Unibet UK Tour schedule updated

[ArtyMcFly]

Prior to the changes, the UK25s were an unbeatable rake trap with 3 minute levels and 10% rake. Now they are an unbeatable rake trap with 3 minute levels, 10% rake and an even lower potential ROI than before.
How is this supposed to increase the number of people playing them? You're just going to drive players away, because literally no one is interested in paying 50 quid to try and double their money about a third of the time.

If you're gonna have frankly outrageous 10% rake in a 25 euro satty that is full of regs, it needs 5 minute levels at least, no rebuys and no add ons. A better alternative would be to have the same structure as the UO satties, like ChairChap suggested, or to lower the rake to make the games potentially beatable. We don't need overlays, so reducing the guaranteed seats is fine, but we do need beatable games. Unbeatable games don't run.

[sgriff]

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@Darkangel7 wrote:

I will tell you as its the site I started on and still love, but not as much as Unibet. But everyone is fickle  Try googling Sky poker tour. Smashed it. I went to see my friends in Manchester and there was an alternate list chock full on both day 1a and day 1b 

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Thanks @Darkangel7  I used to have an account there, but when they shut the poker tv channel down I assumed that they would go downhill and shut my account.  Interesting that they are still going strong. I did play one event with them in Cardiff when I first started to play poker, but the structure was horrific and it was a total lottery. I remember the dealer apologising to the table and said the regular tournaments at that casino were a lot slower. I never took them seriously after that, but sounds like they are worth another look. 

[mo-sh]

No good if company loses money but if i lose money selling kebab and chips i dont charge £50 for kebab and chips. Crazy

[jonny2192]

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@mo-sh wrote:

No good if company loses money but if i lose money selling kebab and chips i dont charge £50 for kebab and chips. Crazy

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@mo-sh do i get a double portion if i order an add-on to my meal :P

[pirahn]

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@sgriff as angel says

 

[MoreTBC]

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@Leo-Unibet wrote:

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@MoreTBC would you agree with other posters that changing the qualifiers to freezeout would  help increasing the number of tickets produced, I know that we aren’t producing as many €25 tickets as needed to cover the 3*€100 tickets offered daily, but only 8 players needed to make both tournament start daily. Hopefully will some player want to buy in without a ticket, or we producing more €25-tickets then guaranteed.

@Leo-Unibet, I'd prefer them to be freezeout or re-entry at the higher stages, not r/a.

Looking at the €25s specifically if the sat gets to the addon period without 8 players already in I cannot see anyone in it doing an addon and eliminating the overlay. This means the sats will never beat their GTDs and in turn means the bare minimum €100 tickets are generated every week. Nobody really wants to fire €50 to win €100. Also, you need 8-9 people to clear the overlay but the real issue is the 3-4 needed to get the sat started in the first place. If you're generating 6x €25 tickets a night you have to have all those winners reg the €25 sats before they start for them both to run. If a single player uses a second ticket as a rebuy/addon in the first sat the second sat is dead.

You'll know better than me what % of buyins are generated from cash instead of tickets but I wouldn't expect it to be high. I know I've only ever bought in with cash because I misclicked, never on purpose and I've only ever heard of other regs doing the same. 

I think you could run a €10 rebuy/addon for €100 tickets much like the Supernova sats and generate more tickets but that just adds more complexity to the tree. 

There was VTLs added in the latest update right? Could we not have them so that the first few levels are quicker and then it slows down. Nobody wants the sat to last 3 hours but I think we could extend the higher buyins so you're getting a little more play for your money.

You start the Sat with a sub 100bb starting stack and 15 minutes in you get 31bb for your rebuy, this just isn't going to entice anyone to fire a second bullet. With a 3k stack and 5 minute levels you could get 8 levels of re-entry with the lowest possible starting stack being 20bb at level 8 75/150 40 minutes in.  

It's been mentioned before I think but if you could create some sort of 'table starter' promo for the sats to try and make sure they run would be great. It doesn't have to be a lot, 50 ponus points if you're regged before the start time for example.

 

[sgriff]

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@pirahn wrote:

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@sgriff as angel says

 

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I've just had a look at their tour, but unfortunately the prize is a seat only so not really suitable for me as I have to travel at least 150 miles so need the extra cash to cover travelling and hotel.

[Darkangel7]

Simon, we wanted the SPT's back. Yes it did go down hill when the T.V channel went but it listened eventually to the players. The suits upstairs were very nervous about bringing them back but they smashed it, absolutely and totally hit the Sky so the speak. They used the same TD as you have at Unibet. I know that it's a ticket only gig, but it just goes to show that there is interest there in the UK Market. Please just do me one thing, ask Doug, he want's the Unibet UK tour to grow as well as us regs do. I love the UK tours, I have managed to get to 3. First ever one was Nottingham where I won a package. Second one was Brighton where Daiva invited me down to play the ladies event and the last one Manchester. At the minute am too wound up about the UK tour which is a shame and I know it can grow larger than it is at the minute. We only want the best for the site and the tours.

[Darkangel7]

Just forget about it being a seat only tournament. What you've got to ask yourself is why did so many people attend from all over the country to play at that Tour and the other tour in Brighton. What can be learned from that? 

[pirahn]

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@sgriff wrote:

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@pirahn wrote:

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@sgriff as angel says

 

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I've just had a look at their tour, but unfortunately the prize is a seat only so not really suitable for me as I have to travel at least 150 miles so need the extra cash to cover travelling and hotel.

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@sgriff Some advantages and disadvantages. Biggest disadvantages are no added value similar to Unibet with last longest,ubo for winner and community game. They sometimes do a package, however its not necessary as a second ticket win is paid in cash. I know this would suit you and Julia,lol. Tourny structures are consistent 5 to 1 all the way through as well as lots of promos. They do help with tips on where to stay which as you know can be very difficult. Obviously the prizepool is very attractive.

[pirahn]

@sgriff Forgot to say, venues and structures are same as unibet.

[pirahn]

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@jonny2192 wrote:

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@mo-sh wrote:

No good if company loses money but if i lose money selling kebab and chips i dont charge £50 for kebab and chips. Crazy

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@mo-sh do i get a double portion if i order an add-on to my meal :P

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@jonny2192 Mo does awesome food at his place and such a generous guy. Shame no brum tour as he would treat all in community. Like chicken place in Bucharest

[sgriff]

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@pirahn wrote:

@sgriff Forgot to say, venues and structures are same as unibet.

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I noticed that Vinny.  That was the first thing I looked for after the Cardiff debacle. Persuaded a friend to join me for the 120 mile round trip to what was essentially a turbo or even a hyper - I can't remember too well as I've tried to wipe it from my memory!  Looks like they learnt their lesson since then.

That's good news regarding the 2nd ticket being paid in cash as I would need that as the venues are too far for me otherwise.  Hopefully, Unibet can sort themselves out as the UO package add ons, the community game plus the chance to see familiar faces has made this my favourite tour to the extent that i dropped a previous tour which had been financially good for me.

 

 

[jonny2192]

Couple of bugs in 25UK.

11 minute break.

break and next level clock count upwards instead of down

not a bug but out of the 1tix guarantee as @MoreTBC mentioned of 135e 35e leaves the UK sat system with 1x25mtt and 10cash.

[MoreTBC]

After the second nightly €25 sat didn't run again (meaning there have been 2x €100 tickets generated for the Sunday final that needs 15+ players to meet the GTD) I got to thinking about why these things are happening and unfortunately I think we might not have to just look at the structure change and the sat ticket gtd drops.. we have to look at the players.

I, along with many of the regular UK sat players are ticket hoarders. The ability to extend and breakdown tickets has created a culture where players can play for weeks at one buyin level regurgitating tickets until they feel comfortable enough to play the next step. As much as I like the ability to do this I think it needs to stop unfortunately in order for these games to run more frequently and for more money to be investing in the sats.

Instead of sleeping last night I tried to figure out ways to solve this issue and basically came up with some pretty painful ones.

 

1. Cap the number of UK Tour tickets you can hold at any buy in level and packages at 4.

2. Stop the ability to extend UK Tour tickets.

3. Reduce the validity period for the tickets.

4. Stop/limit the ability to break down UK tour tickets.

 

I, personally, would prefer a combination of 2 and 4 as I don't think it is fair to penalise someone that might just be firing cash into any of the levels and winning lots of tickets. I think extensions need to stop for sure. 30 days is more than enough time to use up your tickets when there are sats running every day. The only exception to this would be the final tickets possibly but I still think you have plenty of time to get them used in 30 days. Reducing the use period is tricky because you want people to be able to go on holiday for a week or two and still have the tickets but you also don't want them to sit in accounts dormant doing nothing.

Point 4 needs to happen. It sucks but we've had it too good for too long. I don't know of another sat system that lets you split tickets like you can on Unibet and everyone else just gets on with it. I don't think exchanges need to disappear completely but they need to at least be limited to one ticket a week or something and for breakdowns to be set. You can only exchange an 100 for 4x 25, 25 for 6x4 plus 1x1 and 4 for 4x1 for example. To be honest this probably isn't harsh enough in order to make sure people are using their tickets in a timely fashion but it's a start.

To counteract this I'd like to see Sats pay out multiple tickets for the level below as booby prizes instead of cash. Take last nights €25 sat for example, it paid out a €100 ticket, a €25 ticket (which was generic and not UK tour locked which is a terrible idea IMO) and €10 cash. I'd like to see that €10 be 2x €4 tickets and 2x €1 tickets in order to keep as much of the money in the system as possible. I don't expect the client to be capable of this type of payout just now but I think it's something to consider going forward as a way to keep the money invested by players in the system flowing around. 

Another option would be to have any expired tickets over the course of a month be added back into the GTDs on the first week of the next month as a promo. I'm not sure if the back office allows for info on how many tickets are lost each month due to them running out but even if it's one a month at each level it adds a little something for the players that are active without costing Unibet anything. 

Anyhoo, another brain fart over :)

 

edit: Forgot to add, let's move to 1 - 4 - 20 - 100 or 1 - 5 - 25 -100 for the regular tree please. 

[Psycho79]

Hello @Leo-Unibet!
Hello Players!
   Today is 13th of December. 36 years ago the Polish government introduced Martial law drastically restricting people's lifes and attempting to crush opposition. My country stood at the precipice of Civil War. I was 2 years old then, and all I remember is that my favourite children TV show was cancelled that Sunday. I'm mentioning that because what's happening now on Unibet with UK Poker Tour is quite the same. I just cannot stand still when my house is being set on fire, thus decided to take the floor on this matter.
   First of all, I totally understand that Unibet is no charity organization, the numbers are numbers, and the previous satellite system had no reason to exist no more. But the new offer is  going to lead to the collapse of the UK Tour inevitably, and it's not acceptable. I've collected the Community thoughts on this, and I will tell you what we expect Unibet to do now. Common sense is what we all should follow!
   Satellite is by definition a qualifier to a target tournament for 5-20% of its Buy-in value. Your new offer with BI in the range of 50-75% of the target BI cannot actually be called a satellite no more. I will refrain on further comments and just call it an unbeatable game. What do I understand by that? Let's say that there are three parties participating in the game:
Player A: Regular, will do a rebuy if needed and add-on to maximize the chances of getting the target ticket. Their BI will cost 50-75% of the target. Are these satellites going to be profitable for them in the long run? The answer is NO. The rake is going to eat them alive, no matter how good they are.  As a result regulars will cease to play the sats, because it's going to be much easier and less time-consuming to grind the money for the UK Tours in SNGs, Cash Games, and regular MTTs. If they still want to go whatsoever. Without regulars many sats will not just start and guaranties will not be covered at all.
Player B: Recreational players who dream of going to a live tournament, mostly cannot afford for rebuys and addons, thus disadvantaged from the start, and also doomed to a failure in the long run by that. As a result they also will stop to play sats understanding that these are unbeatable.
Player C: Unibet. In this place the conclusion is short and simple: No players, No rake,  No UK Tour... is this really what we all want to happen?

What I suggest for the beginning are two paths to get the UK Tour Package/Entry and two finals a week.
First, the stakes should be adjusted. The 25€ sats should be changed into 20€s, for the consistency of the five times rule. Only 1€ sats, would be an exception.

Path 1: 1€ => 4€ => 20€ => 100€ => 500€ UK Tour package, Sunday Final
Path 2: 2€ => 10€ => 50€ => 250€~220£ UK Tour Seat-only, Wednesday Final

The second path might be taken by players from UK or those who don't mind to cover the costs from their own pocket. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think 500€ is enough to arrange the stay and the travel from any European country. Therefore, every player is allowed to win the equivalent of 6 entries/1500€, 4 of them as the maximum number of Buyins, and 2 to cover expenses. For instance, 2 packages + 2 seats-only. Having won that, player cannot register the Finals no more, so to eliminate players not interested really in attending the UK Tour. Two exceptions:
1.Transferring the entry to a friend as an unlimited option/we want to grow the event as big as possible. The more friends will join us the better. Of course any friend cannot have more than 6 entries after the transfer.
2.Players from outside of Europe, who need more money for arrangements.

Now, the sats payouts should contain only the UK Tour Tickets, nothing else, so all the money once spent for any UK sat could stay in the System. And the biggest part: no guaranties at the beginning. The money collected from the Buyins sooner or later add up to obtain a package or a seat. If in a given sat the target ticket is not covered, the payouts should contain a ladder up ticket. For instance:
1.The 4€ sat played by 5 players which gives 18€ prizepool after rake, thus no 20€ ticket covered, and the payouts 1-10€UK, 2-4€UK, 3-4€UK;
2.The 4€ sat played by 16 players which gives 57.60€ prizepool after rake, and the payouts 1-20€UK, 2-20€UK, 3-10€UK, 4-4€UK, 5-2€UK, 6-1€UK, and 0.6€*
*the remaining money are collected into "the UK piggybank" so not even a penny leaves out of the System. The collected money form a prizepool for the UK Freeroll, played once in 8-days, so it won't be fixed to one day of the week only. Every player who played at least one 1€ sat since the last freeroll is allowed to play. The payouts are of course the UK Tickets, and the remaing pennies go to another freeroll. All the tickets are fully exchangeable as now, so if someone wants to take a particular path, let's make it possible.

The sats structure:
I put it like this, I'm a good reg, I can handle any structure, but what would a recreational player like to play? The structure should be friendly for them.
I think a turbo/5min levels and 3000 chips is more than enough to have fun playing and not to get bored. One reentry allowed, no addons to abuse their pockets and chances. The Final's structure is fine.

How to encourage the players to play the sat?
1.Let's do an early bird promotion, everyone who register before the sat starts will be rewarded by getting more chips to play. It can be 4000 or 3500, whatever.
2.What do we have the Ambassadors for? They should stream the sats, "Play UK with Ian" is a great catchword, isn't it? The fields will get bigger. When doing giveaways on streams, why do not giveaway UK Tickets?
3.What do we have well-known and liked regs for, like @FeelsBadMan or @MathrimC, again "Play UK with me", even joining 1€ sat by them sometime would do a job.
4.Monthly missions should reward players with UK Tickets instead of Cash Tickets for instance.
5.Let's tell them about the freeroll, I bet that after 2-3 months there will be enough cash-remains to cover the package once in 8days.

How often should the sats run?
Only three players are enough to start the sat and obtain a ladder up ticket, so they could run quite often.Starting from 3PM the lowest stakes could run once an hour, 4€s the same but a bit later, all to fill the 10€s and 25€s running every evening. If needed the sats could also run in a "On Demand" form. So starting like SNGs when specified number of players registered and allow late registration for a couple of levels.

After a while more finals throughout the week could be added with GTDs. I assume that after a month the System will get healthy again, and after a couple of months the Sunday Final will guarantee 10-packages without any overlay, and the UK Stops will bloom. You'll be worry then to ensure the hotels within packages and run online sats for side events or even highroller cause the demand will come. That's how I see it 👍

These are my suggestions. Please read them and consider changes, cause UK Tour has no future in the current form. I think I've done enough to show that I care for this site and its players, not only my own bussiness. Please hear our voice and not let us down, cause it's our place.
NO WAR IN MY HOME!

P.S. Players please read this and leave feedback what is fine for you and what would you see differently. Send link to your friends. Let's show the Community Power, don't let UK Tour go!
@jonny2192
@MoreTBC
@FeelsBadMan
@MetalWolf
@pirahn
@sgriff
@NeriPoker
@VikingsAF
@Darkangel7
@radge1
@Omahahaha
@psrquack
@ChapInAChair
@Merenitsu
@ArtyMcFly
@mo-sh

@MathrimC

everyone!

[Darkangel7]

Good brain fart that was and totally agree. We also need to bring in more players from the UK. I really think once Ireland is on board there will be a massive upswing on this site. Also there needs to be testing everytime you decide to make changes. Changes can't happen over night and as in the magazine business especially case in point they will be working on their Easter Magazine now. So how do you deal with the monthly changes and do testing before they are rolled out? Do you do it on the fly or do you work x amount of months infront. If you did x amount of months up front then you could get testers to actually iron out the bugs and fix them before it goes live. I love Unibet and the community but please get some feed back from places like Ace High and 2 + 2 as to why we are struggling to get the uk based players actually playing on the site for the sattelites?

[Leo-Unibet]

 

@NMPfan I don’t see any problem in the “to €4” and “to €25” run time is approx. 60 minutes, players can then jump straight in to the next step starting when the previous step ends. I agree the “to €100” could be have a longer runtime. See my changes below.

 @jonny2192 I hope changes I will mention below will help in making you interested again
The issue with paying out €25 MTT ticket will be solved soon.
“break and next level clock count upwards instead of down” is this something specific for UK satellite?

 @ChapInAChair I hope you enjoyed the money we spent on overlay, it’s been quite easy to capitalize on the previous step configuration. I don’t mind having overlay in some tournaments, but there have to be a balance between the overlay and the outcome, in this case it’s been 6*€500/week. The balance has not been good, and we are forced to do something about it. The issue with consolation tickets not being paid out in UK tickets will be fixed as soon as possible, it’s a limitation I have at this moment, I hope it’s fixed soon. We definitely don’t want these steps to be a rake trap, see further down for changes that will be done.

 @sgriff  @ArtyMcFly See rake changes below

 @MoreTBC There will be a €10->€100 on Saturdays. I will increase runtime on “to €100”  

@all  First of all I want to thank all of you for showing interest in the UK Tour satellites. As you all know this is something we still want you to continue doing, we have this great community around the tour and it should stay that way.

I have processed a few things regarding these satellites and here’s some of the changes:

Qualifier to Unibet UK Tour €100
We change it into a freezeout.
The two ticket guarantee will run first of the two each day
New start time will be 20:45 and 21:45 UK time, so we are sure the “to €25” have finished and
players can jump straight into the next step.
The level-up time will be changed to 6 minutes
Rake change, will now be €23+2
Start stack changed to 4,000

Qualifier to Unibet UK Tour €25
Rebuy and addon being rake free

Qualifier to Unibet UK Tour €4
We change it into a "1 re-entry" no rake on the re-enter

Unibet UK Tour Freeroll Flip
Change it to a centroll so only players interested in the tour will enter.
Increase the number of added tickets with 100%

I hope these changes will help the grow of the satellites steps, all changes will take place in the upcomming 24 hours

[Darkangel7]

I am player B in @Psycho79 post. I dream of making a package but even if I don't ni matter how financially difficult it will be to me I am blood well going any way just because its fun. I agree with all the above.

[nekoneko]

@MoreTBC

So your solution in satties not running.. is to ...have even less tickets .. so even less satties not running ?

From what i understand now, many of them start only when most of the regs actualy play it, so if the regs will have less tickets too then wouldn't that make them to completely not start at all ?

The exchange is actualy a great thing and it helps a lot in qualifiying slowly, even when you have low real cash br.

I am just trying to get some tickets in the satties myself and would play any of them for points if i make it. Not rebuy/add on though cause that's too hard for a low br.

The problem is probably somewhere else. The UK tour unlike the UO tree has a weird starting zone. 

In UO you have the centrolls - to 4 euro ticket, the freerolls to 2 euro ticket, the 1 euro to 10 euro, really a lot of choices to start.

In the UK .. you just have that flip thingy that 1500 people join so takes months to even get 1, or ofc the option to buy directly. I tried putting some 1 euro to 4 euro, but didn't manage to win the 4 so postponed it. Why can't UK tour have the same tree as the UO ? maybe without the freerolls. That's np.

 

[Darkangel7]

@Leo-Unibet looks like you've jumped straight out of a frying pan into the fire. I have never seen so many community members and players that are not on the community as wound up as this ever. I know you've got a job to do, we all inderstand that but in the first instance you put in here out of nowhere Change to U.K. Tour blah blah blah. Not once before the post have I seen you post asking the players that actually play the sattelites what would be the best way forward. Believe me Unibet have got a hard core satty community and they know and understand what will and wont work. They want it to run as much as you do. So thank you for listening to the players and giving it some thought. You would seriously have had to contend with a mutiny on your hands regarding any uk tour satty running.

[MoreTBC]

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@nekoneko wrote:

@MoreTBC

So your solution in satties not running.. is to ...have even less tickets .. so even less satties not running ?

From what i understand now, many of them start only when most of the regs actualy play it, so if the regs will have less tickets too then wouldn't that make them to completely not start at all ?

 

 

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I'm suggesting that tickets should not stay in players accounts doing nothing for months because they're trying to follow strict BRM and not playing the targets, not creating less tickets. Just because a player has x amount of €25 tickets doesn't mean they're going to play the sats so all that happens is the €25 don't run because the winners are just collecting them until they have an amount they think is good for taking the next step. Forcing players to play more frequently means the sats will run, it means people may have to actually pay money to enter the sats if they run out of tickets and this means there is more money in the system to genereate more tickets.

Money has to come from somewhere to fund this system and regs just recycling tickets between them isn't going to do it.

[MetalWolf]

I have so much love for @Psycho79 post ❤️

agree in entirety and think some of the suggestions are brilliant.

[jonny2192]

At the end of the day making a sat system that works is only part of the problem.

The bigger promblem is we need more players.

@MoreTBC I think forcing players to use tickets goes against the rec friendly approach, I would never have kept playing if I had to keep buying in with cash. but I understand where your coming from.

Some suggestions on aquiring players, some points mentioned before:-

Targetted missions to players in the UK.
One extra normal mission for the next few months,thats hard to complete but awards a UK25.
Let me or another setup a UK tour promo on a mainly english facebook group.
Seeing as the SN has a lot of players and is high rake give a 1UK to everyone who regs it(special xmas gift)
Do a special offer where you will allow people to change a max of a 50UO to 2x25UK 1x4UK.
Twitch giveaways, so not to exclude people Ian could give 10e normal MTT or 3x4UK.

The UK tour player pool needs to be expanded for it to grow, trying to get more money from the existing UK tour pool of players is going to fail.

 

 

 

[ArtyMcFly]

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@Leo-Unibet wrote:

 

I have processed a few things regarding these satellites and here’s some of the changes:

Qualifier to Unibet UK Tour €100

We change it into a freezeout.

The two ticket guarantee will run first of the two each day

New start time will be 20:45 and 21:45 UK time, so we are sure the “to €25” have finished and

players can jump straight into the next step.

The level-up time will be changed to 6 minutes

Rake change, will now be €23+2

Start stack changed to 4,000

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These changes to the UK25s (qualify for the 100s) seem like a good improvement. Will the changes be added to the client immediately?