For those that have given up on the puzzle to get information, there's a backdoor. Hints in my sig sent you to
www.roblegood.com/tlobs.aspx where you can still try your hand at the puzzle. If you've given up, enter "IMALOSER" in the password field to skip to the end page.
Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to start a discussion on the format of the tournament. I'll write down the ideas I have and look to the forums for comments. I'll try to seperate them out in to various sections, so that you can comment on specific sections.
A) Buy-in and starting chips.
$30 buy-in for $10,000 in chips. Freeze-out NLHE. I'm not looking for a big buy in and want to keep this open to a large range of people. My "thing" is low buy-in tournaments, so I don't want to go overboard here. Maxing the tournamnet out will put $1,280,000 on the table. The money is nice, but the real prize in is in the TV time.
B) Signing up
"Day 1" is split into four days, "Day 1A, Day 1B, etc.." (chances are each "day" is on a week night within a two week window of each other. Probably have one on a Sat. to mix it up). Each day is maxed out at 32 players. I'll have the date of each Day 1 decided beforehand, so to sign up, you list all the possible day(s) that you can make it. Registration closes a few days before the first day and players are randomly assigned a Day 1 heat, based on when they can make it, keeping the number of players for each day as balanced as possible.
C) Blind schedule.
Day 1 starts at 25-50 increasing at 20 minute intervals. Design the blinds so that the tournament runs starting from 7pm, ending around midnight. Play with antes, modifying the KWSOP schedule accordingly. The final table starts with 9 players, so that at 10 players play starts hand for hand. Once the final table forms, play down to 8 players, (one eliminations) who take their total chips into Day 2.
On Day2, reset the blinds so that the Big Blind is about 1/50th of an average stack. (eg. If 128 players, the average stack on Day 2 is $40,000. 1/50th of this is 800, so the first blind level is 400-800 (100 ante).) I'm doing this so that Day 2 gets a little more play in. Schedule for a Friday or Saturday and possibly raisng the blind levels to 30 minutes. Go hand for hand at the money (top 10%), and eventually play down to 6 players.
On Day3, the final table, reset the blinds to 1/50th of an average stack again. (so that the 'televised' final table has a little action to it.) Hold this on a Saturday and move the blind levels to one hour each to account for slow-downs due to taping. Day 3 will likely be one week after Day 2, so that we can convert the basement into a studio. (Does this kill the event for out of town players?)
D) Hole "cams"
I don't have the equipment to do hole cams properly and inexpensively, so an alternative needs to be found. The idea I have is to provide each player a folder that has listed hand numbers and the various cards they could have. The player crosses out their cards then play begins once the folders are put away. This takes a while, but is cheap and one of the arguements for making longer blind levels. We need to be able to trust players to accurately record their hands.
(Alternately, we can do away with showing cards, but I think that takes away a lot of the fun.)
E) Poker Filming
Two cams; one secured to the ceiling to provide a single shot of the board cards. One free moving camera to capture the players. Player would would need to wait to act until the camera moves to them, so there'll need to be a coaching session beforehand. Creative editing on my part would give the impression of multiple cameras angles. The problem with two roaming cameras is that colour balance and quality would be off unless we had two of the same camera, which I'm going to assume won't happen as primary filming will be done with a GL-2.
F) Other Filming
To keep with a fun show, we'll have the standard player interviews. (Possibly on a day leading up to the final table), exit interviews, and a Shauna-type announcer. (Does this mean I get to run auditions!!?! Woohoo!!) What else can we add to make it different from what's out there? The "Legends of Bristol Street could (would?) also incorporate other format games with smaller entrants and action between the hands could include the results of these tournaments so that more people get air time)
G) Announcing
Obviously, I'd like to be one of the announcers, but I'm definately open to running auditions. Voice-overs would be done entire post-edit.
H) Final Table Dealers
One dealer per blind level would be wonderful. Players that bust out are welcome to take part. I think we should have Dealer interviews.
J) DVD Extras
What else do we want to see? Chances are good that this will be a two DVD set. We could have our very own Bristol St. Roshambo tournament, interviews with the 2005 Player of the Year and 2005 Champion, etc, etc.
Start the discussion! Look to early Feb for the offical announcement and sign up thread.
Bust out interviews, and random hand interviews could add a lot to it too. Random player hand analysis "Steve, come over here and tell me how you would have played this hand". Also, using hands from the tournament a quiz could be made of how well the hand was played/how poorly it was played.
