Confusion vs Conformity

Tournament Troubles - Confusion vs Conformity

It’s a scenario that everyone reading this article will be, no doubt, familiar with; you don’t have any plans, you’re stuck in the house with your partner as they get ready to watch some annoying reality show or house improvement program when you get a text…. €œCasino tonight?? €

SALVATION AWAITS!

But…. hold your horses there buddy! It is not a simple case of answering yes or no nowadays as I shall attempt to explain.

As it has been witnessed more and more, casinos and card-rooms are becoming more diverse in what game, structure, buy-in and stack they promote in order to entice you and I into their establishment to spend our hard earned cash. I remember the good ole days when the only choice of casino you went to, in order to grind a tournament, was which one served your choice of ale on tap. Nowadays, you have different buy-ins with associated guarantees, the structure of the tournament and whether or not antes are introduced early or not and the €œbonus chips € you receive for early sign-up. All of which make your decision of which casino to go to all the more difficult.

I mean, when was the last time you could look at a poker schedule for your local area and simply go: €œok, £x buy in freezeout will get me a shot at £GTD at casino A but casino B gives you a slightly cheaper buy in, same structure, for a slightly higher £GTD €“ sorted, I’m going to casino B! €.

In my local area (the poker hotbed of Central Scotland!) I am situated within 20mins drive from one casino yet if I were to allow for 45mins travel, I could get to 6 casinos easily. Of these 6, 3 companies control them (3 by company A; 2 by company B and 1 by company C). Yet even casinos owned by the same company do not have the same poker schedule operating across the board. There may be reasons such as geographical location, social and economic implications or other competing activities in the area, yet I refute these and say simply that the casinos are making it harder for people like us to choose at a moment’s notice where we are going to go.

Casinos and card-rooms will argue that the differences highlighted are their USPs in an increasingly competitive marketplace and, as such, they will always attempt to offer something that no-one else can or does. My point though is that there seems to be too many options now for the casual player to care for; too many scenarios to think about before settling for a straight-forward HomeGame on your laptop in the house; too much confusion when some conformity is needed.

The adage €œmore is less € can be used here as the poker schedules are updated on the back of the WSOP hype and the many poker tours going through the UK at the moment. All I ask for is perhaps a more simplistic schedule that doesn’t require 15mins of figuring out best value and how to avoid the fishing pool…

…yet maybe I am the relic here; maybe I see confusion when €œTMI € is the new conformity. Ah for those good ole days…