How Sure is "sure, I'll be there?"

[2planka]

Planning a NLHE tourney event. So far I've got way more people who "say" they want to play than I can accommodate. What's the best way to handle this? I can't tell if yes means "absolutely" or "if there's nothing better to do."

The event is a couple weeks away. I have 9 open seats left and pool of about 20 players who have responded that they're interested in playing. Many of the "pool" are friends of friends or products of homepokergames.com.

I want my tables to be full, but I also want my regular players to have the right of first refusal. I also understand that things come up at the last minute.

How do I get a real headcount?

[Rick Diesel]

Require players to put a small deposit down to reserve their seat. If the tourney is a $50 buy-in, make them put up $10 to reserve a seat. This way, if something comes up, and they cannot make it, they probably will not cry too much about losing $10, and the other players should be happy that there will be added money in the pot.

Rick Diesel

[Lottery Larry]

If you have the time to manage this, have a "on call" list if necessary, similar to airline overbookings.

The other thing I would do is make the players commit to the seats a few days before and put others on a call list for last minute drop outs- first commit, first get. If someone commits and bails out, they automatically go to the bottom of the reservation list in the future.

Is this the first event of the group, or have you been playing for a while and you are adding this tournament night?

I would plan for last minute dropouts and late arrivals. I use chip penalties and "no late arrivals after round X" cutoffs to deal with this.

[2planka]

I just moved, so this is the kickoff at my new house. It's a bit further for some of the players from my previous game. Some say they'll show, some won't. Barring something unforeseen, the regulars from the old game who say they'll make it will make it.

It's the new players I'm unsure about.

I can't ask folks to prepay. I'm trying to build the game and prepayment would leave a bad taste.

I guess what I'm asking is should I start turning people away now or should I leave some seats open just in case?

Or, since it's effectively the "first" game in my new place, should I lock up the seats first-come, first-served and not worry about no-shows?

[cferejohn]

When I did a tournament, I had room for 40, booked ~50, and ended up with 38. Your milage may vary, and obviously requiring a deposit should decrease the flakage significantly...

[Lottery Larry]

I take it you only have one table available. Any reason for people to come and just watch?

If this is no rebuy and people regularly bust out early, you could have some late buy-ins allowed (with reduced stacks). Some players would have to go home rather than wait for a cash game on one table.

You could lock up the regulars' seats that you "know" will be there, leave the other seats open to "first come, first served until full," and deal with extras somehow.

If it is a long travel and you don't want pissed-off new players, then lock up all of the seats and see who can be on a last-minute call list for people who don't show. Penalize the players who don't show during your next tournament signup.

Tough situation with any method, since you are at a new location and have new players on the list.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
When I did a tournament, I had room for 40, booked ~50, and ended up with 38. Your milage may vary, and obviously requiring a deposit should decrease the flakage significantly...

[/ QUOTE ]

of course, in that tournament, they were really only playing for 2nd once they saw my name on the list, so that may have affected attendance. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[LetsRock]

The only way to be sure is to collect the money in advance unless you know them all very well.

The first tourney I ran, we required payment in advance. If something last minute happened, they didn't get the money back unless there was someone to take the seat. What do ya know? Everyone showed.

You can always build a reserve list and let them buy-in as people drop out or do a satelite type tourney where you seat 9 people at a time and have the top 3 (or 4 or whatever) from each seating advance to a final table.

[2planka]

Thanks for the responses.

I have room for 20 players total at my tourney tables, though I could do a couple of shorthanded tables if need be (chipcount could be tricky early in the tourney though - I only have 300 red T5 chips). I am doing a rebuy. Nine seats open as of this post.

I'm thinking of taking a more relaxed approach this time, seeing what I get for turnout. After thinking about it, I can handle less than 20 players better than I can handle more than 20.

I've compiled my list of interested players, with email and phone contacts. I'll ask for confirmation this week, first nine responses are in. I like the idea of a last minute standby list. I'm also going to reconfirm two days before the event. I'll see how it goes.

If anything goes horribly wrong I'll post back here. Thanks again.

[Lottery Larry]

Post back either way, good or bad.

with 300 reds you can start 20 people out with 15 reds each- that should cover it adequately, if you have greens and blacks. Figure out how many chips you'll need to color up later on!
You might want to raise your starting blinds and starting stack? If you want cash side games as players bust out, you're going to need those reds I think.


I have a list of about 45 players that get invitations. I can seat around 30. I've never gotten more than 21.

[2planka]

I use different chips for cash games, so the tourney chips should be okay.

Tourney chip inventory is 300 red, 300 green, 200 black, 150 blue and 50 yellow. If more than 20 show up I'll have to do 10 reds, 10 greens, and 6 black to start, using the blues as T500 rebuy chips. More of a hassle with fewer low denom chips, but it's an option at least.

I can handle one six-handed overflow table if need be, bringing my seatcount up to 26 (it's a chair issue after that - no seats left in the house).

As you indicate, I'd be surprised if it's a sell out.

Results on Monday.

[Ghazban]

Where in MA are you? If you've got empty seats, I'll come play...... sure I'll be there /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[bwana devil]

why not overbook a bit and run it like they do for WSOP? if you have room for 20, try and get 25 to confirm. if more than 20 actually show up, do as they do in the WSOP, the extras sit out and start filling in those who busts out.