WSEX: Official Monthly Thread: July. (#11 of 12.)

[jafeather]

Two things I've noticed since the change to 75% rakeback.

1) The number of players online at any time has dropped. Not a horrific drop, but definitely a noticeable one.

2) The guaranteed money tournaments, despite the declining number of overall players, have consistently been having more participants. Tournaments that routinely had decent overlays now have small overlays. I've seen several tournies go off lately without any overlay at all; something I had only very, very rarely seen in recent memory.

I don't expect guaranteed money tourneys to always have an overlay. As everyone here knows, some of the best tourneys on the net are guaranteed money tourneys that NEVER have an overlay. (I definitely agree that the addition of 3 weekly $5K added tourneys more than makes up for disappearing overlay, but that is away from my main point)

The overlay, though, was really the only thing that made the low buy-in tourneys at WPEX worth playing because the structure and blind levels are so bad. I think with the reduction of overlays WPEX seriously needs to adjust the structure of all it's tournaments.

The most important thing that can be done is changing blind levels to fifteen minutes....starting with the $5K added (and if you want these to be REAL VIP tourneys, think about 20 or 30 minutes with 3 or 5K starting chips pleasepleaseplease), weekly $5K, and nightly $1K....but hopefully across the board.

Hopefully at the same time you change to 15 minutes, you could change a few things about your blind levels. Several levels seem very fine, but a few jump too fast. I think you should add a 150/300 level, a 500/1000 level and a 800/1600 level most importantly. For deeper tourneys I think a 2500/5000 level and a 5000/10000 level should also be implemented. I would also like to see antes raised a bit on some of the higher levels, but at a lower priority than the implementation of new levels.

Many players asked for higher buy-in tourneys some time ago. You responded, but too extremely. You moved from your average tourney having a $5 or $10 buy-in, to "high stakes" tourneys with $100+ buy-in that rarely go off. Hell even your $50 tourney doesn't get that deep. Find a middle ground. Start by adding a $20 or $25 tourney...and start filling it by making it a reasonable guarantee. A $20 with a $7-800 guarantee or a $25 with a $1000 guarantee. Considering your normal tourney size, I don't think you'd have problems covering your guarantee too often.

With the addition of some of these changes, the tourneys would last a little longer. That's alright...it makes even those who don't win feel a bit more accomplished. But, you HAVE to add breaks. Get a 5 minute break in there every hour...or even every 90 minutes.

A bit more minor, but still "industry standard" would be late registration. Please begin to allow late registration through the end of level 1 (and, if you want, till first player busts).

Mostly, though, the point of this is to take the a lot of the crap-shoot out of your tourneys. They are currently push-fests very early (and your larger ones are ridiculous about this). That was somewhat acceptable when there were decent overlays to help make up for the variance. Now it's just intolerable. Especially your "VIP" tourney should have a respectable structure, but there's no reason to not go site-wide with changes.