Bounty Badland points system

[MoreTBC]

Why is the points scale weighted so heavily based on buy-in? 

 

As the table stands just now a player that gets 10 bounties in a €1 tourney earns the same amount of points as someone that knocks out a single player in a €25 one. This seems unfair.

I appreciate that there are :-

a) going to be less players (and opportunities) for bounties at the higher stakes

b) in theory, harder opponents to beat for those bounties

The problem I have with it is that winning bounties is a lot less about skill and good play as it is about the right cards at the right time. In order to win a MTT you need to be playing consistent good poker and have the run of the cards, to win a bounty you just need the run of the cards and more chips than the other person. (Note: This is a generalisation and I'm aware there are several specific skills that can be applied exclusively to bounty MTTs but these can be applied at any buy-in level)

An extreme example of this would be to say that 2 players go all in first hand of a €25 MTT, player 1 has 7-2, player 2 has A-A. Flop comes 777. Player 1 has got lucky and now has 5 points on the leaderboard. Player 1 makes these decisions/gets lucky once a tournament for 20 tournaments and ends up with 100 points at the end of the month

Player 2 goes on to play 20 x €1 MTTs and consistantly knocks out 5-10 players a tourney. At the end of the month player 2 is going to have less than 100 points and win less money on the leaderboard than player 1. Player 2 could knock out 199 people at the €1 level and be behind someone that knocks out 20 at €25. The skill gap and entrants cannot be that far apart to warrant the points multiplier for the two levels. 

I understand nothing can be done about it for this month but I think it should be looked at if the promo runs again. I also think it would be good if the leaderboard showed more information during the month. Extra columns for number of bounties per level, total bounties and counted tourneys would be great to see and would help players know what they needed to play in order to improve on the leaderboard.

 

Semi-rant done, all discussions welcome :)

[polarbear]

the system is unfair also in SNG promotion. i really dont get it who/how they think those promotions cause i am stonished. At 1 euro i was making in first weeck 5 straight flush and Since i moved up on 4 in 3 days i have 0 straight flush but is there some people who really enjoy receiving non-stop striaght flush.very weird in my opinion

[MoreTBC]

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@polarbear wrote:

the system is unfair also in SNG promotion. i really dont get it who/how they think those promotions cause i am stonished. At 1 euro i was making in first weeck 5 straight flush and Since i moved up on 4 in 3 days i have 0 straight flush but is there some people who really enjoy receiving non-stop striaght flush.very weird in my opinion

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Issues with the SnG points system should probably be in another thread but I would say your argument for why it is unfair seems a little strange. Your probability for getting a straight flush does not change depending on your buy-in level, it's random. To say it's unfair for that reason doesn't make any sense to me.

[polarbear]

in your first post , you are talking is unfair about multipliers. i am saying same thing about straight flushes. i see no reason having them with multiplier

[MoreTBC]

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@polarbear wrote:

in your first post , you are talking is unfair about multipliers. i am saying same thing about straight flushes. i see no reason having them with multiplier

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Edit: Your original post made it sound like you thought the frequency of straight flushes was higher at €1 than at €4 and that was why it was unfair.

 

I agree with you, it does seem a little unfair to be awarded more points for a random occurrence based purely on what buy-in you are playing at. When I looked at the SnG table I personally though most of the events that got a multiplier should not have them and most that don't have a multiplier should. The table is a lot closer between the buy-in levels than the bounty one though and because most of the qualifying requirements are random it levels the playing field slightly IMO.

 

[Andrew]

The straight flush multiplier is in there because we don't want to reward only grinders.  We want people to be able to play a couple of games and get lucky and receive a reward.

[MoreTBC]

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@Andrew-Unibet wrote:

The straight flush multiplier is in there because we don't want to reward only grinders.  We want people to be able to play a couple of games and get lucky and receive a reward.

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Silly SnGs taking over my bounty thread :smileyvery-happy:

Based on week ones leaderboard you would need to hit 4 straight flushes (and complete another 100+ points of criteria) in a week at €1 to break the top 100. Going by the good folks at [insert wikipedia poker probability page link here] (and hopefully my correct math) that's a minimum of hitting a 1 in 3589.6 chance 4 times in less than 500 hands maybe? (I'm not sure how many hands the average SnG takes and I'm going for somewhere between 5-10 games). Factor in actually making it far enough into the hand to see the straight flush I'm guessing the odds get even worse?

Anyway, it's a discussion for a SnG thread, I don't play SnGs very often so my opinion on it isn't really relevant :)

 

So bounties.. ;)

 

Edit: Can't post wiki link because it has e-n in it :)

[DavidP_Unibet]

Regarding bounties, there are a couple of things. Firstly, if the multiplier were tied directly to the stakes then €25 level would have a 25x multiplier compared to €1 level (right now the multiplier at €25 is 10x that of the €1 buyin level). Generally in all of our promotions the lower levels actually receive a slightly better multiplier than other stakes relative to the buyin/rake they are paying.

Another important factor is the availability of games. If I only want to play €25 games then I don't have as many tournaments to choose from as someone playing at lower stakes. Finally (and this applies to the SNG Battle too), the hope is that these promotions will increase traffic across all buyin levels and actually benefit us and the players in the longer term. If we set multipliers which encourage everyone to rush to the lowest stake possible, it wouldn't do much long term good for anyone playing at the site. 

This is the third time we've run this promotion (with the same multipliers everytime) and I think you're the first person who has brought this up, although that obviosuly doesn't mean you're wrong. I'm happy to change parts of future promotions based on feedback, but I'd definitely need more convincing on this one. If anything, I think someone playing the €25 games could easily come in here and make a case for making the €25 multiplier even bigger!

[polarbear]

prizes for the promotions are very good , but ideeas how to make points are very bad

first weeck was playing 1 euro stack and was 10-20 and now playing 4 euro i am over 40 th place . same number of games . is HILARIOUS

[DavidP_Unibet]

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@polarbear wrote:

prizes for the promotions are very good , but ideeas how to make points are very bad

first weeck was playing 1 euro stack and was 10-20 and now playing 4 euro i am over 40 th place . same number of games . is HILARIOUS

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As Andrew mentioned, the promo is built to be variance-heavy to give casual players more of a chance of placing on the leaderboard. As an SNG player, I thought you were happy with the promo at the start of the month? It's hard for us to have a contructive conversation about what should be improved if you are basing it on your short-terms results. For example, if you had hit the same number of straight flushes at higher buyins would you still suggest we should take away the multiplier for straight flushes?

EDIT: I'm not saying the way current distribution of points is perfect and I would like to improve it for future versions (different ways to earn points, perhaps change multipliers). However, if you're providing feedback as an SNG player then the reason needs to be more solid than "variance" because that's part of the promotion. 

[OldBurf]

For both bounty LB and SNG LB. The fact is that you pay more to play the high buyin games so therefore you should be rewarded more. That is an issue with leaderboard type promo's. The grinders of the high stake games will win. That doesn't mean that they are anymore lucky than the players at the bottom of the LB. Surely the higher stake player deserves the higher reward which isn't actually that high relative to their swings/rake paid. It only looks high to lower buyin players because they are not used to the swings. To get around it maybe there should be a Low/High LB but it all ends up about the same anyway.

As for straight flushes the key is to hit the draw then check it down :D :

 Open-ended straight flush draw  -

FLOP  | TURN

8%     |       4%      (outs * 4 or 2)

Gutshot straight flush draw -

FLOP | TURN

4%     |       2%

[OldBurf]

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@DavidP_Unibet wrote:

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 For example, if you had hit the same number of straight flushes at higher buyins would you still suggest we should take away the multiplier for straight flushes?

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Exactly and if he was a higher stakes player he would feel the same entitlement to moan beacuse the lower stake player overtook him on the the LB.

[MoreTBC]

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@DavidP_Unibet wrote:

Regarding bounties, there are a couple of things. Firstly, if the multiplier were tied directly to the stakes then €25 level would have a 25x multiplier compared to €1 level (right now the multiplier at €25 is 10x that of the €1 buyin level). Generally in all of our promotions the lower levels actually receive a slightly better multiplier than other stakes relative to the buyin/rake they are paying.

Another important factor is the availability of games. If I only want to play €25 games then I don't have as many tournaments to choose from as someone playing at lower stakes. Finally (and this applies to the SNG Battle too), the hope is that these promotions will increase traffic across all buyin levels and actually benefit us and the players in the longer term. If we set multipliers which encourage everyone to rush to the lowest stake possible, it wouldn't do much long term good for anyone playing at the site. 

This is the third time we've run this promotion (with the same multipliers every time) and I think you're the first person who has brought this up, although that obviously doesn't mean you're wrong. I'm happy to change parts of future promotions based on feedback, but I'd definitely need more convincing on this one. If anything, I think someone playing the €25 games could easily come in here and make a case for making the €25 multiplier even bigger!

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I appreciate that the number of €25 MTTs are a lot less than at €1 (looking at the MTT spreadsheet I could only actually find 1 and it's Omaha, which I think is wrong. Side note, some buy-ins are €25 and some are €25.00 which creates two options for filtering in Google docs) and that a player playing at that level isn't going to want to drop down to €1 but the idea is to eliminate players, this works regardless of buy-in, the only difference between levels is the number of opportunities. I don't think the lower levels should have higher points per knockout, I just think the higher levels should have less. It's a lot easier from someone to move down a level for a month than it is for someone to move up, especially when you're going from €4 to €10 or €25. 

Would you consider using a structure than gave points based on entrants? Where a knockout in a MTT with 20 players was given more points than one with 100 players for example. If I was Canadian on somewhere +3 UTC or more I could argue that I'm at an automatic disadvantage if I don't play prime time as a €1 or €4 MTT player because I get less points per bounty and I'm playing in fields that are possibly as small as a prime-time €25 MTT. (Note: I can't remember what the early UTC bounty tourneys got when I played them last week and I have no idea how the €25 do so this may all be nonsense if they're actually far apart :))

It just seems to me with the current structure you're devaluing someones ability to make correct decisions (and possibly get lucky) based purely on what they can afford to play at. In order for someone at the €1 level to be on par with someone at €25 they have to knock out 10 players to 1. This can be achieved in a single hand at €25, where as there is a possibility of it not even being able to get 10 knockouts before the end of a €1 MTT. (I don't know what the average bounty count of a €1 MTT winner is, it's an educated guess :)). I'll also take an educated guess that 1x €25 bounty pays out roughly the same as 10x €1 bounties so players are winning the same amounts outside the leaderboard in pure cash.  

 

All that's not meant to sound ranty or angry, it's just slightly demoralising as a 1-4€ (with the occasional 10) MTT player knowing even playing A game for a month that you'll never top the leaderboard when someone can take a punt at 5x €25 and get a few bounties here and there and be ahead of you.

I'm not sure why anyone else hasn't complained before, maybe because the community didn't exist or because lower stakes players just didn't bother with the promotion at all. I know when I looked at the bootcamp and SnG promos I felt they were pointless to try and compete in at the level I play at so I've stayed away from both. That's why I suggested adding the extra fields to the leaderboard so players could at least see what they would need to do to get to a high level in the leaderboard.   

 

I've been typing for so long I timed out on replying, thank god for autosave :)

GET OUT OF MY THREAD SNG PEOPLE!! :)

[OldBurf]

I can confirm there is another €25 bounty. Its at 20:30CET "NLHE 400€ GTD Twenty Five Bounty".

If those extreme examples in your OP were to happen both players would end up around 75th place by the end of the month. Both winning €15. For the €25 player they get rewarded ~35% of the rake paid for their 20 games played. The €1 crusher gets a whopping 750% of their rake paid. The chances of these cases happening are very slim. Even if they do the rewards are barely worth worrying about in the real world. Concentrate on making money at the tables. The rewards are just extra. In the end the higher raking player will end up on top.

Yeah sorry for SNG derailing :P.

[DavidP_Unibet]

I appreciate what you're saying and we do try our best to make all promotions attractive to everyone, so it's definitely not ideal that you've been disincentivised to play some of the promotions from the start. Fwiw, while I don't think there has ever been a NL4 player making top spot in the Bootcamp promos, but NL10 players have been there or thereabouts a number of times.

The real difficulty is finding a structure for promotions which reward and incentivise everyone equally, and we are going to struggle to ever find a perfect balance. Players moving down in stakes is terrible for us for obvious reasons, but it's also bad for players as it'll remove liquidity in higher games and increase the skill level at lower stakes. Those latter two reasons are also terrible for our long term health as a poker site, so incentivising players to move down isn't something we can ever really do. We also don't want to make players feel they are forced to move up in order to take advantage of a promotion - increasing a player's risk of ruin isn't good for us as a site and it's certainly not good for the player in question.

What we end up with are promotions which don't exclude any stakes (it's very rare that all stakes aren't included in a promotion) but which inevitably make some players feel like they have less of a shot of winning 1st prize. However, the aim here is that the rewards in promos that are achievable are still worth going for relative to any buyin level. If that's not the case then it's certainly something I want to address, but as a low stakes player at Unibet it should often be possible to achieve over 100% rakeback via promotions, Challenges and Missions alone each month. I could be getting the wrong end of the stick though, is it more about the prizes being achievable at low stakes or being able to actually reach top spot (even if the payouts were lower)?

[OldBurf]

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@DavidP_Unibet wrote:

The real difficulty is finding a structure for promotions which reward and incentivise everyone equally, and we are going to struggle to ever find a perfect balance.

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You may not find the perfect balance in a specific promo, but you make up for it by balancing it on a month to month basis.

Alternatively you could go to Pokerstars and participate in a cardhunt or complete a pyramid (deilluminati ;) ).

[MoreTBC]

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@DavidP_Unibet wrote:

 

What we end up with are promotions which don't exclude any stakes (it's very rare that all stakes aren't included in a promotion) but which inevitably make some players feel like they have less of a shot of winning 1st prize. However, the aim here is that the rewards in promos that are achievable are still worth going for relative to any buyin level. If that's not the case then it's certainly something I want to address, but as a low stakes player at Unibet it should often be possible to achieve over 100% rakeback via promotions, Challenges and Missions alone each month. I could be getting the wrong end of the stick though, is it more about the prizes being achievable at low stakes or being able to actually reach top spot (even if the payouts were lower)?

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I agree you don't want players moving down but I expect in this specific scenario €25 MTT players are also playing the €10 ones anyway because of the limited schedule so I don't think it's as relevent in this situation. They're just going to be adding extra tourneys, not completely moving down.

The complaint is specific to this promotion and due to the type of player I am I guess :) I don't play a lot of cash or SnG other than to complete the missions so Challenges are something I don't really think about month on month which only leaves MTT promos for me to get excited about. Things like the Bulter League are great as far as I'm concerned because it's a level playing field for all players and it's a reward for consistancy, not bankroll level. With the bounty promo you appear to be rewarded more for playing at a higher level than for actually collecting the bounties and on the surface it seems exponentially. I don't have a problem with me having 50 KOs at €1 and someone else having 50 at €25 and them being ahead in the leaderboard, the fields should be tougher and smaller at €25, my issue is that I can have 190 KOs at €1 and someone can have 20 at €25 and be ahead. That seems like a huge gap based purely on buy-in and just makes the leaderboard seems like it's about who has the most money to spend, not who's done the best. I guess my gripe is that the leaderboard isn't skill based and I'd like it to be :)

This is why I suggested a entrants based system instead. That means buy-in is irrelevent (a small multipler could be applied for higher levels if it's unbalanced) and it's based more on actual bounties collected. You're still rewarding players more points in higher buy-in/lower entrant players more but you're not punishing players collecting lots of bounties at lower stakes as much. I don't have any stats on average number of bounties per player per level or any of that so I'd be guessing at any sort of example system as to how it would work and maybe it wouldn't but to me it seems fairer.

 

 

[FeelsBadMan]

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@MoreTBC wrote:

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 I don't think the lower levels should have higher points per knockout, I just think the higher levels should have less. It's a lot easier from someone to move down a level for a month than it is for someone to move up, especially when you're going from €4 to €10 or €25. 

 Well that's exactly the problem, moving down takes no effort at all while moving up does. I remember a leaderboard a long time ago where I would only play 0.1$ games because they had an at least equal if not better chance of getting a big prize as 10$ ones because they were so much softer. If the leaderboard wasn't designed badly then I probably would have played in the 5 or 10$'s for it.

As for the argument that a 25€ player only has to get a few bounties to beat a 1€ player, that's true, but it's a 1 month long leaderboard where your top 20 results count. Someone at the 1-4€ levels that grinds them can easily beat a 25€ player that plays them occasionaly because that guy will have a ton of 0 results and a bunch of 5's and maybe a couple of big scores. 20 decent low stakes scores more than make up for that. Oh he can't beat a 25€ grinder (that also grinds 10's and maybe 4's cause there aren't enough 25's to actually grind) well of course, and he shouldn't... the 25€ guy is putting way more money on the line. Some higher stakes people can end up losing top 10 or even top 5 worth of prizemoney chasing the leaderboard victory, either though bad play or just pure variance. What incentive would they have to chase if the 1€ people had a good chance to bump him down to a 15€ prize.

Now I do agree that points shouldn't be masively in favor of the high stakes guys but how much lower should they go than they already are? As David already pointed out, the points/buyin ratio is already quite significantly decreased. 

As for the luck involved, it's a month long competition with 20 top results. Luck has very little to do with this bounty competition. Who grinds more will be ahead, if the time invested is equal who grinds higher will be ahead, if the stakes are also equal the better player (in the bounty format) will be ahead. A very bad run or a very good run will evidently greatly influence the results but on average luck won't matter that much. We're really lucky not to have a straight flush type of format for MTT promos :smileyvery-happy:

 

 

[MoreTBC]

I don't like the 'more money on the line' reason at all :(

These players are risking the money regardless of the promo each month anyway and they're still winning the same amounts in bounties and payouts as they would on months where the additional prizes were not available so it shouldn't make a difference. The only people putting more money on the line are the people jumping up a level to try and compete, potentially out of their bankroll range and/or skill level. 

[MoreTBC]

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@OldBurf wrote:

I can confirm there is another €25 bounty. Its at 20:30CET "NLHE 400€ GTD Twenty Five Bounty".

If those extreme examples in your OP were to happen both players would end up around 75th place by the end of the month. Both winning €15. For the €25 player they get rewarded ~35% of the rake paid for their 20 games played. The €1 crusher gets a whopping 750% of their rake paid. The chances of these cases happening are very slim. Even if they do the rewards are barely worth worrying about in the real world. Concentrate on making money at the tables. The rewards are just extra. In the end the higher raking player will end up on top.

Yeah sorry for SNG derailing :P.

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I agree my €1 example is extreme but I think the 20 bounties over 20 €25 MTTs would be an achievable target.

You're also assuming I'm clever enough to relate all this to rakeback and not just looking at as "If i get lots of bounties I can get some free money" :)

[OldBurf]

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@MoreTBC wrote:

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I agree my €1 example is extreme but I think the 20 bounties over 20 €25 MTTs would be an achievable target.

You're also assuming I'm clever enough to relate all this to rakeback and not just looking at as "If i get lots of bounties I can get some free money" :)

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Yeah i believe it is too but you said "Player 1 makes these decisions/gets lucky "once a tournament" for 20 tournaments and ends up with 100 points at the end of the month".

I think that is what your missing though, a €1 player pays .10c each game for his shot at a reward. A €25 player pays €2.50. Its a huge difference. It would be unacceptable for €25 player to be in the same boat as the €1 player.

[MoreTBC]

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@OldBurf wrote:

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Yeah i believe it is too but you said "Player 1 makes these decisions/gets lucky "once a tournament" for 20 tournaments and ends up with 100 points at the end of the month".

I think that is what your missing though, a €1 player pays .10c each game for his shot at a reward. A €25 player pays €2.50. Its a huge difference. It would be unacceptable for €25 player to be in the same boat as the €1 player.

 

Concentrate on making money at the tables. The rewards are just extra.

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 If the rewards are just extra then why does the amount you pay in rake relate to it? I agree that if you're playing in a smaller field (like the €25 guys) you should receive more points per bounty but how much money you pay the site to play the tourney should not matter in a promotion that is based on knocking players out. That's a criteria that works exactly the same at all levels. There is already a 'spend the most on the site, get the most money back' promo on the site, it's the challenges.

The bootcamp and SnG promos are grinder promos as far as I see them. I could play every day for 4 hours, 4 tabling NL4 and I know before the month has begun that there will be someone playing 6 tables NL4 for the same amount of time that wil probably end up ahead in the leaderboard. Add x amount of players doing the same thing but at each of the higher levels and it looks pointless to even try. The same applies to the SnG one. 

The bounty one looks different (minus the points). There is a cap, only your top 20 MTTs count, that limits grinders straight away and means I only have to log in once or twice a week and play an evenings schedule to get 20 qualifying results. That's something everyone can do and makes it a better promo to have for MTT players IMO. We've discussed players dropping down a buy-in level but I can't see any regular €25 MTT player stopping playing them just for this promo, If anything I would expect them to just add additional lower buyin tourneys to give them more opportunities to score points.

I just think it should be more of a 'Player of the Series' type promo that's all, a little less weighted on how much you're paying and a little more on how well you're playing :) 

[MoreTBC]

Just as a completely insignificant sample, Tonights €25 Bounty tourney finished with 38 players according to the client (185 posible points), I played a €10 Bounty this morning with 26 entrants (75 possible points). There were 38 players (74 possible points) in the PLO €4 bounty tonight. Roughtly the same field sizes, double the available points for the €25 one. 

[OldBurf]

I played that 25 bounty the past 3 nights. Didn't manage to get any bounties :robotmad:. :D

[MoreTBC]

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@OldBurf wrote:

I played that 25 bounty the past 3 nights. Didn't manage to get any bounties :robotmad:. :D

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Finished 3rd in the 10 X turbo tonight with 0 bounties :(