I have been playing tournament blackjack for over 22 years now. I have seen tournaments back in the eighties with over 650 players playing 60 to 100 hand rounds $350 entries with $600 live buy-in's. They offered bonuses per round: $5,000 for 1st round winner, $15,000 for 2nd round winner, and a brand new caddilac for 3rd round winner. Even bonus prizes for the session winners of $1,000. The prize pools were over hundred thousand dollars easy every tournament. We had free rooms, comp-ed food, banquets, tournament gifts, (Very nice gifts). But no more, if we want to get blackjack tournaments turned around, we are going to have to show the casinos that we are willing to work with them and prove that if they do host "Open" tournaments for us and allow everybody to play in their events that we support these events. Lets face it several players may never get to play on the regular tables in some of these casinos ever again, but if I can get you back into the blackjack tournaments at these casinos wouldn't that be okay with you? Now if I am able to get certain players back into "Open" events, PLEASE DON'T PISS OFF THE CASINOS" by trying to play the regular tables and ruining it for the rest of the tournament players. Also we are going to have to pay the casino (at first anyway) until we can show them that we (tournament blackjack players) really are willing to come support their tournaments and that the players who are allowed to gamble at these casinos will give them some action. Now the best way I see paying for these events are by offering these gimmicks, $5 for extra chips prior to the start of each round, $20 mulligans or we could just charge a 10% tournament fee, but I thought why not use the gimmicks and get something out of the extra fees. These fees should more than cover the casinos tournament expenses and hopefully they will be willing to host the Tournament Blackjack Players Association (TBJPA) - Tour events. Times have changed and we need to change with them. Will we ever get back to the way it once was, probally not, but we can make it a lot better if we all are willing to try and accept the fact that to do so there will be no more "FREEBIES" and that we are going to have to pay to play in these events (except for the VIP events). I'll post a poll to get the players' response to fees and or gimmicks and which they would perfer to pay. Remember paying the casinos a 10% fee or a set amount from the prize pool, they will be collecting fees from all the players, the gimmicks are an option for the players and don't have to be purchased.
I completely agree with you. Change is always for the better. If gimmicks are the way to go, then why not.
No gimmicks After having played the LVH tourney this past weekend, my initial opinion is that it would be much better to play without the gimmicks. I am not opposed to paying a reasonable fee to the host casino but I felt that the free ace and mulligan did nothing more than create a shootout and inject more luck into the mix than I was comfortable with in most tournaments. That being said, I'm not opposed to the televised tournaments doing whatever it takes to keep the viewers coming back.
I really like the poll so far! I'm really am glad that the players would prefer paying a fee up front for a tournament instead of adding gimmicks (so far anyway). I personally agree with Gflan, that gimmicks to me take away from the strategy of the tournament. Now I will offer them on some of my tournaments, but only if that's what the majority of the players want. Now please remember the tournament fees are to pay the casinos to help host this tour I am working on ($30 fee at the most). There will still be the $40 membership fee that will be charged for all monthly TBJPA events you play in. This would make the total cost $300 entry + $30 tournament fee + $40 TBJPA membership fee = $370.00 Plus any re-buys you may need. Please Note: For every monthly tournament you play in your entry fee for the TBJPA championship will drop. The way I fiqure is the more monthly events you help promote the less you should have to pay for the final event. The championship finals is open to all players, even if they hadn't play in any of the monthly events. Only the entry might cost them $1,000 more than a player who supported 8 of the monthly tournaments. I think this is only fair since a small percentage of every entry and re-buy monthly is taken out for the championship finals prize pool.
Please NO NO Gimmicks Please Rick If the players want gimmicks on the cruise I will take them up to the shuffle board deck and show them how I use a hard slice of Pizza to slide my pucks down the board . Joep
