Thoughts on the Replay Team Championship

Poker Discussion
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The RTC was fun, big thanks to the Replay team and all who played. I’m not complaining, the format was announced in advance, so we all knew what we were getting into. For context, I was team captain of Molon Labe. We played all 7 weeks and finished in 3rd. Well done team!

Changing days the way you did was less than ideal. No need to say more than that.

Saturday at 3 est would be a great day and time to hold the finals, but running all 7 weeks at that time meant giving up 7 summer Saturdays. I have no doubt this was a reason the field wasn’t bigger.

Maybe running the qualifiers as regionals, each 6 hours apart, and then running the finals on Saturday might have been a better solution. Giving up 1 summer Saturday is worth it, giving up more than half of them, not so much.

The formula used to calculate tourney points was too heavily weighted towards the top. The formula used was not designed for freerolls. The whole end term (containing the log of the buyin) reduced to multiplying the rest by 1, so did nothing. Maybe just adding some number would have evened things out a bit.

For example, if last place gave 1,000 and first place earned 5,000, first place got 5x as much as last. Adding say, 4,000 to each, would give 5,000 to last and 9,000 to first. The spread is still the same, but now first is less than twice as much as last. I think this might have helped, though 4,000 is just an example, and probably not the ideal number.

Another thing that struck me as odd is that it started as an MTT series and ended as a 6-max SnG. I would rather have seen the finals with 12 players, and the top 6 get the swag.

After the qualifiers, it was brutal. One and Done. I don’t mind brutal, so I was OK with this, but there are other formats you could look at. For example, 4 weeks of qualifiers, 2 weeks of semis, and then a single final would have worked too, and been a little more forgiving.

Finally, I would question the wisdom of having a team of Replay staffers. Yeah I get it, you guys love poker too, but what if you would have won? You know that would create conspiracy theories that would last forever. If your drop-out at the semis was planned, you took a spot from your customers for no good reason.

I think it’s up to us, as a community, to tell Replay what we liked and what we didn’t. They aren’t mind readers. So come on, share your thoughts and maybe the next one will be better than ever.

(Offered in the spirit of constructive criticism)

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2

The Untouchables loved everything about the promotion. The time was as fair as possible to allow all time zones to have a chance, and the day was changed to a Saturday at the request of several players - the staff listened!

The final format was tremendously exciting and having the three tables playing simultaneously made for nail biting playing and viewing. As a team who missed third place by just one point, we feel the points system is perfectly fair - no complaints at all.

We felt it was an honour that the staff fielded a team and it added extra spice trying to beat them!

Finally, thanks again to Jonny who worked so hard trying to please the silent majority. You did good!

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I know I couldn’t play due to the timing of the event. I would have liked to.

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Same for me. Would have been really cool to play it.

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I couldn’t commit to the Tuesday time slot as there was a chance I could have missed one or more games. I would not have given up these Saturday’s with my little ones though.

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Well, you put too many letters in “honor” and not enough in “Johnny,” so who knows?

I personally didn’t mind them being there. This is nothing against them personally.

Over here, “Employees of Company XYZ and their families are not eligible to enter this contest” is generally the way things are done. There are sound reasons for this. For one thing, it would be a PR nightmare if an employee won. It looks bad.

For another, they took a prize position from the customers. Someone didn’t advance because they did. Someone’s dream was ended earlier than it would have been.

Staff should be encouraged to play more regular tournaments and not allowed to play special promotions. It’s not a big deal to me either way, but I thought it needed to be said.

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The English spelling is honour and Jonny is spelt correctly. Is useful to check. :innocent:

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OK. :slight_smile:

WSOP rule 17f. WSOP Personnel and their Immediate Family may not participate in any Bracelet Event, unless approved in advance by Rio in its sole discretion. WSOP Personnel and their Immediate Family can participate in any NonBracelet Event.

I don’t want to get hung up on this, to me it’s a trivial thing. However, the fact remains that it’s generally not allowed.

Source

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Sunny, this is a free poker site and by following your logic, perhaps I and my fellow Mods and PReps should not have been allowed to play. Surely our hard working staff are allowed a bit of fun sometimes!

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It’s not MY logic.

I don’t mind that they played. I don’t mind that their “volunteers” played.

They have their staff only events and their Bust the Staff events. They have their chances to have fun.

If you didn’t play,I would have missed the chance to beat you by 1 point! That was the highlight of the series for me. haha.

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11

I know it was, but have yet to receive the bunch of flowers you promised me as consolation…

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flowers
flowers1145×1200 392 KB

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:couplekiss_man_woman:. Thank you

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14

That’s it for me too. Too difficult to schedule time in advance, and what with players in different time zones, different countries, and with totally different work schedules, shifts, days off, and other commitments such as child care, really difficult to participate and not let the team down.

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15

Generally employees and family members are ineligible to win prizes with a monetary value. This is free poker for play chips.

I really wish I could do a Bust The Staff, but they’re always at 4pm on a Thursday in my timezone, so I can’t ever make it :frowning:

I guess if I should happen to have a sick day, I will have to try it out.

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Keep in mind, the VOLUNTEERS–mods, PReps, etc–are neither employees nor officers, nor owners. Only STAFF–the ones marked at tables with a gold star-- are employees. The rest of us are contributing real labor or creative content for imaginary chips and the sheer pleasure of doing it. The only reason I didn’t play was I ha a minor surgery scheduled for one of the originally announced dates so I would’ve had to miss at least one game. I didn’t want to handicap any team with a player who couldn’t commit to playing all the scheduled games. I agree STAFF–marked with those stars–should be excluded.

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17

So if these free chips have no monetary value, how does Replay pay its staff, office expenses, and hosting bills? They don’t sell advertising or merchandise, they sell “free” chips.

Anyway, it’s not about monetary value, it’s about appearances.

WSOP lets its employees play in non-bracelet events, which are for real money. So obviously, it can’t be about the money. Bracelet events are considered championship events, and they don’t want to risk tarnishing their brand by allowing something that could cause even the slightest hint or unfounded suspicion of foul play.

The first step to becoming a bigger, more successful company is to start thinking and acting like one.

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Places paper bag over head
i confess. some of the chips you guys take off me are free, but most are not. I buy chips to keep from playing bankroll builders and free rolls. it’s not that i’m too good, as much as i find them boring, and want to play with more skilled players.
the shame, the shame
as competitive as i am, i didn’t want to handicap a team with a player who didn’t know what a BB was, 8 months ago. However, if the teams had 4 players, with one being a backup, i might have pursued joining a team. i may not be good enough to compete at that level, but may be better than a forfeit. also, that might have helped Sun and Alan, or anyone who didn’t want to hurt their team by missing a week.

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19

Yes, but those chips cannot be redeemed to get money back out of the system. So the cash value of the prize you win by playing here is zero; I don’t think there’s much risk of scandal for such stakes.

I certainly would hope that the staff would avoid cheating to win, but I’m not overly worried about it. (Plus, I’ve seen the way some of them play :slight_smile: )

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20

There’s no shame in buying chips. The site wouldn’t be here if people din’t buy chips.

And thanks for taking this in a more positive direction. I like the idea of having a 4th team member, though that might be hard to actually set up on their end.

I started the thread to come up with some ways to make events like this better, not to discuss the finer points of brand management.

Several people have said they would have liked to play, but didn’t like the way things were scheduled. What changes would have made it work for you guys?

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