New and Improved Suggestion

[New2vp]

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. 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.Ok, Webman, I recognize why my "5th best score" idea won't work well.  While it may be superior at rewarding skill and persistence, your critique is spot on in terms of customer satisfaction, which is way more important.Here's a much better idea than what I proposed before that will still reward skill and persistence a bit more than luck and would NOT devalue the big scores so much.  I offer it with my most sincere, non-whining rhetoric.  Since I know it's boring to read every word of long posts, I bolded the salient portion of the idea and offered details in regular font.Instead of using an AVERAGE of the top 5 scores, which will be just as out of reach as the top score is (possibly requiring 3 or 4 big hits in 1000 plays rather than two monster dealt hands in 200), use the RANK of the top 5 scores.  Whoever has the best scores according to the relative ranking would win the prize.This can be accomplished in various ways with various weightings, but the simplest might be take the top 1000 scores and award:1000 points for the highest score,999 points for the 2nd highest score, and so on, down to1 point for the 1000th highest score.Give prizes based on most points accumulated throughout the contest.Then someone could still win with only 1 game played if they had the highest score and no one ended up with more than 1000 points, but people would always have a reasonable chance to improve their contest standing and would be incented to continue play.  Even though the highest scoring games would still be the result of a couple lightning-strike hits that others could not reasonably expect to duplicate, anyone would still stand a chance by posting more games with high scores even if they were not monster top-10 hits.You may or may not wish to limit the number of games in which you could accumulate points; you could use someone's top 5 ranks or allow people to accumulate as many top-1000 finishes as they could.  And, since you have so many participants, you might want to use the top 10,000 scores rather than the top 1000 scores.  With 10,000, even more contestants could score points more often, even if they didn't win prizes from it.You would probably still want to have tiebreakers like "first to post a score" or incorporate a "highest single-game score" for those who had identical points accumulated.To let people know how they stand, you would want to post the top 10 scores like you do and then maybe somewhere else #100, #200, up to #1000.Pros:  - Continued play helps each contestant's standing with reasonable probability.  - Rewards high scores even if a person is not lucky enough to hit a dealt royal.  - With the "problem" of dealt royals solved, you could offer 5-play or 10-play games that people enjoy more rather than always offering 3-play.  - This would be a change in the current contests.Cons:  - Someone different would win the contest than who would ordinarily win under current rules.  - This would be a change in the current contests.  (Yes, I know I listed that as a Pro as well, but some people don't like change!)

[Webman]

I like it. Are your fingers tired?

[shadowman]

I think you should just give new2vp a big prize for all this thinking. Maybe a years supply of finger supports.

[Tedlark]

How about a "team" concept? Webman makes the announcement of an upcoming game and those who want to participate sign up with Webman. Once all the entries are in then partners are randomly chosen and those having the highest combined score wins? Maybe the top five scores get prizes?

[New2vp]

I like it. Are your fingers tired?
Hard to answer.  Typing with nose.  Fingers resting.

[Webman]

What about a contest where everyone has to play using their nose?Tedlark, I like the team concept.

[Ambassador E]

here is my idea.on single line contests you make a limit of 10000 points.who ever gets the closest with out going over wins.in case of a tie they would have a one session playoff to have a winner.