Soliciting ideas for the future of BJT

Discussion in 'News & Announcements' started by KenSmith, Jul 10, 2013.

  1. Billy C

    Billy C Top Member

    Not a bad thought

    Hey, I'm thinking--------------------? Many fine looking ladies participate in BJ tourneys.:):):)

    Billy C
     
  2. PitchMan

    PitchMan Top Member

    You add a whole nuther twist to your Get Lucky byline - Same on you Billy! :)

    Hi Ken... Your site is something I have come to depend on to keep me up to date on Blackjack events. You have many who inform the site if they find a tournament that isn't already listed, as I try to do. But you provide the forum for us to report to. We thank you.
    I've got a bit of experience with programming via having worked interactively with programmers doing the actual work. That being said, I realize that what I am going to add as a wish list item is pretty lofty a wish, .... It's a big job,....and I completely understand if you have a big laugh at me asking, but....
    It would be quite nice if members could sign on and play Blackjack tournaments against each other similar to the many places one can do that with poker. I don't know if there could be enough traffic generated to draw advertising sufficient to make it feasible nor if not that, if a paid subscription to the tournament play access would make it worth your while either. But, you get the drift.
    Thank you so much for all you do to promote Blackjack tournaments!
     
  3. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    I'm not laughing. In fact, this is an idea I've considered for a long time.

    If it happens, it would be in conjunction with the redesign of the strategy trainer at my main site. I want that to be both mobile friendly and multi-user. As you note however, that's a massive undertaking.

    On a more positive note, I hope to have some of the other items from this thread launched soon. Progress is being made.
    Back to work. :rolleyes:
     
    gronbog, PitchMan and LeftNut like this.
  4. LeftNut

    LeftNut Top Member

    Awesome!!!

    The idea to be able to play BJT-style games against others, especially those from this site, is totally amazing and I love it!!! Right now there's almost nothing available online to U.S. players. ClubRigged -excuse me, ClubWPT - is not a viable option due to it simply being a bomber's paradise. I've gotten so rusty that it has been heavily affecting my decisions as far as traveling to live events.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2013
  5. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    Progress report...

    Although nothing can be actually published here until the entire tournament event system is completed, tonight I finished a critical piece of the puzzle.

    The new event system allows users to easily add new casinos to the list, and it supports locations worldwide. Searching and filtering are much improved.

    I hope to be able to complete the other necessary parts by the end of the month.
     
    jmemptingsr, Drbass, gronbog and 5 others like this.
  6. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    Another teaser for the work in progress...

    Most casinos that hold frequent tournaments use the same format over and over. That makes adding these events to the current calendar a pain, as you have to re-enter all the prizes and details every time.

    The new version uses a concept I have tentatively called an "event model". The event model holds the details of the prize pool, format, and detailed descriptions.

    When adding a new event, you'll be able to choose an existing event model for that casino, and merely add a new date and event name and save it.
     
  7. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    Do you have it in mind to keep all the fields editable even after they have been populated from the event model? I think that would be the most convenient approach, treating the event model as a template. Then any minor alterations can be made on a per-event basis.

    It might also be useful to be able to reference an event model (or the sub-entity within the model that relates to the rules of play) from within the forum. This would save people having to list all the rules when posting teasers or 'how would you have played this?' type questions.
     
    KenSmith likes this.
  8. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    I've still been thinking about this, and your message persuaded me to change my approach. Instead of the artificial mechanism of a model, I think we get the same benefit by allowing a user to choose an existing tournament as the template for the new event. This provides complete customization opportunities without impacting previously stored events, and the user interface will be less confusing.

    As for referring to the details from the forum, I understand the appeal, but I think I have a better approach for that issue. It won't be part of the first release, but I have a pretty nice vision of how to handle specific tournament situations in the forums. The event details currently don't have all the info necessary for what you describe anyway.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2013
  9. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    Now I feel guilty.:)

    In all honesty, the way things are looking at the moment, I'm not sure I'll ever have an opportunity to enter an event into the calendar. So I wouldn't want any of my ideas to be given too much weight in the grand scheme of things.

    Far enough. I did actually raise the idea a while ago of creating some sort of method for entering a rule set just once, and then referencing it from within teaser posts, which sounds like what you are talking about.

    I didn't have the calendar in mind at the time, but it occurred to me in the context of this discusssion that it might be possible to reference the same, stored information from both places.

    But I can see that that might be more trouble than it is worth.
     
  10. surf

    surf Member

    Dream calendar app

    I like to take road trips that hit several tournaments on the way to larger tournaments. As a result, I spend a lot of time relating the tournament calendar to mapping software so I hit as many tournaments as possible while traveling the fewest miles. My ideal calendar app would do that for me .. enter a starting and ending location, a starting and ending date and the usual tournament search parameters to show a resulting viable schedule/route that maximizes tournaments and minimizes miles.(Sigh)
    Possible interface with Mapquest?
     
    KenSmith likes this.
  11. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    Another progress update...

    Just whose idea was this project anyway?! :laugh:

    Work is proceeding, but I don't think I'm going to be able to launch by month end as I had hoped. There are just too many loose ends to finish up.

    Casino search/edit/add is completely done, and looks awesome.
    Event search is complete, but event editing pages are still in progress.
    I haven't started on the Attendee functions yet, although I expect that to be a quick job.
     
    PitchMan likes this.
  12. hopinglarry

    hopinglarry Top Member

    Awesome huh! Some people might thinking of this as bragging:) But as far as I am concerned the site is already Awesome.

    The site is unique for the BJT world and adding other types of tournaments will just make it more unique and more awesome.

    About the only I enjoy anymore in casinos is tournaments. In the past couple of years I have played in a couple of baccarat, 3CP and one craps tournament. With out my interacting with this site I would not even have thought about these types of tournaments.

    My guess is that a large number of the people who visit or interact on this site like all kinds of tournaments. It is difficult to find out about tournaments. Casinos are not known for putting this type of info on their web sites. Just knowing that tournaments, even the invitation only ones, exist gives me the option to make a decision on whether or not I want to invest the time and money necessary to get invitations. Who knows I might buy a lottery ticket some day and have more money than I know what to do with.

    I hope that we will get more participating members with the other tournaments. Hopefully, they will post events and discuss the strategies.

    Larry
     
    PitchMan likes this.
  13. gronbog

    gronbog Top Member

    Event Calendar - Limit on Number of Dates

    I just now tried to add a new date for the Niagara Fallsview Blackjack 21 Tournament (Jan 22, 2014) and was unable to because there is a maximum of 12 dates allowed and this is the 13th.

    So, can there please be no fixed limit on the number of dates for an event?

    The new date is not soon, so I think I can wait for the new event calendar to come online before trying to add it again.
     
  14. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    The new version does not have a limit on the number of event dates. :)
     
    gronbog likes this.
  15. Thecalculator

    Thecalculator New Member

    I love your site. I found it searching for baccarat tournaments. I really, really wish there was a site this for baccarat. You should do it. It's a growing market and no one is taking the opportunity.
     
  16. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    The new revision will allow listings and discussion of all table games tournaments except poker. I figure that poker is well served by many websites, while all the other table tournaments have little coverage anywhere except here.

    Another status update: Pretty much everything is ready, except editing and adding events. That's the toughest of the interactive screens, so I put if off until last. I'm not sure how many days of work are left, but I'm getting closer to relaunch every day.
     
    LeftNut, Moses and Trouble like this.
  17. PlayHunter

    PlayHunter Active Member

    Good ideas people and great job Ken with the improvements, I just want to say thank you for taking such a great care for our small community. That`s awesome !
     
    Trouble likes this.
  18. gronbog

    gronbog Top Member

    Online Events on the Calendar?

    With the relaunch just days away, it may be too late to do this, but no harm in asking ...

    We get repeated queries about where to play online. Would it be useful to treat online sites the same as live events and have them on the event calendar? That way they could be added and removed just like live events and a query would always yield an up to date list of active sites. A special "location" of "online" could be used and a date of "today" could be hard coded for the purposes of the query. For now, part of the query could also be "OK for US players?" in order to weed out the ineligible sites.

    Now that I think about it, perhaps individual online events of significance should get the full treatment, complete with dates and times. This would be for online events with significant prize pools (I don't know of any right now) which are held once or at some regular interval.
     
  19. garylee

    garylee Member

    So, How about a screenshot of the US divided into states. We would use our mouse to click a state and proceed to next screenshot which would be a blow up of chosen state. This blown up state would have dots where ever there was a casino. Hovering this dot would show name of casino and website, clicking would activate to their site. Also the hover would show tournament info such as slot, crap, or BJ graphics or even just a color which would show tournament info such as date and clickable to their sites specific page that advertises and get's people signed up.
     
  20. KenSmith

    KenSmith Administrator Staff Member

    Some of this already exists in the current version.
    Go to the Casino List, and search by state abbreviation using the search form on the right hand side.
    The list will update and include only casinos in that state.
    Then click the "Map all" button at the top.

    Currently, the only extra info on the map is a hover to see the casino name.
    I will be extending this with further information about the casino, and also plan to integrate a mapping feature into the event calendar.
    At that point, you'll be able to see a map of just the selected events.
     

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