Webmaster collaboration on private poker tournament

[mypokercorner]

Stiankr and I were talking about poker leagues a few weeks ago. We were trying to see if there was a way would could promote a "shared" league where multiple websites feed players to one league, and everyone uses their own trackers from their own sites.

Since then, I've been talking to Graham and others about the idea. Tonight, Graham had a great idea to simplify the process. His exact words were "Fuck this league shit. Let's do weekly tournaments".

Ok, that's not how he said it, but that was the message regardless. That was just me trying to be funny!

Anyway, here's the proposal: We get a bunch of webmaster to throw in money in a pot. Let's say we have 10 people who are willing to throw in $500. That's $5000 in prize money. Then we bribe our AMs to throw in cash/goddies on top and we basically hold weekly tournaments for a month, offering very cool prizes like cold hard cash, ipods, iphones, Wiis, a case of Labatt's, etc.

The idea is that we pool our traffic to gain "purchasing power" because a single poker room will host the 4 tourneys and benefit from the traffic of 10 webmasters at once (or however many we have). You restrict access to the tourneys based on trackers only. In otherwords, if you didn't get your account from one of the sponsering webmasters, you can't play. If it works well, we repeat the process the following month with another room, and keep doing this for as long as it works. If it doesn't work out, then we each lost a bit of money and we forget about it. And this way, you don't have to track league points or anything.

Anyway, that's the general idea. Who's interested in developing this further? What's a good amount to put in the pot?

[Graham]

LOL...I never said it like that

Another thing we could add is something like a rake race. This would be dependant on the room's ability to provide us with this info, but it would help ensure that the rooms are getting some kind of a decent player value.

Also, if anyone has tried this before and it didn't work out that would be great to hear also.

Any negative and positive feedback would be greatly appreciated. If you think its stupid say so

[mypokercorner]

I was thinking it would be cool to offer a draw where anyone eligible can win prizes. You get entered in the draw ONLY if you played all 4 games. So loosers still have a chance to win something, and it helps encourage people to play in all 4 games. A few small prizes, or one bigger one.

We could probably get poker rooms to throw in more than just cash. Merchandise if they carry any, freeroll tickets to be won, free buy-ins to larger tournaments, things like that.

I would also appreciate some feedback from AMs on the concept, not just webmasters.

Graham, can you explain how the rake race works?

Also, what kind of buy-in amount are you thinking about to play in these games?

[Ridge]

I would be willing to do this..

[mypokercorner]

Excellent!

Also, for clarifications, $500 is used as an example. We'll have to agree on an amount and probably decide what's a fair contribution. For instance, if I pay $500 and promote on two websites, someone else who promotes the same thing on 10 different sites should probably pay more. Maybe the contribution amount should be a fixed per site? Just a tought. Or maybe no one cares. lol!

[Charon]

Hi guys!

I really like this initiative and it makes me happy to see such a good response!

As it happens, I started a project recently, which to certain extent also incorporates this competition-reward system. I think it´s worth your time reading and having a look. I would be more than happy if we could get together by any means!

Description of iPodFreeroll.com - an idea to provide players with regular iPod freerolls, where people who qualify (by means of points/rake) would get to play once a month in this freeroll and per 10 players, 1 iPod Touch would be given away. (cost about $40 per player per month).

People love iPods and freerolls drive lot of traffic. Right now I am a bit sceptic if I can pull this on my own.

Please take a look at www.ipodfreeroll.com (not yet finished) and think about my idea. I am open to any suggestion and very keen to take a part in a bigger project with several people, feel free to comment/criticize me.

PS: once the user logs in, the big catchy header becomes much smaller, certain fields are switched off. Further, all fields/areas of the site can be assigned with certain triggers which would allow a truly customized (automatic) look and display of the info. You can register and try it out, I can delete the account afterward, right now there are only testing accounts at the site.

PPS: my intention is not to drive away from the original idea of a league! I felt that my current project might be interesting and could also have a chance in this future league project. I´d love to get your feedback!

Thanks!

Best Regards,
Charon

[Charon]

Originally Posted by mypokercorner

Excellent!

Also, for clarifications, $500 is used as an example. We'll have to agree on an amount and probably decide what's a fair contribution. For instance, if I pay $500 and promote on two websites, someone else who promotes the same thing on 10 different sites should probably pay more. Maybe the contribution amount should be a fixed per site? Just a tought. Or maybe no one cares. lol!

I think of 2 models:

1. If everyone is independent and just shares a league, i think a fix contribution per player would be the most adequate ($xy). Doesn´t matter if you bring 10 players from 10 sites or 100 from one.

This way the pot would grow accordingly to the number of the players. The more players, the bigger the pot; the bigger the pot, the bigger appeal to the players

Also, some fee should be reserved for the league management, further development or special prizes, promotions of the league?

2. If this project itself provides something new, becomes authentic and independent, and also makes profit itself, supposed it is a product of joint work, i think sharing at equal parts would be the best.

3. (2+1, lol) how about this - each affiliate has his own team and the winning team gets the bigger part of the cake?

[newjabber]

@ Charon

I like that idea and also the consept of your site.

There could be different ways to get intry to the ipod freeroll:

most raked hands
entry by winning a private freeroll
entry by winning a normal private tournament
entry from email lottery draw
entry for winning some kind of a quiz

just a few suggestions!

Im also interested in this project, but i think the biggest challenge is to agree on exactly how its gonna work.

[mypokercorner]

Just to clarify, what I'm proposing *is not* a league. This concept started with a league discussion, where the idea was to join forces and drive all our traffic to one league in order to have better sponsership from the room that would host it.

What I'm suggesting accomplishes the same thing, without the hassle of managing a league and points. It's just a series of private buy-tourneys where prizes are huge because we pool our ressources instead of doing it on our own. I couldn't give out a bunch of ipods every month on my own. With this sort of partnership, I could. And we all get that benefit.

I would stay away from freerolls. The whole point of offering these prizes is to encourage players to make a deposit. And that's how we make money at the end of the day.

How this would actually work:
Suppose we all agree and put in $500 each to collect 5K. And then we get a room to throw in 5K as well. We have 10K in added money (or prizes) and we run 4 tourneys each offering 2.5K in added prizes.

So let's say we have a private tourney setup 4 saturdays in a row, then I go on my site and I post that I'm offering a private tournament for my players and I'm giving away 30 ipods in a month, for example.

Then every other participating affiliate does the same thing on their own sites. No one needs to know that we're sharing the tournaments. We're just all offering it to our players.

Imagine a headline on your website that says WE'RE GIVING AWAY 30 IPODS THIS MONTH! Most of us could never do that on our own. But if we share the event, we all get to say it. It's that simple.

The hard part is really to determine how much we're willing to throw in the pot and reach a consensus where everyone feels comfortable with. And once we have that agreement, then we have to negociate with poker rooms to see what kind of deal they can give.

[themike537]

I'd be willing to discuss this more. We should get a chat room going on AIM or something.