[ilya]

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I like the idea of a smaller stakes calcutta. But I think it's only worth doing if there's a way to make sure that the stakes stay small.

I propose

1. a fixed (or perhaps spread-limit) increment,

2. a cap on the number of bids that any one person may make.

This would leave room for bidding strategy while keeping the calcutta affordable for lower-stakes players.

Thoughts?

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I think that even with a lower limit calcutta, it's inevitable that the best players will still go for a fair ammount. I wouldn't want to put restrictions on how many bids somebody could make, because then they could get screwed out of not getting a player they really wanted if they ran out of bids.

The spread limit idea is interesting, but so far in the other calcutta, people have just outbid each other by the minimum anyway. I could impose a $50 restriction or something, but it would probably not make much of a difference.

The way I see it, if some of the better players end up going for a lot, it will just create a juicier prize pool, and people will still be able to get very good odds on some of the other players.

I don't envision this being a ridiculously cheap calcutta, but at least this way, you will be able to get someone other than Yugo for less than $300.

If the prices get high, they get high.

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What is the point of doing this unless there is some kind of cap? It'll just become a carbon copy of the original calcutta. The only difference will be that the bidding will take up more time, since the bidding increments & the initial pool will be smaller.
Obviously someone could get screwed by running out of bids. But they would have no one to blame but themselves. Everyone would know ahead of time how many bids they could make, and people would be able to see how many bids each of the other people in the calcutta had already used. And they could plan accordingly.