Thoughts on my handling of one of my players, please (1 Viewer)

[Machine]

View attachment 1182538

Is that the BAN HAMMER? by yoshi!!?!?!

 

[DuckFat]

It sounds like you play in more professional/casino games. Lists in home games are normal. It helps to adjust chip stacks or the blind structure to end at a predictable time. It helps the host know how many tables/chairs to set up. How much food to buy.

Hosting is a chore. It's made easy by fast, early responses, and hard by late decisions or last minute status changes. Non-hosts have no idea.

The tournament my friend hosts in his garage and driveway are most definitely not professional. BYOB and food, no list, no prepay, some guys show up with no shoes and no shirt. Start time is variable based on when people get there. Rebuys are so people don't have their day ended early by an unfortunate hand. Late entries are because everyone runs on Hawaiian time (we get there when we get there). It does have elements of a casino run tournament but much more laid back and loosely organized. He minimizes the effort because he doesn't make anything, just sets up tables and sends out a group text.

 

[BGinGA]

The tournament my friend hosts in his garage and driveway are most definitely not professional. BYOB and food, no list, no prepay, some guys show up with no shoes and no shirt. Start time is variable based on when people get there. Rebuys are so people don't have their day ended early by an unfortunate hand. Late entries are because everyone runs on Hawaiian time (we get there when we get there). It does have elements of a casino run tournament but much more laid back and loosely organized. He minimizes the effort because he doesn't make anything, just sets up tables and sends out a group text.

And that's certainly one way of handling it. But it's not the only way, and arguably not the best way.

The day nobody shows up will make that a bit more clear.

 

[blueshells50]

I would just remove him from the group and text him personally when really needed.

People who don’t have the common courtesy to let you know should just get the boot. Especially since it has happened more than once!

This.

If you are stuck sure give him an invite. The 1/17 comment is really crappy

 

[louBdub]

Is that the BAN HAMMER? by yoshi!!?!?!

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

-Me, check raising my wife

 

[Eriks]

The tournament my friend hosts in his garage and driveway are most definitely not professional. BYOB and food, no list, no prepay, some guys show up with no shoes and no shirt. Start time is variable based on when people get there. Rebuys are so people don't have their day ended early by an unfortunate hand. Late entries are because everyone runs on Hawaiian time (we get there when we get there). It does have elements of a casino run tournament but much more laid back and loosely organized. He minimizes the effort because he doesn't make anything, just sets up tables and sends out a group text.

 

[Nymor]

I've only got a single table so not having people turn up can screw things up for everyone and I really need to know my numbers in advance. My player pool are usually very good about turning up when they say they will so I haven't had a major problem yet.

I try and get 8 but don't mind 7, as that's better for cash circus, 6 is ok but once you get to 5 and below it gets a bit dodgy. With a full table if someone leaves earlier than most, as happens, the game can continue but that can't really happen if short-handed from the start. Really short handed isn't that much fun imo.

I did have a game the other Saturday that was due to start at 7:30pm that didn't get going until 9:30. I knew one player was going to be late as he was packing to go on holiday the next day - what I didn't know was that he was giving a lift to 4 of the other players

 

[Seven2Wizard]

Hi PCF,

What are your thoughts of how I am handling this situation? Am I too harsh? Too soft? How would you handle it?

Background
I handle my tourney invites via Facebook events in my Facebook poker group. Those without Facebook are handled separately. For that reason, for each tourney I have a post in the group where I list

• No of seats
• No of seats spoken for (I specify the total and also how many that are spoken for outside the group, for clarity)
• No of availabe seats
• Queue (here I list the people in the queue, in order)

Needless to say, the queue is empty until all seats are spoken for.

However, one of my players has repeatedly claimed a seat only to no-show. One of these times I contacted him afterwards. He gave an excuse and ironically (my subjective interpretation) wrote "sorry for taking up 1/17 of your seats" (I only had 17 seats back then). I wanted to reply "don't apologize to me, apologize to Bob who was first in the queue but had to stay at home because of you", but instead I adopted the Swedish way and bit my tongue.

Other times he has no-showed but changed his answer in the event like an hour before the event (one time it was just 15 minutes!). The last hours before an event I'm busting my ass getting everything ready, it's very easy to miss last minutes changes. Every single time someone other than him has had to cancel the same day they have called! Not updated their status, not even texted, they have called!

My solution
So I had 16 out of 24 seats claimed, and then he signed up. So I listed 16 seats as claimed, 8 seats as available, and him as the single person in the queue. Today it has grown to 21 claimed, 3 free, and him in the queue. I see now that he has been made aware of this, and I'm expecting drama.

When he calls me about this I'll tell him that he only replied "maybe", hence the queue. He'll probably say like "no, my status is that I'm coming" to which I'll say that he's proved time and time again that "yes" means "maybe" when it comes from him. Fool me once etc, so I've finally recognized to interpret his yes's as maybies.

If he really wants to seat, he'll have to Venmo me the buy-in immediately without the possibility a refund, so if he no-shows, the money is in the pot.

Thoughts on my approach?

I love that approach. Taking up a seat and bowing out last minute will get you black balled at some tables!

 

[ItsAlwaysLupus]

You are only a reg if you show up regularly. I'll give a player once or twice dependent on circumstances, but after that, you are an alternate to people that want to play AND show up.

 

[DeeVee8]

F that F’er.

 

[Mr Winberg]

Well guess who no-showed last tourney

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

Well guess who no-showed last tourney

This mook. Call him and tell him why that sucks for you, then stop inviting him.

 

[cpac54]

Yeah, that guy would have a permanent place on my waiting list.

 

[ItsAlwaysLupus]

Well guess who no-showed last tourney

Looks like somebody just made the DONZO list.

 

[merkong]

Overhand grip. Light lube. Eye contact. Assert dominance.

In for the next DiD…

 

[merkong]

Is that the BAN HAMMER? by yoshi!!?!?!

The Ban Hammer.

Stealing.

 

[merkong]

sends out a group text.

He could ban himself for that type of behavior.

 

[BPTDirector]

Pre pay seems like a good solution for this guy.

 

[chippitydoodah]

Pre pay seems like a good solution for this guy.

I'd make him prepay 2x the buy in

 

[SetToBean]

I had an issue with this a few months ago across a wide variety of player statuses. Included silent no-shows and last-minute cancels after signing up for a night without a good reason, and to a lesser extent people I'd recruited for the invite list who made it seem like they were incredibly keen but didn't lift a finger over several months to come and play. The latter wouldn't have been a problem except they also made zero effort to give me any tips on how I could make things work for them or any updates on their "interest".

Eventually I made a very cold copy-pasted message and sent it to all such players politely telling them off for wasting everyone's time and inflating their expectations of the amount of interests the game had. The people that got back to me got to stay in and now they're all sufficiently reliable players. Most of them didn't respond to that so they're probably not ever getting treated as anything more than a vague maybe no matter how much they might claim to be interested in the future.

No more issues there. Invite list is a much more realistic indicator of regs and infrequent player interest now. Directness is pretty much always better.

 

[ontheriver51]

This is a really cool idea. I think auto waitlist makes perfect sense and an option to prepay if he doesn’t like it is hard to argue with