The
Problem with Free Poker
Part Three
In Part One I
discussed a few of the leagues offering Free Poker Tournaments around Houston,
their shared histories, and the problem that can occur by lockstep following
that which came before. In Part Two I covered some of the criteria that I look
for not only in free poker tournaments but all tournaments including freerolls.
In terms of tournament structure Big Stack poker
(BSP) offer the best play of ALL the free leagues in which I have participated.
It is not unusual to new entrants into any industry to be the most flexible and
innovative in their approach. While BSP does enforce some of the rules you will
only see in free poker leagues and that don’t apply in casino tournaments, it
also does some interesting things.
In Part Three, the
final installment, I will discuss my opinion of the Pros and Cons of three free
poker leagues. I will also mention another free poker league that I intend to
visit in the near future.
PART THREE
I stated that I try to avoid
tournaments that feature poor structures, poor application of generally
accepted rules, and poorly run tournaments. As I share my views in the
following paragraphs it may seem that there are contradictions. That may be but
I will lay out plusses and minuses of three as I see it.
Snowman
Poker League
Founded in 2005, Snowman Poker League promotes itself as “…
an entertainment company specializing in Hosting Free Texas Hold-em Poker
Tournaments in the Texas Gulf Coast Region…”
And, “Our games are geared to be competitive, fun and as close to a real
casino experience as possible. Playing in our tournaments offers you the
opportunity to gain experience, learn accepted poker etiquette, practice and
improve your skills and knowledge of the game.”
Snowman served as my introduction to free poker
tournaments. The venues that I have
played at were run by hosts/TDA’s that were knowledgeable of Snowman’s way of doing things. They also did a good job of keep things
moving, resolving disputes, and managing the myriad things that come up during
a tournament.
Some of the “house rules” they use are chipping down, half
bets allowing reraising, Having to “complete the bet” when someone in front of
you goes all in with less than a full raise (See Part Two for more information
about these). They do not come very
close to a casino tournament experience in my view.
Snowman holds regional tournaments and an annual event with
bigger prizes. Participation in these events are for qualified players only.
Big Slicks
Entertainment
From their webpage, “BSE™ is
a FREE-TO-PLAY Poker League where you can compete in Tournament Style
Poker Events at local Venues.” They don’t mention when they were founded.
Like Snowman they have “house rules” which includes
chipping down, half bets allowing reraising, Having to “complete the bet” when
someone in front of you goes all in with less than a full raise (See Part Two
for more information about these). They
do not come very close to a casino tournament experience in my view. But to their credit they don’t promote an
experience like a casino would offer.
At the venue I have frequented the host/TDA does a good job
of keeping things moving. He administers
the rules as he understands them to be and does some interesting pot splashes
which are fun and innovative.
Again from their web page, “BSE™
is a Poker League where members compete in free-to-play Tournament Style Poker
Events at local venues. The top 16 players in each tournament receive
points and are ranked at the Venue and Regional Levels. At the end of
the quarter, the top players at each Venue qualify for the Venue Championship. The
quarterly venue championships are $300 Freerolls held at your favorite venue.
Top players also qualify for the Annual
Regional Championship. In the Annual Regional Championship the winner gets
a $10,000* seat to the Main Event at the World Series
of Poker in Las Vegas. Winners in the past have been offered a
reduced cash alternative if they did not want the seat.”
Big Stack Poker
Big Stack Poker (BSP) was founded on August 1, 2012 in Houston, Texas by a couple
of former Snowman poker league hosts. This is from their web page:
“Big stack poker (BSP)
offers free Texas hold ’em games and offers you a chance to win prizes every night
of the week. Another difference from
those other guys is we offer free pot limit Omaha on Sunday’s at one of our
venues for you Omaha lovers.
We are the player’s league:
we believe in you the player. You will never be a just commodity in our league.
Feel free to voice your opinion. We will listen to you and try our best to
implement it in the league. You will never, never, never pay a membership fee
in our league. It is always free to play
and open to anyone, anytime, anywhere. All big stack poker venues have prizes
for the top 3 finishers. BSP will also have a monthly, quarterly and yearly
points event for top point earners in the league.”
In terms of tournament structure Big Stack poker
(BSP) offer the best play of ALL the free leagues in which I have participated.
It is not unusual to new entrants into any industry to be the most flexible and
innovative in their approach. While BSP does enforce some of the rules you will
only see in free poker leagues and that don’t apply in casino tournaments, it
also does some interesting things.
They earn their name. They offer the biggest starting stacks that
I’ve seen: typically TWICE as big as other leagues. They also have longer blind levels. This makes for a better poker experience in
that you have the time and the stack to really play poker, learn some of your opponents’
tendencies, etc.
They have generous bonuses,
promotional items, and their payouts are the most liberal I’ve played at. Like most free poker
Leagues, these bonuses end at the end of the break. Unlike the venue support at
other places, however, BSP offers additional chips with almost every purchase
(food and drinks). They also offer a premium number of chips on certain special
alcoholic beverages. This is one point
of contention with me (although I understand why they do it).
There are a surprising number of players that don’t
drink alcohol for one reason or another.
Some are recovering alcoholics, others have their own reasons. My opposition to this emphasis is twofold; 1)
BSP makes no allowance for a non-alcoholic alternative for a patron to buy in
order to get the same number of chips as an imbiber and; 2) It really
encourages drinking quite a few drinks being consumed in a relatively short
period of time. These “specials” are aggressively
promoted and encouraged.
For now I’m willing to give them the benefit of the
doubt and attribute these things to growing pains. After all they are just barely over a year
old. We’ll see. But I do want to mention one of my favorite things they do. Each
month they raise money for a different charity and it benefits the players as
well. Players may buy up to three
charity chips for $5 bucks each. That money is given to the featured charity. For
each charity chip they purchase (up to a max of 3) the players get 5000 bonus tournament
chips at time of purchase. They then get
3000 bonus chips per charity chip for each tournament the remainder of that
month.
 |
| Comparison of the three leagues mentioned. |
Trap Holdem League
I have not played in the Trap
Holdem League. I mention them now
because I am intrigued about their potential pay out structure on some of their
tournaments. They have posts that
mention a $500 back-to-back prize. I emailed them asking about it and below is
the reply.
“The tournaments are FREE and here are the parameters on the
$500 Back2Back offering:
Win the 7 & 10 p.m. tournaments at Molly's Pub
(Kingwood)
1. With at least 25 players in each tournament to win a $100 Visa gift card
2. With at least 35 players in each tournament to win a $250 Visa gift card
3. With at least 45 players in each tournament to win a $500 Visa gift card
They also offer the following according to the email
response.
“We send players to
major poker tournaments around the country ever 3 moths at our quarterfinal
tournament including the WSOP in Las Vegas. Our most recent trip was to
the $100,000 Guaranteed Card Player Poker Tour Tournament at Choctaw Casino in
Durant, Oklahoma.
We host a monthly $250
TRAP Monthly Challenge tournament, A TRAP Venue Challenge 2-4 times per year
and many other special events.”
They will
be the next free poker league I visit. I will write about the experience when I do.
I hope you enjoyed this
series. If you have any comments or
questions I welcome them.
See you around the felt!
