all your hard work. I am pretty sure nobody is pissed off.

TripJax said...

A Fiji water in Greensboro is $4 and a Jager Bomb is $8. A Sam Adams is $3.50.

I had many of each listed above so I'm pretty sure I owe them. I'm waiting for an invoice from the Venetian to show up in my mailbox anyday.

I had no problems with the toke and I agree with Blinders...it can be very difficult to take a profit down if you're paying that type of toke often. Luckily it is not something most of us do very often.

Kudos to you good sir. I had a kick ask time.

BamBam said...

OK.... my comment went too long..

I'll post it instead. It's like a disease isn't it?

Jim The Knife said...

Blinders.. what a bozo commentary.
ROI ? ?...for gods sake this was NOT a business venture! It was a lot of FUN... PERIOD. Does he expect the casino to give away their services? The "V" is a first-class place and it is SUPPOSE to cost more.
On-Line play vs. live casino play should not be compared. Computers vs dealers, nice tables, booze...
Enough said.
Falstaff did a great job and 99.99% of the attendees agree.
Perhaps next year, Blinders should sit in front of his computer all alone while we're having fun in Vegas.

Gene said...

I didn't take Blinders' analysis as a ripjob on Falstaff, and I agree that with juice like that it would be extremely difficult to make a profit long-term at that sort of tournament. Groups like ours are over a barrel, somewhat, and these folks are grandmasters at extracting money. They provided a space to play when few options were available, and we paid for it.

That said, I think TripJax is spot-on when he says that we thirsty bloggers probably left a lot of red ink on the Venetian's bottom line for the tourney. I played like a mule and was out after just a few hours and I know I had at LEAST six Sam Adams. Things got a bit fuzzy at that point. So wonderfully fuzzy.

Joaquin "The Rooster" Ochoa said...

I liked the blind structure and it played to my very tight card playing abilities. I liked the structure but maybe like a dinner break somewhere in there next time. It is all about us getting together to play poker more than anything.

I did tip out 100.00 at the end and I wasn't sure about that tip to be honest. I'm not a greedy fool by any means...but I was wondering was that what the 15.00 was for? Just so when I take it down next time.

Thanks for putting the event on there...I love that room...serious, best place to play poker in my opinion.

shamanalix said...

I loved it all, except for runing into the straight flush in level one with my ace-high. Can we ban those next time? And got a date in mind for the next gathering (June?)? Hope Venetian will have us again!!!

Happy holidays, and thanks for helping get my poker blog up a notch. Still a lot to figure out. It'll come. You're one of the good one (evenif you leave me out of the start of a mixed-games table at MGM). Peace!!!