/r/AustinPoker

We’ve never had to institute this policy before, mostly because we didn’t expect it to come up. But it did come up, and we’ll have to deal with it.

The new policy:

If a player, by their own actions, is deemed to be unable to continue, or present a physical danger to other players, they will be removed from the tournament, and their chips will be evenly distributed among the players of the table where they were playing. No refunds shall be given. The call will be made by at least two founding members of the club (Hunter, Brian, or Will) or one founding member and the event host.

If a player is unable to continue due to events beyond their control, (birth/death of a family member, emergency medical situation, etc.), they will be removed from the tournament, and their chips will be evenly distributed among the players of the table where they were playing.  No refund will be given, but at the judgement of at least two founding members of the club (Hunter, Brian, or Will) they may be offered a free buy-in into the next tournament they attend, though this is not guaranteed.

Or, long story short: If you get so drunk, you cannot understand the very concept of “posting your blind” – then you’re going to be kicked out of the tournament. It doesn’t mean we don’t like you, or think you are dangerous or whatever. But if your inability to function slows down the game, or creates a hazard, it is not fair to the other players, especially in a multi-table situation.

This does not mean that you can’t drink. Hell, it doesn’t even mean that you can’t get drunk. We love drunk players, because they’re easier to play against, and we have a few players that love to get sloshed. But when you get so drunk that you delay the game because you are unable to understand the concept of posting a blind, I think it’s time to sit out.

One of the reasons that we do some of the things we do “like the casinos” (racing for chips, drawing for seats,) despite those solutions being more complicated than simple ones (rounding up, letting people sit wherever) is because when it comes times to make a judgment call, and a situation hasn’t come up before, we can then use the casinos as guides. If we can ask ourselves: “What would the floor manager at Aria or Bellagio do?” then we have a very good guideline as to what would be a fair and correct decision.

I’m thinking about branching out and offering a Sunday game, from 1pm to 6pm.    Several players have suggested playing for higher stakes in the Cash Game, and I’m more than willing to oblige.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

The first Sunday of the month, will be a $0.25/0.50 ($25-50 BI) cash game.  Hole card cams will be available for the first two people who want them, but they are not mandatory.

The second Sunday of the month, players will come back to watch the video of their hole card cams and the game, in order to provide a commentary track, which will be uploaded to YouTube.

The third Sunday of the month will be a Mixed Game with $20-50 BI.  The game will be a mix of:

• $0.25/0.50 No Limit Holdem,
• $0.10/0.25 Pot Limit Omaha,
• $0.10/0.25 Pot Limit Omaha High Low Eights or Better
• $1/2 Fixed Limit Omaha ($0.50 small blind)
• $1/2 Fixed Limit Omaha High Low Eights or Better ($0.50 Small Blind)
• $1/2 Fixed Limit Stud ($0.10 antes, $0.50 low-card bring in)
• $1/2 Fixed Limit Razz ($0.10 antes, $0.50 high-card bring in)
• $1/2 Fixed Limit Stud High Low Eights or Better ($0.10 antes, $0.50 low-card bring in)

The fourth Sunday of the month will have no game.

Your thoughts?

Johnathan’s offered to cook us up some crawfish etouffee this week – yum yum!  It’d be nice (but it’s only a suggested donation) to throw in $5 for the ingredients.  He’ll be making everything, including the roux, from scratch. 

Hmm, maybe I should cook something the next time – I know some killer Indian recipies from my time in New Zealand.

While we’re still holding games at Will’s place for right now, I’ll probably be hosting more often after closing on my condo at the end of February.  When that happens, I’m going to set up a small bookshelf and put together a “lending library” of Poker DVDs and books.  Anyone can borrow the books for two weeks, but there will be a late fee of $5 per week after that.  The late fee will go directly towards Bad Beat on Cancer.

Donations of books and DVDs would be appreciated.

One of the things we wanted to make sure we did with the /R/Austin poker club is to cater to beginners.  Beginners tend to like tournaments more than cash games, and it’s not hard to see why.  Tournaments are like Monopoly or Scrabble.  There’s only one winner at the end of the night, and it’s easy to figure that out.  On the other hand, cash games can have multiple winners and multiple losers.  There’s also a psychological disadvantage towards cash games; playing with “real money” can get scary, but in a tournament, chips are just chips.

So the result is that we have a lot of people who show up for the tournament, but then they bust out, having lost their money, and don’t wait around for a cash game to get started.  Sometimes it’s a timing thing – people just don’t want to wait that long after “losing.”  But what I was surprised to find out was that many won’t play in a cash game at all, no matter what!

I actually prefer cash games; and not because it provides me with an advantage.  Cash games allow you to play as long as you want.  Nobody is “busted out.”  There are no “losers” in a cash game (though there are certainly players who lose money.)  And you can also leave when you want to.  It gives you great flexibility.

But it really doesn’t work out – typically only the hardcore players stay for the cash game.

What I’d like to do is try something new to keep people playing and having fun.  This idea is called “The FreeKroll.”

In casinos and online, a “freeroll” is a tournament that you enter for free, but which has real money at the end of it.  You may qualify for the freeroll by spending a certain amount of time in a casino, or simply by making a deposit at an online casino.

So we could do that – play real poker, for $0 buy-in, but real prizes at the end.  The problem is, what type of prize?  Money?  Well, I might be able to contribute $2 a week, but that’s not something to get excited about.

That’s when I came up with the idea of the FreeKroll.

We have a wonderful collection of prizes, all sourced from Austin’s finest thrift stores, and all for around $2-4 each.  Trust me when I say that the quality of these items is in no doubt. These include such gems as: Naked Barbie & Naked Skipper, “30 Minutes of Christian Toddler Sing-Alongs on VHS,” a collectable “Edward” Twilight cup, “Windows 98 for Dummies” and a sci-fi book by L. Ron Hubbard.

At the end of the night, the FreeKroll winner will get to pick one of the prizes from what we have available.  He or she may be able to either keep that prize – OR he or she may inflict that prize upon the last-place finisher (the one who busted out first.)  The last place finisher will then either take his own photo – or have it taken for him – with the prize in question, and it will be uploaded to /r/Austin.

MUAHAHAHA.

So, when are we doing these FreeKrolls?  At the beginning of the night, we’ll poll to see how many players will be doing the cash game after the tournament.  If we get 5 or more players for the cash game, we’ll hold a cash game.  If not, we’ll hold the FreeKroll that night.

If we do end up holding a cash game, the FreeKroll will be held online sometime during the week (likely Tuesdays), using the PokerStars.net Home Game software.  Pokerstars.net is a play-money only version of PokerStars, and you can easily set up play-money games for friends.  There’ll be a sign-in sheet with your e-mail so that I can give you all instructions and the access code.

Finally, we encourage you to bring in any item to donate to the prize pool, so long as it is less than $3, that you can part with it, and that it is sufficiently “freaky.”

Due to the holidays, the next poker game will be on January 6th, 2012.

Meetup Page and Details Here – Please RSVP.

Oh, while we’re there, we should discuss what we want to do (if we want to do anything) about the “Championship” tournament. I’m thinking it might be easier to make the tournaments in 2012 $20+5 tournaments (with $20 rebuys/addons) and just put the $5 in the championship prize pool, instead of taking 10% from the prize pool. The question remains as to who we trust to keep track of the championship money in escrow; as I checked with Wells Fargo and it wouldn’t be worth it to have a savings account.

There’s also the matter of what to do if the championship, for whatever reason, isn’t held  in which case, I’d like to keep track of everyone’s contributions to the pot so that they can be returned.  I’ll bring a notepad and start up a database of players by first name, last name, e-mail, contact number, reddit name, dates played, and chip count for the championship.

Thanks to Iamnull for setting this up. I’ll get to formatting it in a bit.

– Brian Boyko