Re: How likely are you to take part in a "buy-in" tournament?

[Reindeercards]

I'd like a clarification on the original question: is this talking about adding a buy-in option to the Pro Tour, making a separate buy-in tournament, or perhaps both?

WotC made it clear that they would NOT EVER organize buy-in tournaments... When we talked about that issue in KL, they told us they would let us do it if we wanted, but would not cover any of it anywhere.

The WMT (World Magic Tour), would be a "buy-in tournament", independent from WotC, that the MTGPlayersUnion (which will now have a good reason to change its name) will take care of...

If anyone has suggestion or is willing to offer his help, feel free to do so!

Thanks. I'm not terribly shocked at that.

As I mentioned earlier, I think it would be best to avoid commonly-used poker terms such as "buy-in". WotC struggled with organized play at the beginning trying to avoid getting in trouble with local ordinances against gambling. It eventually ended up having to drop the concept of "ante".

A lot of US communities are adopting laws, due to the rising popularity of buy-in Texas Holdem Poker, which prohibit the prohibits a house take and fees going to the Tournament Organizers. Other law limit the buy-in fee. Springfield, for example, does both and has a buy-in fee upper limit of $5. They also charge an annual $100 fee to be licensed as a buy-in event organizer.

But it doesn't have a problem with a Magic tournament with a $30 "entry fee" rather than a "buy-in".

And by "best to avoid commonly-used poker terms such as buy-in", I mean never use the term in public or private and don't allow its use on our official website. It'll just be easier to avoid as many problems as possible with the busybody city councilmen of the world rather than try to shove our way through them.

WotC is ducking the problem by having absolutely no association with a buy-in tournament. If we want to go a different route and do buy-in tournaments, we need to appear as innocuous/innocent/harmless as possible.

I don't remember who all the top players were back at the beginning of the DCI but I know many of them were interested and knowledgable about what WotC was dealing with on the "don't nail us for gambling" issue. Even the ones who have been out of Magic for years might have ideas to contribute if you ask them.

[Raph]

That's why I kept "buy-in" between "-"s.

I'll keep you posted on the evolution of this project.

[Reindeercards]

That's why I kept "buy-in" between "-"s.

I don't think the dash would protect us in legal terms.

[Raph]

I guess I can just delete the post after a while then...!

[kcolloran]

I'm still not clear on what you mean by a buy-in tournament. How would this be different from a Grand Prix? In my view a Grand Prix is a buy-in tournament.

As for the idea of an entirely separate circuit apart from the pro tour I'm both intrigued and concerned by it. On the one hand it would be nice to have more tournaments not under Wizards' thumb. It could allow for more varied events and the like. But I worry that it could just end up diluting both tours without making one strong one.

[gleemax]

if you really want to do something like this you might try contacting starcity games. they hold a very large cash tournament every so often and might be able to give you some good advice.

[Reindeercards]

I'm still not clear on what you mean by a buy-in tournament. How would this be different from a Grand Prix? In my view a Grand Prix is a buy-in tournament.

Technically any tournament with an entry fee which finances some or all of the prizes could be called a buy-in.

But the most common usage for the term refers to a tournament with an entry fee much larger than a normal entry fee...and that this larger fee specifically exists for the sole purpose of pumping up the size of the prize to convince more players to attend.

Take the old-style PTQs which had a $25 entry fee and a few hundred dollars as a prize. I mean, that's nice and all but there's a limit to how far someone will travel to attend.

You take the same location with the same people running it and the same format but make the entry fee $175 and put all the extra money into the prize pool...people from all over the globe will show up to play.

The only reason that doesn't happen on a regular basis are laws against gambling. The people making the law worry that an outrageously large prize (in comparison) will lure in rank amatuers to play the game...people who are so hopelessly inept that they are giving their entry fee in exchange for zero chance to win the prize. Someone who doesn't know which hand beats which in poker has no business spending a large amount of money to enter a professional poker tournament.

We're still going to get the occassional idiot who has no business being in the tournament regardless of what we do. But we need as much as possible to not give the impression that we're intentionally stealing from people who are too ignorant to know any better.

[Becks84]

I am very likely to partecipate to this kind of event, BUT the problem is that it would not be worth it because of all the connected costs that you cannot amortyze in any way.
You have to add the "entry-fee" + flight costs (no ptqs for the event) + hotel costs + everything else.
I mean there are more advantages for the winner/runner-up/top8/top16 maybe but for whoever goes in the money it's probably even more difficult to break even.
AND you cannot say "Oh, I made top64, I didn't break even in terms of money but at least I got some PTPoints to level up".
It's like living the dream one-shot to a lot of money but nothing behind it.
And you do want ptqs to be important as they boost sales and diffusion of the game.
With no "satellytes" that would be a great one-shot event but that's it.

I'm trying to say that it's a great idea but that wouldn't solve any kind of problem related to major tournaments and to the PT circuit.
Probably we could try something like that near a PT event, to minimize travel expenses for players.
And even if Wotc doesn't want to be related to something like that, they can see the result of a unique tournament with entry-fee.
The entry fee in my opinion could be bigger than 100$, for some reasons:
- to qualify to a pt everyone is spending lots more (going to all ptqs or paying flights if qualified on ratings or ptclub)
- the tournament is not likely to be 5000+ ppl but much less (not so easy to organize it for so many people)

Ah, we could do it in Las Vegas Nevada not to have problems with law