New Points System for LPL - Please Vote

[FL1CKER]

I agree that the points per player bonus should be increased to reward players for surviving the larger fields. Everywhere I play there are always at least 30 players in every game, and I have qualified for the finals in both of the months since I joined by only playing two nights per week.

The additional comment I wish to make is that with the current system where people can attend an unlimited number of games each month and effectively buy their way into the final, it puts people with a life at a disadvantage. Great if you are a single 20 year old or a late middle aged person whose kids have flown the coup. You can go out and play live poker every night, but some of us have families who require our attention. I think it would be much fairer if only your best 5 results in any month counted. That way the finalists would comprise more of the skilful players as opposed to just people who can afford to go out every night and spend £200 a month on petrol travelling to all the venues.

[LPL_Mike]

Originally Posted by FL1CKER

The additional comment I wish to make is that with the current system where people can attend an unlimited number of games each month and effectively buy their way into the final, it puts people with a life at a disadvantage. Great if you are a single 20 year old or a late middle aged person whose kids have flown the coup. You can go out and play live poker every night, but some of us have families who require our attention. I think it would be much fairer if only your best 5 results in any month counted. That way the finalists would comprise more of the skilful players as opposed to just people who can afford to go out every night and spend £200 a month on petrol travelling to all the venues.

Hi Flicker welcome to the forum..the system is setup to reward the players who play the most, and generally speaking if you play on a regular basis you will make the finals which is the whole idea and concept of the Poker league, remember we are giving away good prizes each month and i think its only fair that we reward the players who support the league.

You may get a few who like the idea of the leader board trophy and will have time to travel and play in a lot of events that month to try and obtain it, but to actually get into the finals will not need to much hard work..this month 70th place qualified with 717 pts please don't tell me that is to hard to achieve
When we give out a big prize we may reduce the amount of qualifiers to make it a little harder, but i am not talking about playing 5 nights a week

[RevStu]

Originally Posted by FL1CKER

The additional comment I wish to make is that with the current system where people can attend an unlimited number of games each month and effectively buy their way into the final, it puts people with a life at a disadvantage.

Jeez, as if it wasn't bad enough not having a life, now someone wants to come along and take our poker away too...

I'm actually all for having a limit on how many games can score qualifying points (I've mentioned it myself previously), because it's just silly having someone rack up 6000-odd by trekking around the south-west playing every single game in a month, but for the reasons Mike's already mentioned (this IS a commercial business, after all) I can see why it's the way it is.

Personally I think that if you're looking at it from that viewpoint you might also want to consider how many people are put off by the fact that it's so biased in favour of those with - well, let's call it "a lot of spare time" - and I'd go for a maximum of 10 games (as opposed to a rather stingy 5) counting towards your leaderboard score in a given month. But hey, it's not up to me. And as he's implied, 800 points will give you a decent chance of making the final most months, and you only need two good games to rack up that many.

[welshdemon]

On the point of people travelling to unlimited venues to gain points:

How much do you want to get to the finals?

How much does a sportsperson want to be at the top of their game?

The more you put in, the more you get out. A tennis player who *WILL* get to wimbledon will spend 12+ hours a day training. A tennis player who *wants* to get to wimbledon might practise for a few hours a day and hopes to get to the finals, but at the end of the day, probably wont. Slightly crappy example but I think it sort of works. And, more to the point, the better a (poker) player you are, the less games you will have to attend to score the points. So, back to the "The more you put in, the more you get out" sentence, the more games you attend = the more practise you get, the more practise you get = the better you get, the better you get = the less games you have to attend to accumulate enough points to make the finals...

Ive been playing loads lately and my game has improved drastically. To the point of a 3rd, and two 1st place finishes in my last 3 games! I may have been lucky (we all know you need *some* luck to do well in poker at times), but, my point is, a load of practise and youll get to the stage where you can attend 1 game a week, and hit more than enough points to make the finals. One 1st place finish is almost enough points. 2 or 3 finishes in the top few players and you'll have enough points.

Yes some people travel to loads of venues, but as I've said before, and as Mike said a few replies ago, at the end of the day, such people are supporting the league by doing exactly that! Imagine if there were only 50 people who played in the league. It wouldnt survive with loads of venues, oh, unless of course most of them travelled to other venues to play in. An exaggerated example but it shows the points at hand.

[drwinston]

I've got to agree with the people who see no problem with people playing every night if they so wish. Of course it's an advantage but if everyone just played lets say 2 nights a week we would soon find ourselves losing venues and therefore eventually the league. I would also like to reiterate Mikes point that realistically you only need 750+ points to get to the final. A lot of people qualify for the final by the second week of the month and then continue playing because they enjoy it. As for "a life" maybe playing poker is a lot of peoples "life". Is it not a hobby? and something a lot of people enjoy?

Of course, you would be right in saying that if you have your eyes on the monthly leaderboard leader then yes you would need to play a lot of games to achieve that. While it would be nice to have such a trophy I know I can't attend all the games in Weston and really have little interest in travelling to Bristol or playing the second games during the week (I need a lot of beauty sleep to keep me as stunning as I am ), so my aim each month is to qualify for the final where the real prizes are.

I also think if you did take everyones 10 best results you wouldn't see much difference in the final standings anyway.

I'm not knocking your idea, it's just the league wouldn't survive without the people who play most nights at multiple venues.

[DonkBox]

despite living in bath. I have to agree with the posters who say that you should be able to play in as many games as you like - if you take that away the league will falter.
Despite bath now having four nights a week i know i'll only make three tops, as work/life dictates this and i'm someone who has few responsibilities, so figure this is the same for many others. The key IMO is venues that can host 2 events a night, double the number of points, still only one evening put in. And as others have mentioned it only takes c.800 points to make the final with up to 16 events in bath now that's only an average of 50 points per event, i see you're already on your way stu!

[RevStu]

Thing is, unless you've already had ten first-place finishes that month (which, let's face it, is NEVER going to happen), there's still a motivation to go along to another game and significantly increase your points by doing better than your lowest score (if your 10th qualifying score was 50 points for 16th place, and you play another game and win it, that's a very worthwhile 570 extra points onto your total). I know I go along and play even if I'm already sure I've qualified anyway, just because it's a good night out in its own right.

I can't see the number of players decreasing in any way if it was cut to 10 qualifying scores for the leaderboard, and it might well attract more people to play MORE games, in order to challenge for the leaderboard trophy if they thought they actually had a fair chance of competing for it against people with infinite time/resources.

Imagine if you had 1000 points by one week into last month. You'd already be sure of qualification, but you'd also know you had no chance of topping the leaderboard because someone was already miles ahead and clearly playing every game, so what's your motivation to bother turning up? If only 10 scores counted, you'd still be in with a chance of the leaderboard trophy, so you might play all the way to the end of the month. A ceiling on qualifying scores would probably mean MORE players for the league every month, not fewer, IMHO.

[LPL_Mike]

Its a good idea Stu i just think the work process needed to separate everyones best ten finishes would be a thankless task if not impossible to do

I also think the league would be very confusing as you would never be certain to where you stood, and at the end of the month when you think your qualified and then findout 10 people below you played there 11th game and moved up into the qualifying position..i think it would cause a lot of confusion and frustration.

[RevStu]

Oh yeah, I understand the practicalities of it and everything. (Same with leaderboards for every individual town, which would be a great thing but yet more work for all involved.) It's just dreaming of an ideal world, really...

[drwinston]

I think Mike has tried to address the issue with people not having anything to fight for if they know they've already qualified but they're not in with a shout of first place. He's added a prize draw for the top 10.

As I've stated before and many other people think the same, there's little point in going for the first place because of the amount of games you have to play but that's not taking anything away from the people who do win it. Without them, the league would probably fold eventually.

I think a lot of this comes down to an individuals mentality. It's the 8th of June and there are plenty of people that have qualified for next months final already. Some of which will know sit back and not go to many games but most of them will continue to go to games as they always do and enjoy themselves.

The only thing I would say is it needs to be sorted soon as the first place person at the moment has only faced a field of 18 people max and I think the others were around the 10 mark. That's hardly fair on the people who are currently sitting outside the top 60 but have beaten more players but either not got into the points or it's only the small points because the field they've faced is much larger (if that makes sense).

Still, from a personal point of view, I like the league. Having started to play online before playing online was the thing to do it's fantastic to find a live league like this. My game has improved over the last 3 months immensely in no limit which can only be a good thing. While this would be going off subject, has anyone ever thought of having a tourny for Omaha, Limit, 5 card stud etc?