suggestion for a contest

[New2vp]

Webman, In some of these games, my mathematical intuition suggests that there would be quite little difference between winning by having the top score vs. winning by having the high average of 5 scores.  The top score in a small sample just has too big of an influence on the average of 5 scores.  You might want to look at the results of earlier contests to see how often this contention is correct.  But, if you simply rewarded someone whose 5th-highest score was better than anyone else's 5th-highest score, you might have a contest with a difference.  There is no particular reason to select the the number 5 except that is the number of top scores that you show to individuals.  People would have more of an incentive to play if the goal was more achievable and one would think that improving on one's own list of 5 scores would be just that.  And I'm guessing that it would not take a dealt royal to win such a contest.  I would guess that the probability of anyone getting dealt royals in 5 games during a contest period would be remote. But dealt royals would still help since it would likely transform one's 4th-highest score into an improved 5th-highest scoring entry. An alternative bonus idea: The drawing that you had for these holiday contests helped to maintain interest on a daily basis.  A variation on that theme that would reward higher scores more would be to give people more entries when they had higher scores.Using the last contest game as an example, you could give out entries in the drawing as follows:5000 points = 1 entry6000 points = 2 entries7000 points = 3 entries, etc.and extend that as far as you would like.  Again dealt royals would not automatically win, but they would give recipients a higher probability to do so. 

[faygo]

new2vp, you are getting close to having the horse show up again.
Although, I, for one, like the suggestion on points for a drawing.

[New2vp]

You never know when the environment is more receptive for an idea.  In statistics, there are many places where an average is called for; this just isn't one of them.  It's not quite like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic in an effort to solve the upcoming core problem, but it will likely not provide significant relief.Anyway, the specter of an equine comeback is not sufficient deterrence for me since I'm deeply enamored with that visual.  Bring it on; it never gets old!   Thanks for your continued support!

[Webman]

Speaking personally, for some reason awarding a prize for your 5th highest score could take away much of the excitement. If you get a score over 30,000 in this contest I want it to really count for something. As we all see... these don't come along often, so when they do they should be rewarded. Otherwise if your 5th best score is 8,000 then there is no difference if you got 10,000 or 80,000 in the other sessions. It just doesn't sit too well with me if the very best scores in the contest are devalued. It's funny... we only ever hear that the top scores are too hard to reach from those who do not reach them. The winners never seem to complain. However, I certainly understand that when the scores appear so out of reach, there is less excitement as well. It's a tricky balance to find, and that's why we brought in Bonus prizes a while back so there was more to compete for beyond the top scores. We've tried a lot of variations for the Bonus scores to see what people enjoy the most.On that note, I do like the idea of awarding more random drawing entries for better scores as you suggest. That's very promising because it would also benefit those who get great scores but fail to reach the top 10. Perhaps another option for a random drawing would be one entry for every natural 4 of a kind, or something to that effect.

[New2vp]

It's funny... we only ever hear that the top scores are too hard to reach from those who do not reach them. The winners never seem to complain. However, I certainly understand that when the scores appear so out of reach, there is less excitement as well. It's a tricky balance to findJust a wild guess, but the winners probably wouldn't complain under an alternative format either. 

[Webman]

Just a wild guess, but the winners probably wouldn't complain under an alternative format either.  Excellent point.  But the people with the top scores certainly would, if the top scores didn't win anything.

[royal flush]

half the fun of vp players is to complain that is the nature of vp as players must hit the royal or big hands or its buy more credits by putting cash in the hungry machine

[Webman]

half the fun of vp players is to complainIn that case, for our most fun contest ever we'll have Triple Double Bonus with 3 aces in the deck.

[shadowman]

[QUOTE=royal flush]
half the fun of vp players is to complain

In that case, for our most fun contest ever we'll have Triple Double Bonus with 3 aces in the deck.
[/QUOTE]


 
Not again.

[New2vp]

But the people with the top scores certainly would, if the top scores didn't win anything.Since relatively few people actually have the top scores, does that mean that the complaint level would go down??