Let's work together to improve the Gauntlet

I love the Gauntlet but think that it is flawed in certain areas. Here's a few idea for discussion.....

Problems with the Gauntlet

1. The specialty games have too few players.

Those that want to play these, or those that feel compelled to play these (to get their quota of games in) suffer as the positions they finish in are worth fewer points. It is also possible that others may avoid these in order to improve their chances of increasing their end of season points total. They may not feel good enough to play and do well but they will also know that a low turnout for these is likely.

2. The games towards the end of the season have too few players.

This benefits those who played more at the start of the season as the positions they finish are worth more points. They also have more opportunity to get their quota of games in.

3. Not enough people complete their quota of games - the league could be more competitive.

Possible Solutions

1. Create seperate side tournaments for the specialty games (like the Heads-Up Championship) and keep the Gauntlet
to NLHE with the occasional 6-max and maybe one HU. Ultimately, the majority are more interested in NLHE so this should keep numbers up.

2. Have just 12 dates, one each Sunday. E.g. One on Sunday afternoon and that's it - no early and late game. This should concentrate the number of participants every week and everyone will know when it is. I would also be in favour of scrapping the best x scores idea though this isn't strictly in relation to the problems listed above.

3. Having more people completing their quota may be tackled in part by the above points but something that could run in conjunction with the email reminders is a weekly recurring commune/STT/MTT thread highlighting that a gauntlet game is coming up.

What do people think? Any other thoughts? These are just some ideas that I've had - I don't pretend to have all the answers. Comments are very welcome from all but especially from Gauntlet regs.

The admins need to spend more time participating and promoting. Simple as that. Until that happens, the Gauntlet will remain mediocre with few participants.

I agree with all of Kev's points.

I wasn't a big fan of the "play 12, top 10 count" rule, and I think that alone killed fair amount of the participation. The fact of the matter was, since I was in the running for winning, and wasn't just playing for fun, I wasn't going to participate in any game that I didn't feel I was somewhat strong in. I played only NLHE games (6m and FR, didn't play the HU event), with the exception of one PLO tourney because I thought i was way out in front (lol). If the rules would have been different, and we were allowed to play all the tournies, with say the top 10-12 going towards your score, I would have made all of them.

I think this is a problem of advertisement. I am pretty sure that there are many people out there that would really want to participate in such a league but they can't because they are not aware of it. I don't know if there is any advertisement on the other sites but that would both increase the participation on Gauntlet and memberships to FTR itself. Poker payers are competitive and they would love to participate in such an event.

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

I agree with all of Kev's points.

I wasn't a big fan of the "play 12, top 10 count" rule, and I think that alone killed fair amount of the participation. The fact of the matter was, since I was in the running for winning, and wasn't just playing for fun, I wasn't going to participate in any game that I didn't feel I was somewhat strong in. I played only NLHE games (6m and FR, didn't play the HU event), with the exception of one PLO tourney because I thought i was way out in front (lol). If the rules would have been different, and we were allowed to play all the tournies, with say the top 10-12 going towards your score, I would have made all of them.

Good. I'm glad that I wasn't just spouting off and some of it made sense

Originally Posted by Extremophile

I think this is a problem of advertisement. I am pretty sure that there are many people out there that would really want to participate in such a league but they can't because they are not aware of it. I don't know if there is any advertisement on the other sites but that would both increase the participation on Gauntlet and memberships to FTR itself. Poker payers are competitive and they would love to participate in such an event.

FTR has a huge membership, plenty of whom play tourneys at various levels so I don't think we need more people externally, just tweaks to the existing format to improve it therefore offering more incentive.

I can understand some of the serious tourney players here not wanting to play - Sunday is a big day - but that alone doesn't explain the consistently poor turnout.

turn out for non HE events wasn't really much different if you account for your points 2 & 3. if there were only HE events I would likely not play at all. And we usually see a couple people in those who don't play the other gauntlets.

I don't really think we'll ever see a change in 2 or 3, those are just human nature. Focus should be just over all getting attendance up.

TBH I think it's just a tough sell and the site overall would need to be much bigger for the gauntlet to get bigger. There are a lot of different reasons to play poker, but not really a lot to play the gauntlet. It's either too cheap or too expensive or too tough for players to play it for profit. It's not much for ego unless you don't really get poker. And it's often not much fun depending on who is playing or how many other tables you have going.

I think the best bets for a small bump:

experimenting with different days/times hoping to find a magic one people don't have much else to do - Sundays are really busy days for players and sports.

allowing people to gain from playing more events.

listen to the hawt asian chick, she's right

I've always considered gauntlet very -ev for me, even though its only $10 entry. Usually once its obvious I'm not in the running to place overall I just stop playing. Not sure what would change that, but I guess anything that makes me (and others) more likely to play even if we're not in the running for tournament champion.

1. Courtie's point is very important, the admins should be more involved in it and play in more games.
2. Balancing between letting people play in more games and keeping the league competitive for those who participate in only some of the games is complicated, I think players should be allowed to participate in all the games but the final score should be calculated based on some balance between the best scores count and the average of points or something along this line

There's some good stuff here guys.

I'm interested in Bjsaust's post, talking about not turning out if there's no chance of winning it. A possible remedy for this and other problems could be what drmc said about more incentives being needed.

I'm going to see if we can get a few more posts ITT from others who have only played a handful of games each season.

$10 buy-in is too much for those playing lower stakes. Maybe there can be another Gauntlet with $3-$5 BI. Two Gauntlets per year with different names (maybe GSOP). You won't have to wait for 1 whole year to play the next one.

I have often wondered what would happen if we had a few different BI options, maybe a few $1-5s and a few $20-100s or like a 10 RB if you can make private ones. It's worth a shot.

I thin its defop a money thing mainly.

The BC players won't and shouldn't be playing in $10 tourneys, and the BC is where most players are. And Bc'ers are also the most likely to want to get involved and participate in FTR things

I want to play in these, but I find being a Euro a prob with late times and Sundays are just a no no for me.

Yea, I originally thought two on Sundays was awesome, but it turned out to not be such a great idea. I do think we need multiple days though to accomodate the various timezones and work/life schedules.

Just a thought: What if instead of making it spread out over 12 weeks or so, have a couple tournaments every day for two weeks? Like the WCOOP

ooh I like that, keep the momentum going and it would make it easier to have different BI levels.

Originally Posted by courtiebee

The admins need to spend more time participating and promoting. Simple as that. Until that happens, the Gauntlet will remain mediocre with few participants.

ldfo

Originally Posted by Deanglow

Just a thought: What if instead of making it spread out over 12 weeks or so, have a couple tournaments every day for two weeks? Like the WCOOP

I like this idea but it sounds like a seperate championship to me. Like a mini-gauntlet. A test run would show if it was popular/doable though.

Bigger fields are better, so lowering the buyin to $5 and only having 1 game each Sunday should help.

Mix in a couple rebuys, they are fun. $1 rebuy seems reasonable

I didn't play in any mixed games or HU gauntlets because on Sundays theres a lot of other tournaments to play so it would be too much of a hassle trying to play a game I'm not used to

BUMP

So... it's about time we start planning the next season.

Where do we stand as far as improvements or changes for the Gauntlet this time around?

I think dropping the Wed games ended up being a bad thing and although mixed games are fun I think it should be limited to forms of NLHE and (maybe) PLO

PS - What happened to my Gauntlet Champion banner?

Originally Posted by Xianti

BUMP

So... it's about time we start planning the next season.

Where do we stand as far as improvements or changes for the Gauntlet this time around?

Sorry X, I meant to summarise this thread to highlight the proposed changes. I'll try and do this in the next couple of days.

Originally Posted by kevster

Sorry X, I meant to summarise this thread to highlight the proposed changes. I'll try and do this in the next couple of days.

....??

me thinks the days are REALLY long in Kevster's part of the world.

I still support the notion to play an unlimited amount of the games, while only having the top x amount count. Or something of that nature. I would loved to have played in the PLO/Stud games, but I'm not strong in those games, so couldn't. Felt like that was the same for a fair number of people, so the participation in those games was poor.

maybe make the non hold em games bonuses... if you do better points-wise, you can replace a holdem result otherwise they don't count towards your total. Sounds annoying to keep track of this in the standings. Kind of a dumb idea but at least we'd have participants :P

Allow to get points for the 12 best games but only 10 of them (max) can be holdem, and 2 (or more) have to be from non holdem games, this will generate traffic for non holdem games

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

I still support the notion to play an unlimited amount of the games, while only having the top x amount count. Or something of that nature. I would loved to have played in the PLO/Stud games, but I'm not strong in those games, so couldn't. Felt like that was the same for a fair number of people, so the participation in those games was poor.

I think this is the best option imo.

Watch out of the next Gauntlet soooooooooooon! (for reelz)

Originally Posted by Deanglow

Just a thought: What if instead of making it spread out over 12 weeks or so, have a couple tournaments every day for two weeks? Like the WCOOP

i also like this, could have a mini gauntlet series one week or something? not sure how it would ring out, but is a neat idea we could try.

I'd like to see more than one Gauntlet per year as well.

As far as the play an unlimited amount of games, while only x amount counting idea, there is only one "problem" (not sure if I can consider it that) that I can think of. While the majority of the players here have NLHE as their strongest game, there are a few that play PLO/Stud more so than NLHE. I'd only be afraid that if you could play an unlimited amount of games, people that weren't strong at PLO/Stud would show up to play those games, and pretty much totally donk around, while still giving an effort at the NLHE games (as they are more comfortable, and expect those games to count). This would leave the NLHE field tougher, while the PLO/Stud games would get softer, allowing the individuals proficient in those games to excel heavily.

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

I'd like to see more than one Gauntlet per year as well.

+1

I think the main reason Xianti hasn't implemented your suggestion, Stacks, is that it would give an unfair advantage to North American players. You're not gonna find many Euros playing in the 7 pm PST games so therefore they only get to play half the games.

Honestly between this event and the articles I felt complled to join this site. This sounds like a great idea but is maybe underpromoted/advertised. I just happened to stumble across it.

The fact it is a widespan of time seems like it was done to allow flexibility but it sounds from kevster as though it has been counterproductive and has casued a diluted interest. Seems as though the only solution to that problem is allow more tourneys to be eligible over a shorter timespan.

The game diversity will not be fixed unless you allow a multiplier of ranking points (maybe allow 2/12 of the games to be something other than NLHE and allow the points to be 120% of NLHE) or make them mandatory.

welcome to FTR and thanks for your post! Hope we see you in the Gauntlet once we finally figure out what we want

I don't like the idea of making 2/12 of the games something other than NLHE, and then inflating the points in those games. This could be due to the fact that I am a hopeless novice at any game except for NLHE. Either way, it just seems to me that most of the players that play Omaha, Stud, or whatever variants we choose will likely not be that strong. However, I know of a few players that these variants are their regular game, and it seems they will be much better than the majority of the competition, to inflate the points for those games would be too big of a benefit to them.

what if we had two or three gauntlet series a year, had a winner for each series then a winner for the year. just trying to add to discussion.

Originally Posted by fulksy

what if we had two or three gauntlet series a year, had a winner for each series then a winner for the year. just trying to add to discussion.

ftops is like this, they have an ftops as soon as one ends...i think it takes away from each individual one...hate it

it could just be two. maybe a spring and fall series (may and November) i don't think that would take anything away from it?

Originally Posted by fulksy

it could just be two. maybe a spring and fall series (may and November) i don't think that would take anything away from it?

like this much better, i think it also solves another problem i had with gauntlet which is that the times gauntlet is offered is kind of random. I think two series a year would be ideal. great idea

Glad to see the Gauntlet discussion getting traction now.

We have had, on average, 1.5 seasons per year. We can indeed have them be fully twice a year. That is cool with me.

I would like to see a successful mix of holdem and non-holdem games that both have equally good turnouts, but everything we've tried in the past have not been too successful. Keep in mind, also, that the point system and leaderboard is automated and must be programmable, so we shouldn't do anything overly complicated.

The suggestion of having a game as frequently as every day doesn't seem to work in my mind. It's been tricky enough filling the twice-weekly games; I feel having them daily will simply spread out our players too thin. Remember, the big online tournaments have a player pool of tens of thousands. We only have hundreds (officially in the roster -- active players probably number in the dozens).

Please keep the suggestions coming. Once we have a decent consensus, I will start promoting the heck out of this season, with plenty of advance notice.

Thanks!

has stax uploaded a pic of the trophy yet?

=(

That would be a negative. I need to get on that.

Originally Posted by xianti

i will start promoting the heck out of this season, with plenty of advance notice.

!

how many more responses do we need?

Originally Posted by GatorJH

me thinks the days are REALLY long in Kevster's part of the world.

It's official, I'm busier than everyone else in the world. Will defo get on to this later this week.

Originally Posted by Roco415

how many more responses do we need?

What have we (mostly?) agreed on?

Originally Posted by Xianti

What have we (mostly?) agreed on?

I dont think we will unless you just arbitraily decide to start promoting it and then people will voice concerns. I feel like people wont voice an opinion unless prompted to because of an overwhelming problem with the format...is there any way we can start a thread where people vote on the features they want?

what if we made the non hold em's a lower buy in,(i;m fine with the BI) but might help give some people that arn't comfortable with these games more incentive or add some more prizes or something.

just trying to keep this thing moving so we can get this thing started.

Ok, here’s my long overdue summary - http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8024/gauntletsummary.gif

Where I’ve detailed “who agreed” I’ve had to make some presumptions based on people’s replies as not everyone has literally said “great idea” or “bad idea” to every suggestion. I also didn’t include every single suggestion as Xianti had already dismissed some ideas and towards the end I think we were getting a little derailed with too many ideas. Anyway, to summarise the more popular ideas, it would appear that we need to consider –

1.More admin participation and more promotion/advertising
2.Lower buy-in and/or separate gauntlets for different buy-ins
3.Separate side tournaments for the non HE events
4.Just one tourney a week (perhaps on a Sunday)
5.Experimenting with different days
6.More incentives

It's clear that we're not going to please everybody but it's important to think about each of these if we're going to move things forward.

Thanks to everyone who's posted so far and apologies for my slackness in not getting this sorted earlier.

Personally, I also think we should guard against making too many changes at once. Maybe we should think about making one or two tweaks - seeing how they pan out - and then consider other changes for future Gauntlets.

Originally Posted by kevster

Ok, here’s my long overdue summary - http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/8024/gauntletsummary.gif
1.More admin participation and more promotion/advertising
2.Lower buy-in and/or separate gauntlets for different buy-ins
3.Separate side tournaments for the non HE events
4.Just one tourney a week (perhaps on a Sunday)
5.Experimenting with different days
6.More incentives

My view on those:
1. This is not really a change, it is totally up to Xianti and the other admins, so there is not much to do there
2. Having separate guantlets for different buy ins will only hurt us as the initial problem we are trying to solve is not enough participation, lower buy in may work but I would not go below $5 buy on
3. Again, if non HE events are not part of the gauntlet they will get even less particpation then today, I think that if they are not part of the gauntlet they should just be cancelled
4. If we do that please keep it at a time that European players can play in (i.e. no later then 3:30 PM East coast time and preferred even earlier)

Originally Posted by TLR

3. Again, if non HE events are not part of the gauntlet they will get even less particpation then today, I think that if they are not part of the gauntlet they should just be cancelled

Agreed but whether or not there is a good turnout for these events once they are away from the Gauntlet is another matter for someone else to worry about. Their replacement with HE events will help to keep the Gauntlet numbers up.

I'd really like non HE events, I wish we could have them somehow.

There are 3 ways I see to increase the participation in non HE events
1. As I suggested before force 2 out of the 12 scores to be in non HE (i.e. you only get 10 holdem scores counted)
2. Allow more points for non HE events
3. Have special bonuses (gear, money added etc) for them

Originally Posted by TLR

There are 3 ways I see to increase the participation in non HE events
1. As I suggested before force 2 out of the 12 scores to be in non HE (i.e. you only get 10 holdem scores counted)

I like this idea

Originally Posted by TLR

There are 3 ways I see to increase the participation in non HE events
1. As I suggested before force 2 out of the 12 scores to be in non HE (i.e. you only get 10 holdem scores counted)

Def makes sense. This along with allowing to play as many games as you want in the season doesn't sound bad to me.

2. Allow more points for non HE events

Not a big fan of this. The majority of the players aren't that experienced with other games (me =D).

3. Have special bonuses (gear, money added etc) for them

Extra incentives sound like a solid idea as well.

.

Originally Posted by GatorJH

I like this idea

Agreed. Apologies TLR if I missed it in my summary.

However, I don't agree with allocating more points for non-HE events. It just doesn't make sense to bias it in this way.

I honestly think upping the numbers in the non-HE events is a seperate discussion from how to up the numbers in the Gauntlet in general. I'm not saying that this discussion isn't valid or shouldn't be in this thread. I just think there needs to be a clear distinction between the two.

i really dont understand why more people dont love gauntlet, it doesnt make any sense.


heres a random idea though: what if the people who got to final table got to send their HH to one of the most respected members of ftr and they did a video/analysis and we used it as a teaching tool/promo in the mtt/sng forums for strategy...?

I think those kind of incentives would be most important, i think that people arent interested because winning the gauntlet/small prize pools isnt really motivating for them even though some of us care a lot about it...If you give people a unique reward that they couldnt get other wise, i think it would really increase participation. It doesnt have to be a video, just trying to generate discussion.

bump....are people even aware of this forum? maybe move it to be a sub forum of ftr community....seems like ton of people go there much more often...

Originally Posted by Roco415

i really dont understand why more people dont love gauntlet, it doesnt make any sense.


heres a random idea though: what if the people who got to final table got to send their HH to one of the most respected members of ftr and they did a video/analysis and we used it as a teaching tool/promo in the mtt/sng forums for strategy...?

I think those kind of incentives would be most important, i think that people arent interested because winning the gauntlet/small prize pools isnt really motivating for them even though some of us care a lot about it...If you give people a unique reward that they couldnt get other wise, i think it would really increase participation. It doesnt have to be a video, just trying to generate discussion.

This would be worth it for me to spend some money to get analysis of my game.

bump. its been like a month since a meaning ful post here...

admire the enthusiasm but I think it's time to either decide to run it yourself(s) or give it up because #1 is not going to happen.

these used to be so fun

Guys, there are a lot of things happening behind the scenes that have kind of froze the Gauntlet. We will be starting the next season, but it might not be until the end of May.

Drmc is right, #1 is just too complex. I hope no one is too upset, but we may not run any non-HE events at all. Would this piss anyone off?

I also think we will work on the whole "play as many games as you want and only your best 12 will count" thing.

I also think Sunday's only, with 2 different times, like last season. Was that okay for most people?

I think one way to increase participation is extras, and we plan on having more this season. Bounties, gear, cracked aces... any other ideas? Maybe awards like "best bluff" "sickest beat" ?

Oh and I think the buy-in for all events will be $11. I was thinking about maybe varying buy-in amounts, but I think that would be too much trouble. I would personally like to see a $55 buy-in or something like a "high roller gauntlet" but how much participation would this have? Anything below $11 is too low imo.

i meant this, there should be less lists in this thread. The non HE events were the only fun ones last year, except the one I shipped every hand.

"1.More admin participation and more promotion/advertising"

Sundays are the worst day for me and any other tourney grinder, I guess it depends who you're hoping will play. It went poorly last year, not sure why it will be better this year.

It's clear I'm in the minority in that I want the gauntlet to be fun, not a competition that needs to be perfectly balanced so everyone has an exactly equal chance to win. So I'm going to stop posting because you should not listen to me. I hope you guys get it going again.

It would be nice if tournament grinders participated too, which is why Sundays are so bad. The only other choice seems to be Saturday, though?

I would love non HE events but it appears that I'm in the minority too.

I would pay $55 but I would guess that it would be too high for some ppl. I'd like to see the buyin higher just for fun but it would probably just make the participation worse. I dunno if $55 is enough to make some of the higher profile FTR vets play anyway? (if that's what the goal is, I dunno)

promotion and advertising is easy, and i will be playing in as many events as i can, hoping for at least 12. but i can't speak for x/t/e.

i don't think any day other than sunday would work. i would think saturday would be even worse. and weekdays only work in the evenings, which isn't good for uk people. i'm pretty sure in past gauntlets, sunday was better than wednesday. although, we could try a saturday/sunday mix? 1 game on sat, 1 game on sun, rather than 2 games on sunday.

i guess non-he events are still possible if we get the point tally changed so your top 12 games count, that way people may not be apt to avoid them. but if we run a 24 game season, probably max of 4 non-he games.

the larger buy-in is just an idea to make things fun for the higher stake people, and may attract some of the ftr regs. idk.

Originally Posted by givememyleg

promotion and advertising is easy,

post links to all the promos and ads from last time?

no

I like the non holdem events, if you allow people to play in as many events as they want there is a better chance they will get some crowd

Opinions based on some (really quick) statistical analysis of previous gauntlets and entries:

1. Ditch anything other than NLHE - 6-max is acceptable. HU is a nice novelty - maybe one of them? Omaha is my main game, but these events generally hurt attendance and definitely skew the standings.
2. Consider lowering the buy-in to $5. As others have stated, most are either overrolled for it and play for fun/pride or underrolled / can't justify paying $10 to play against this kind of field. I think the number of players who won't play because the buy-in is too low pale in contrast to the number of players who don't want to "waste" $10 on a fun tournament.
3. One game per week simply seems to be too infrequent to keep interest up. Better to play a more condensed season two nights a week. Compared to forum size at the time, our participation was a lot better in the older gauntlets when we didn't shirk the Euro players with Sunday tourneys only.

IMO two regularly-scheduled seasons a year sounds great, with each season lasting ~ 3 months.

The promotion point is a good one - there's no "fair" way to get the entry numbers up late in the season short of making events individually attractive. Essentially you need to make people WANT to play despite the fact that the trophy is more or less out of reach. The ironic part here is that the trophy actually becomes easier to reach in later events than it has been with low participation.

Others may have better ideas, but one thing to consider might be a random drawing for FTR swag for all registered participants in the tournament instead of (in addition to?) the usual knockout / winner bonuses.

You will get far bigger fields with a $5 buyin than $10 (most that can play on Sundays can't afford $11). Play more weeks and run the gauntlet longer. It's a gauntlet, not a series. Make it 15 games count and play like 20 weeks of early and late on Sundays. I would rather play in the mornings than the afternoons myself when the Euros can. (I have a family so I need my Sundays as well). Getting the same 15 people is not your goal and teh BC is your source of new people, you can't exclude them. If you have 40 games total, why not have random PLO or HU games?