Ideas to make contests more interesting

[Webman]

Chattycatty, we agree that this would be a fantastic benefit of Gold membership if it were legal. But any contest with prizes online must be available to both free and paying members alike. "Pay to play" would fall under online gambling restrictions when prizes are at stake. Of course, we'll keep an eye on things with regard to the legality in case the laws change over time.

[chattycattty]

What a shame. I wonder who writes these laws? It must be the same group of self-serving know-it-alls that are about to vote to get us involved in the middle east again.

WEBMAN, of the 5000 Gold Members and 295,000+ free and silver members, on average, how many of each participate in the daily contests on a given day? Is that figure close to the same for the monthly contests?

[BillyJoe]

WebMan, I mentioned this on VP Chat one night.


For the monthly contest, consider a 'tiered' approach to gaining an entry to the bonus drawing. I would suggest something like a single point for a low hurdle rate (keeps everyone interested), and then two or three points for reaching the break-even dollar value of playing 100 games in that session.


It would make you want to play out the session to get those extra entries.

[edog743]

Chatty if you click on a previous daily/monthly contest it will tell you how many people played that particular contest.

[chattycattty]

Thanks EDOG.

[mrmarcus]

I agree w/ other writers that you'll never make everybody happy.  That said here are a few ideas. I like the idea of it just being one game (TDB) that everybody plays. Another issue is that some folks maybe have lots and lots of time to work on the contest, while others don't.  So I would suggest that maybe all the contests have a two tier structure  with equal sized prizing on both tiers.  One tier would be the typical highest scores etc.   The other tier would be for anybody who played 1-2-5  or whatever was decided- games to completion regardless of score.  With that you would be paying out skill prizes as well as participation prizes.  My last idea is --think about cutting some of the contests from 100 hands down to maybe 50 hands per round.  As some others have said 100 hands can, at times, seem like quite the time committment.  Thanks for listening.  Mrmarcus.

[Sandrina Roc]

I'm hating that there's only one game to play today for the daily contrest. I jump around lots and rarely play Triple Double, today's game. No choice, I guess no play. It stays like this, no more Gold. I'll save my money.

[mortongd]

Not liking the single game format for the daily contest. I like to play all the different games. The more choices the better.

[RandyMcspad]

Thanks for changing to just one variation per day. Really evens things out I believe.
I really don't understand the criticism of this new format. It's not like the entire site has been changed and the membership has been left one choice only. Everyone is free to go play whatever variations they like. Just not in the daily contest is all.

For those who weren't playing the most optimal variation in the dailies anyway, they were for the most part, NOT realistically playing for the top award anyway.

[vpwillis]

I do not like not having a choice of games to play in the daily contest.  If I am trying to win the daily contest yes I would play tdb.  If I am trying to get 1805 points (todays contest, triple play qq ) tdb would be my last choice.  It makes my head hurt trying to understand the statement that it evens things out.