Thanksgiving Ring Madness

I am putting this in poker strategy, because I want to show when given a certain set of conditions… strategy can dictate gameplay.

This Promotion was uhhhhhh, omg… flawed.
Not to rehash the Anti-Rathoring rule, but this promotion was all about rathoring, and as quickly as possible. It also had no bigger tables for high rollers or even mid level rollers… 1/2 5/10 25/50 were the blinds, and the 25/50 table had a max 10k buyin. Players not playing 3-4 tables @ once had no chance to keep up with the leaders on hands played, or earnings. I kept looking for players that normally play 1k/2k or 5k/10k blinds, just ripp’n up these tables, but didn’t really see that… but it couldda happened easily by anyone with 5m or more bankroll.

So on to the strategy ( leaderboard ) :
Play as many tables @ same time, as often as possible… hense the “madness” part …

Add to that this fun fact…
sit with 10k, and lose it… and you get 0 blinds earned…
yet sit with same 10k, double up to 20k… leave… and you get +200 blinds earned

No penalty for losing that 10k, so its not on ROI ( return on investment ) just Rathor the crap outta each table, and keep rotating tables so your max buyin is still 10k… it really was all about “banking blinds earned”… those were the specific rules of this promotion…

It ends today on Sunday night, and as of writing this… the leaders were…
Morcosborcos … 25,708 bb earned … 7,918 hands played… 3.246 BB earned/hand
Anonymouse05 … 12,680 bb earned … 3,237 hands played… 3.917 BB earned/hand
Sassy_Sarah … 11,731 bb earned … 1421 hands played… 8.255 BB earned/hand

I’m not here so much to point out the flaws, as I am to show how strategy can be dictated by what goal the players is going for… in this case, trying to win leaderboard… it became alot less about poker. Just like the BankrollBuilder 500 B&R that has its own strategies unlike normal MTTs, this promotion presented us a unique challange, and some players noticed and some didn’t.

I personally believe Anonymouse deserves 2nd, and I’ll won’t press him today… but I played this promotion with extreme attention to detail… to the rules as set out… and I am proud of this fact.

Poker players are thinkers, and thinkers do think about things like rules. just like any other “tool” the rules can be very usefull and can dictate certain approaches to strategy while playing the different promotions Replay Poker offers. If you get caught playing against ppl that are playing “wierd” you might want to look deeper, they just might know something you don’t.
Resistance is not Futile … Adapt or perish.

Congrats to Anon & Morcos
Sassy_Sarah

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We were expecting your post slightly earlier. :blush:

Thanks for your dedication and passion for Replay @Sassy_Sarah. I really mean it. As I am sure you may expect, you’ve been reported quite a few times for exploiting the ‘flaw’. It’s actually been reported quite early in the competition. We voluntarily have not penalized you (and other players) because there was no specific rule against it for this promotion. And we don’t want to apply a new term or rule in the middle of the contest.

This is the first time Replay runs a Ring Game leaderboard. The 1-week format was meant to test these first two leaderboard types, see if players enjoy it or not, pinpoint possible flaws and ways to improve the format. We have received quite some feedback from players praising the implementation of ring-game promotions and leaderboards. And indeed, this promotion was catered for low stake ring-game players. We will definitely offer it to higher stakes in the future as well.

We are looking at releasing more of these ring-game leaderboards and leagues in the future. We are also looking at testing/releasing other ring-game type of leaderboards:

  • Ring Game Points (taking into consideration both hands played and big blinds earned)
  • Profitability (taking into consideration both big blinds earned and big blinds lost)

And of course, we will have the right terms and conditions in place for future leaderboards and leagues which will exclude players abusing the promotion through ratholing or other type of counter-productive behaviours at the table.

We hope that the community will enjoy the presence of ring-game leaderboards and leagues in the future. Thanks for your valuable comments and feedback too. :pray: :slight_smile:

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Playing the BB 500 B&R in the manor it was designed, is not exploiting a flaw.
While I think this was flawed, I have offered ways to counter this and Replay doesn’t like my solutions. I was not trying to be disruptive or condesending Shakeraise, I played with respect for the rules. I didn’t even complain about the rules, I wanted to show how different strategies don’t mesh well together…

If 1 player is expecting all players to play for ROI and a few are not, then thier strategy on winning is flawed by not accounting for those other players. Just as players not understanding bubble strategies, usually don’t make as many bubbles.

I was thrilled by the Ring game promotion, but in reality you have to make those tables, bankroll limited…I can show all the Flaws Shakeraise, I can send them all to you personally… this thread was in general about how 1 person’s strategy might not be the person’s next to you’s strategy, and you better adapt if you want to do well.

@least I didn’t just do this in the 1/2 tables, where the prize from winning would be almost 100% profit… I assumed some ppl reported me, cause they just don’t understand or like my strategy… as you said, I did nothing against any rules…

What I don’t hope happens is some knee-jerk reaction that will cause more unintended consequences or flaws. Its like don’t play No-Limit, if you don’t want have to call an all-in… having NL tables isn’t the flaw, the flaw is some ppl just not very good @ NL, thus they Witch about it. Certainly don’t play rebuy tourns, if you don’t like ppl rebuying back in…

Shaker, its not that hard, in this case to make bankroll ltd levels of play… so for example… if you are playing the 1/2 levels, you can’t have more than 50k in your bankroll… these aren’t reg Ring tables where that restriction gets sketchy… I’m not in favor of 100% of the ring tables being Bankroll Ltd, but it would solve alot of problems currently exsisting.

I didn’t post my usuall, this is dumb, and this is why its dumb… I went for the more philisophical discussion of how different rules, effect different strategies… and not recognizing those strategies will cost ya…

SS

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and Shakeraise,

How are players to know its a flaw, some might think it was on purpouse, and strive to exploit, or by thier understanding play smart… I didn’t know, so I just play’d the format as written.

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Job well done !!!

With a few small tweaks here and there, you have a winner !!!

The community thanks you !

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Sassy_Sarah,
Thanks for taking the time to write your analysis. I definitely agree with you about the apparent weaknesses within the format of the tournament, (my first, of the “Tournament Specials”) that should be considered when designing the next tournament.

Firstly, it was a good idea to run a tournament so credit where credit is due. I wouldn’t expect them to foresee every single flaw in a game but I would expect them to have a control group and testers to give feedback. They did let themselves down when they didn’t make adjustments once they saw that certain people were abusing/taking advantage of flaws which were unintended, (assuming they were).

It’s like playing an online shoot 'em up game, where someone works out that rather than play the game as intended and run around looking for opponents whilst employing tactics, being stealthy or an accurate shot, you can just ‘camp’ at the opponent’s respawn area and kill them as soon as they respawn. It ruins the game and I can’t see how that’s fun for anyone, but to some people, I guess playing a fun game is about just winning, rather than enjoying it or testing your skill against others in a fair battle of skill. For them, the meaningless points table is all.

Once you recognise that such people exist, the onus then transfers to the game designers to prevent such events ruining the game - in the case of shoot 'em up games, by providing multiple respawn areas that can’t all be covered effectively, or by a 10 second invincibility upon respawn, that allows the player time to escape any campers.

In Replay, they either wanted to “force” everyone to adopt the tactic of abandoning the normal etiquette and tactics of poker play, in favour of the meaningless final points table position chase, (in order to encourage/force people to play on the site much more than they normally would) or, they didn’t recognise how the system could be exploited for personal gain. For those, such as myself, who took on the challenge as a bit of fun to test their skills against numerous opponents, to play within the spirit of the game in fairness and honesty, they would soon be left behind by those exploiting the game’s inherent weakness that was open to abuse. Thus, it forced these players to adopt the tactics of the exploiters, or abandon the notion that it would be fun to see how you fared against others and hopefully you would get a reward at the end of it for your skills.

I feel as a result of being forced to keep up, the game then descended into somewhat of a farce, and to be honest, not an enjoyable one. It became laborious and a chore, rather than a way to spent a few hours having fun and competing online. I think that fact is born out when you see just how many hands were played in the closing hours by certain players, (look at 2nd place for example, that guy came from absolutely nowhere 48 hrs before, and completed 2,500 hands in that time, just to “earn” meaningless points ). Given the sheer volume of hands, these weren’t played to win, they were clicked on to accumulate numbers with no intention to win a hand or enjoy the game, but with the sole purpose of racking up the numbers, in order to advance up the table.

And it worked. They got their final tournament table position chips, at the cost of the integrity of the site, wasting their time in an utterly meaningless way, but more pointedly, given the tactics allowed, at the cost of all the other players who played honestly and with integrity within the spirit of the game, who lost out of points rewards, and also, wasting the time and enjoyment of those who were forced to adopt the same tactics, play many more hands than they originally intended, or be left without reward at the lower end of the table. What a pity.

Hopefully, for future tournaments, these issues will be recognised and addressed/prevented, in order to allow the spirit of the game to flourish, and for skilled players to be rewarded, and the tournament to be enjoyed by all. - in the way it is intended on Replay.

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