Okay, its not much of a resurrection, since the first time I tried this it didn’t really take off. The reason it didn’t is because I couldn’t find an online poker room that allows private tournaments for play money. I think I found a way around this.
The first tournament is scheduled for Thursday 10pm est. If you want to join the “Dopers only NL HE” league and play in the first game, go to pokerroom.com and download the software. When you sign up use your Straightdope user name. It’ll be easier for us to keep track of one another this way. If its not available, just add some numbers to the end of it (I’m xrayvision88 and Otto is Otto4711). Then e-mail me before 5 pm est. Thursday so I know how many people are playing. If we get over ten interested Dopers, we’ll have to create two or more tables. Below are instuctions on what to do, so you might want to print this post.
On Thursday at 9:45 pm est., I will create a table and Pokerrom.com will name it xravision88’s HE. Log-in to the software between 9:45 and 9:55. In the upper left hand corner click on “lobby” and then click on “Account/Cashier (Website)”. Refill your play money and you should have $1000. Now you can close out of the website and go back to the software. In the upper right hand corner, make sure “Ring Games” is highlighted, not “Tournaments”. Now click on the tab labeled “Private Tables”. Scroll through the list of table names and double-click on the one titled “xravision88’s HE”. I’ll then accept you to join the table. You will then see the table. You will see the message “Click on any available seat to join the table” . Pick a seat (in future games we’ll use assigned seating). After you click on an empty seat you will see this message: “How much of your money ($1000.00) do you want to use at the table? (buy-in $100 to $1000)” Type in $1000. Then click “OK”. You will then get this message: “Click on SIT IN to be dealt in”. Do not do this. You will see these two options right below this message: “Auto Post Blind/Ante” and “Wait for Big Blind”, choose “Wait for Big Blind”.
At 10:00 I will click on “SIT IN” . The person to my immediate left should then do the same. The two of us will now be playing the first hand but not placing bets. Now everyone else can click on “SIT IN” and we’ll all be playing normally on the next hand. If you’re wondering why we have to do this, here is the reason:
Since pokerroom.com does not allow free tournament style play, we are modifying a ring game into a tournament. In a ring game, the instant two players are seated the dealing begins. Since there is no way around this, and it will be impossible for ten people to sit down at the exact same moment, we’ll have to start things off the way I described in the last paragraph. The person to my left and I will not be betting on this hand but we’ll be forced to play out the hand and play for the blinds. As soon as you see cards dealt on the table you can click on SIT IN. Yes, one of us will have a $10 or $20 advantage and the other player will have a $10 or $20 disadvantage. Not really a big deal since we are all starting out with $1000. In future tournaments two different people will be put into this position, so after many tournaments played everthing evens out.
Another adjustment we’re going to have to make to turn this ring game into a tournament, is we’re going to have to manually adjust the blinds. Here is how we’ll do that:
When its time for blinds to be increased (by keeping track of how many hands have been played) we do this: Everyone to the left of the big blind checks. When the option to bet gets to the small blind, he increases his bet to the new small blind amount (whether he wants to or not). Then the big blind increases his bet to the new big blind amount (whether he wants to or not). From there, the rest of the round is played normally. The only drawbacks are that we have to manually keep track of when blinds should increase ( not a big deal) and if anyone bets when he’s supposed to check, it kinda screws things up. IMing capabilities are included in the software, so we can remind each other not to screw up and after playing for a bit hopefully we’ll get used to the structure.
I believe Pokerroom.com only lets you refill your account with play money every 24 hrs., so don’t play in any other games on Pokerrom.com or you might not have a full $1000 for Thursday night’s tournament.
The blinds will start at $10 - $20 and we’ll increase the blinds manually after every 10 hands played. You might want to print this post so you can follow the instructions.
We are going to use the blinds schedule on this web page, except we have to skip level 2 and go straight to level 3. Here’s why:
Since the default blinds schedule is 10/20, once we want to raise it to 15/30 the software won’t let us. Once everyone checks after the big blind, the small blind won’t be able to raise to 15, he’ll be forced to see the big blind’s 20. So the small blind will bet 10, so he has a total bet of 20 and the big blind will bet 20, so he has a total bet of 40.
I know this is getting confusing but I think we’ll all catch on pretty quickly once we get things moving.
What fun is playing without bragging rights? Here’s how we’ll keep tally of each player’s official rank:
In a tournament with a full table (10 players), whoever comes in fist place gets 1 point, second gets 2 points etc. The first person to drop out of a game in play (whether on purpose or from technical difficulties) comes in last place at that table with 10 pts. Obviously the less points you have the better. If the person who comes in first place comes in seventh place in the next tournament, that person has a 4 pt. average. If someone else’s average is lower (better) than 4, the person ranked #1 after the first tournament is no longer #1. A player’s rank does not count until he plays in at least three tournaments. If there is less than ten players at a table, the scores received will have to be adjusted accordingly. If only 9 players are at a table, first place receives 1.11 points, second place receives 2.22 points, etc. If a player plays in three games and does great, and then never plays again, does his rank stand? Nah. If someone goes weeks and weeks without playing we’ll have to vote whether or not to abolish his ranking. As long as no one uses this as a way to get rid of a crappy ranking and then all of a sudden start playing regularly again. We’ll e-mail anyone who goes a long time without playing asking whether they plan on returning or not and see what’s up before deciding what to do.
Since Thursday night’s game will be the first, lets not make it official (no rank). Who knows what might go wrong. If it turns out that upping the blinds every ten hands makes the game too long/short, we’ll change it to a different amount of hands or go to a timed blinds schedule.
Well? Don’t just sit there. Go on over to pokerroom.com and start downloading. Then e-mail me for a reservation.
