Finally, online tournaments like land-based

Seems like a high EV, taking in $750 (60 x $15.00) and only paying out $500 for first place. And having it on a Sunday would cause several to miss other tourneys, in my case I would have to give up Sam's Town-Tunica ($25.00 entry for $1500 for first and for $1125 for 2nd thru 7th.) a much better tourney.

 

Bonus money?

I am not a online casino player, but I thought I might give this tournament a try. What is BONUS money? I was thinking it was paying cash out to all the finalist until reading Ken's post. Also can I just pay the $15 entry fee or do you have to send hundreds of dollars to open an account?

 

Bonus money

Thanks for explaning "Bonus Money" Ken.

What about our entry fees, once we sign up can any bonus money we receive or win be used for a future tournament entry?

I know at the online sportsbooks most of the bonuses could (and had to) be played as a free play on either a 2-3 team parlay.

Good luck at the LV Hilton today and tomorrow.

 

Found this info on bonus money on their website. I also emailed their support and was told bonus money could not be used for tournaments, and I put the wrong amount down, they will collect $900 not $750 and will only pay out $500 in cash, a $400 difference to them. When playing BJ you would have to wager a total of $12,500 of which 2% would be bonus money to free up the $250 second prize. So basically it is a winner take all unless you plan on gambling there. Think I will stick to land based tournaments since I don't gamble on line, don't like winner take all, and don't like bad EV tournaments.
When and how can I withdraw the bonus money?
Similar to non-negotiable chips in land-based casinos, the bonus cannot be withdrawn; it can only be used to play games. All your winnings, including those from bonus bets, can be directly cashed out from the WebCashier. However, with special bonuses or the Welcome Bonus only, players will NOT be able to cash out if there is any remnant of the bonus left on their account, unless they are prepared to forfeit the remaining bonus.

Regular Bonus
All Games 50.0 %
Welcome Bonus
French Roulette &
Single Zero Roulette 2.5 %
American Roulette 5.0 %
Blackjack 2.0 %
Slot Machines 5.0 %
Video Poker 5.0 %
As long as you have bonus, a part of your bet is made up from your bonus money and the rest from your real money. The size of the bonus part depends on the type of bonus you have. If you've got regular bonus, e.g. from our Comp Program, half of your bets will be made from your Bonus. The Welcome Bonus only, is used in smaller proportions so that it lasts longer. The exact percentage depends on the type of game as shown in the table on the right.

In all games where you place multiple bets per round, the bonus calculation is done per round, not per bet. For example in roulette you can place several chips on the table and there is no graphical distinction between bonus and real money chips. Your stake is taken as a whole and your winnings are paid out first with any losing chips that are on the table. So, when your win is equal to your bet, i.e. after betting $10 on Red and $10 on Black, your win will be paid out with your losing chip and you will end up with the same bonus amount as before. If you bet both bonus and real money during one round and you lose part of it, your payout is first taken from the bonus chips you bet and then from the cash you bet. When your win is larger than your bet, you first get back your bet and the excess is paid in real money.

 

O'well

I was looking forward to having online BJ tournaments, but after reading pokernuts post I am not sure it will be worth it or not. I think they may need to twick their payouts a little...LOL

 

Tournament turnout and bonus value

I pointed out the "bonus" prizes were listed as "welcome" bonuses when the tournament started today which as shown above are worth very little. They changed the bonus prizes to "regular" bonus money which you are able to turn to cash VERY fast with small bets. As shown above, 50% of each bet is from bonus and 50% from cash, so the cash balance goes up fast vs. the 98%/2% "welcome" bonus.

Combine the $500 cash and $770 bonus prize pool with the fact that only 26 players signed up and paid $15 ($390 total buy-in) (23 showed up), and you can see it is a very high expected value event.

They are considering all cash prizes for future events since many players, especially new players, are confused at how to value "bonus" prizes. They are also considering tweaking the buyin amount and the prize pool. Several players suggested increasing the buyin to $25 or $50 and raising the prize pool as long as the # of players is capped. (including myself!)

They are still "testing" with this format, but it really does mimic real world play in a great way - no % based qualification periods like Ken said in their monthly "GameMaster tournament" (although I like that format since I tend to do well in qualifying!).

They are still running the monthly Gamemaster tournament and said they will try another test of the "multi-player" format with a cash buyin and perhaps different prizes very soon. They may run it on a Saturday instead of Sunday also according to GP reps. to try to get more players signing up.

They are really on the right track here as Ken said. It's nice to see this "real world" format come to fruition. Personally, I hope they keep both formats going (the no buy-in % win qualification followed by a 5 player 30 round semi that is their Gamemaster tournament which has run for 40 months) AND this new cash buy-in, 2 or 3 round "real world" tournament that they are calling the "multi-player" format tournament.

 

Nice

I didn't play last week because prizes, (I didn't like the bonus money). Now with this new structure of the prizes it sounds very inviting. I think I will sign up for this one.

Ken can we sign up now or does it have to be the day of the tournament? What if they get extra players or can some of us be shut out?

Good luck to all that plays in this one, I'll be there if I can get in.

 

Sign up now in their Web Cashier. It promises to be a very nice event now with all cash payouts vs. the 50%/50% "regular bonus" they used for alot of the prizes last week. The cash payouts coupled with the 38% overlay and the cap of 60 players (there could be less and the prizes stay the same) make this something not to miss IMO.

By the way, they do track people signing up and will not allow anyone to register once they hit their cap of 60, so don't miss out. They haven't done their mass e-mailings yet, but have a pop-up banner when you login to their software and have signed up 5 so far as of me writing this. (and I haven't signed up yet!). Once the mailing goes out, seats will go fast.

I asked them to put a counter of people signed up and they implemented it on the top of the leaderboard web page. It's the 5th sentence down in the top 6 sentences of text on the following page:

http://www.global-player.com/pages/04_leaderboard_multi.html

They're targetting a 3 round tournament with $2,100 in cash going to the top 5 at the final table (see breakdown posted by Ken above) and an additional $400 going to the 5 semi-final tables. ($50 for second and $30 for third = $80 at EACH of the 5 semi tables for a total of $400 in semi-final prizes).

That's a total of 15 CASH prizes ranging from $30 to $1,000. With a maximum 60 players, 25% of players will get a prize of at least the $30 entry fee - not bad at all! See you there Ken.

 

Start registering early!

It's not easy ( or cheap ) to get this process going.

I downloaded and installed the software as requested. Then I attempted to deposit my money with a credit card. After trying 4 different cards, it still said authorization failed! In frustration, I called and talked to a lovely Irish gal who informed me that many banks will not allow any gaming transactions on their cards!

Then I tried an alternate method, Neteller. I signed up and went through a bunch of security levels. Finally they allowed me to deposit $200 for a fee of 8.9%. They called up and verified who I was and everything seemed fine. I went to deposit my $30 in Global Player using Neteller and got a message "account suspended". Checked back to my email and there was a message from Neteller telling me they had deposited an amount "less than a dollar" in my account to check it's validity. Would I please contact my bank and obtained the deposit amount and verify this with Neteller. My bank does not yet have the deposit, so verification will happen later some time. Then I will ( I think ) be able to transfer my $30 from Neteller to Global Player for a fee of 7% !

So far, I'm not in. But I'll keep working on it. If it takes this much trouble to give on-line casinos money, I wonder how hard it will be to withdraw any of it.

tahoewolf

And PS, I'm back. Tree went through house destroying my computers and some other minor stuff. All utilites are back and now we fight the battle of adjusters, estimators and contractors. For those who are interested, go to www.ircgov.com and click on the Hurricane Jeanne pictures - that was us!

 

Bank Info

I just signed up, it was easy since I had a neteller account (play online poker). If you do not like the idea of giving out your banking info, open a bank account just for internet use, this prevents neteller or anyone else from being able to access your main account. Most banks offer free checking so it cost nothing to do this and it keeps your main bank account info safe, there have been cases of multiple withdrawals from your bank account by mistake, funny they have never made multiple deposits to my bank account by mistake though. As always I signed up as : RiverRat.

 

Thanks Ken!

Everything Ken said is true about signing up. I'd been wanting to get on-line for several months but was always afraid so a few months ago I asked Ken at a tournament how to get started. I used my son's college account (and check it frequently) to get started with NetTeller. It is a pain but once it's started it is pretty easy. Be careful on some of the casino sites...it seems like InstaCash is the default (I once accidentally paid the surcharge even though my intention was to EFT from money already in my NetTeller acct)
I have to be really careful though because playing on-line is so quick and too much like playing/practicing on the computer. I had played all of the Global Player anniversary tournaments then got lucky at the last Game Master tournament. The $ was deposited in my account immediately.

I already know that I made several mistakes but I would be very happy if any of you want to critique my play. Hopefully we'll all make it to Sunday's tournament!

 

Congrats gflan

We all knew you were a player, I still remember the play you made at my tournament (Fitzgeralds) that knocked out some of the big boys and advanced you to the semifinals.

Congratulations on your win.

 

Try Firepay?

Ken, I had no balance in my certified netteller account, and I never could get the merchant site (Global), to get it to work I gave them all the info they needed, but no go. I called netteller and then I really got confused..so I finally used Firepay (less than a $4.00 cost for $300) with no problem, and got a $30 bonus for signing up. I think you get the bonus for only a $30 deposit. Long story short, I got registered late last night (Wed.).

Thanks for the info. It seems like a nice overlay. I am Jimmy599 on their site.

I wonder how many players from here will be in the tourney?

Jimmy