Blind Faith

There have been some questions come through following last week's game related to our current blind structure. More specifically, the questions have been related to the 30 minute duration between blind change levels, and whether or not that increment of time is too long.

From what I've gathered, OST 1 went long into the night. The game wrapped around 2:00 a.m. to be precise. While any game finishing this late on a "school night" is less than desirable from both a player and host perspective, it is also somewhat of an anomaly within the context of our last 10 or so games. Since instituting the current blind structure, I can recall only one game that has gone as far as or past a 1:00 a.m. finish time.

While the 30 minute blind duration is something we will continue to monitor for effectiveness moving forward and alter as necessary, there are no immediate plans to either compress the blind schedule or alter our starting chip allocations. If we begin running into a situation where OSTs are tending to run past a desirable finishing time, we will adjust the blinds or starting chip allocations in a prudent, considered fashion. We will do everything possible to maintain a consistent gaming model throughout the season to ensure there are few variables across OSTs.

Look for more details at this site moving forward. And feel free to use the Comments section below to share any related thoughts you have on this subject.

The Hand Of Hands

OST 1: Man On Fire

New season, same winner. Skrawg's starting out the new year in the same fashion he ended the last.

The top four jack-o's... I mean finishers from Tuesday night were:

1. Skrawg - $230
2. WhoDogg - $120
3. MoeCephus - $50
4. The Face - $20

I wasn't there for the finish, but heard the game went laaaaate. Sounds like we're gonna have one grinder of a season.

Buckle up boys!

You Dont Know Jack

A few of us played in a small tournament last weekend at a surprise birthday party for Marneus (happy birthday old turd), and Jack Chaser kicked some serious tail.

It seems when Chaser has a cocktail during play, it amps his game up a notch. Thank God we play on Tuesday nights!

That makes two strong finishes for him in his last two starts. Could he be the one to watch this season?

Jack Chaser - $100
The Gov - $40
Marneus' Dad - $20

Rumor has it that Chaser and Skrawg both cleaned-up in the cash game as well.

Seating and Such: OST 1

Seating for OST 1 at Skrawg’s place is noted below. At this point, it looks like we’ll have 22 players for our first event of the season.

As a reminder, don’t forget to bring $20 for your buy-in to OST 1, and another $25 for 2007 league membership (Marneus will be collecting/holding league fees until the end of the season).

I will have the updated rules document posted later on this evening.

Table 1 – The Flop:
Dakota Skye (button), Devil Down, The Gov, Swag, Flops, MoeCephus, Skrawg, Chappy

Table 2 – The Turn:
The Face (button), Hirp, Holy Mohly, Gun Butt, SpaceJam, McDaddy, Marneus

Table 3 – The River:
Worm Boy (button), WhoDogg, Flush, Drifter, 69ers, Plains Moses, Porqchop

Exceeding Expectations

Well... we shot for expanding the league to 24 players, and we ended up with 26. Looks like we'll have to re-do our payout charts for this year!

Outside of JMan, we didn't lose a single player from last season, and ended up adding six new players in total. As he's provisioned for the upper-end of our potential participation numbers for any given event, we'll likely be having many a game at Skrawg's place this year.

At this point, we're looking at keeping the same starting chip stack of $10,000 for individual events. This means that for an OST including every league player, there could be $260,000 in play. As such, we may look at upping the starting total from the Final Table at the end of the year from $200K t0 $250K (to align with an average night's money in play equivalent).

Blinds will stay the same this year as will individual OST buy-ins ($20). We'll look at moving to $25 or $30 next year.

See you all on the 23rd!

Almost There...

As of tonight, we have 23 confirmed players for the league next year, and I have no doubt that we'll fill that 24th seat quickly.

I'm almost finished with the rules updates, but there shouldn't be anything significantly different from what I listed in the league invitation you've all accepted.

As a reminder, there is no game scheduled for Tuesday, January 9th. The eVite I sent in the beginning of January was to gather league membership only.

Our first game will be scheduled for Tuesday, January 23rd at our standard 7:00 p.m. start time.

Look For Your League Invitation

Check your email for an eVite invitation to the 2007 Season. I've captured the high-level details of some proposed rule and play enhancements below.

We will start league play in January (the first game will actually be on the fourth Tuesday, January 23) playing 10 official OSTs through October.

In November, we will hold a special qualifying game for all league members not qualifying for the Final Table after the first 10 games (with the "drop 2" rule in effect) - the winner of this game will be awarded the 9th and final seat at the Final Table.

We plan to tweak the points system to award bonus points to the 4th place player in league games consisting of more than 20 players (similar to the payout schedule).

We will expand league membership to 24 players.

We will provide the regular season points champion (based on "drop 2") with some additional monetary compensation (approximately $100).

The league entry fee will remain $25, with individual OST buy-ins at $20 each (a couple players have proposed that we "up" the inidividual OST entry fee to $30/event - thoughts?)

Anyone who has not replied in the affirmative by Tuesay, January 9th may be replace by an alternate player.