Anyone ever play in a CET vp tournament?

[pokerpokerpoker]

Hey gang! I am in the midst of planning my annual Vegas trip. My host at Ti offered me 3 free nights, $250 free play and no resort fees. I was ready to book it untill I received an email for a 150k VP tournament at the Rio - also with 3 free nights and $40 free play. I would have to pay $75 in resort fees.

Details about the tournament were lacking, so I called the Rio. The man on the phone was real nice, but couldn't answer any questions. Such as: how many players could there be, how are prizes distributed, JOB or DDB? He did say that the number of entrants is capped (but didn't know how many).

So has anyone played in such a tournament? Do you pound away for a few minutes like a slot tournament? Are the machines set to "tournament" mode? Does everyone win $$? DDB?

I only make it to Vegas once per year and I really want to choose the best offer. Ti is in a better location with more freeplay; but a realistic chance at a huge payday sounds tempting.

Any experiences you have would be great.

[Tedlark]

  I played in one run by Harrahs a few years ago and it was fun. Fun because I finished in the top 50 so I got an envelope with a crisp $100.00 bill in it at the awards dinner.    I believe the game we played was DDB and the machines were set up for tournament mode. There were 2 sessions; one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The awards dinner was later Sunday night. Each session was 5 minutes long and I think we may have had 200 hands to play. You want to make sure you monitor your time because you still need to minimize your errors but you also want to make sure you get all 200 hands in.    The entrants pick a number from a hat and that is your machine. Each session you pick a machine to play.    Don't get disappointed if you see someone hit a royal or AWAK because you never know where you will end up. My first session I thought I did really poorly but I managed to do well enoough the second session to finish as high as I did.    Because it has been a few years I don't know if they still pay out in cash or in freeplay.  But if it includes a 3 night stay, who cares. Play the freeplay the third day you're there.    My suggestion would be to enter the tournament soon because it may fill up fast and you'll then be out of luck.    Good luck to you if you do decide to play.

[sinnh_old]

There are 2 versions of CET VP tournaments.

Both are DDB with 10 minute sessions. When you register you are given a machine (you get to pick the time based on the available slots.) All sessions are totaled together for a grand total.

Payouts are usually for the top 250 players. Sometimes less if there are not a lot of players. Payout is in free play*

In 2014 - the tournaments that were held during the week (Mon-Tue) were 2 sessions (1 on each day)
Those held over the weekend are 3 sessions (2 sessions on the first day and 1 on the 2nd.)

It seems that the midweek tournaments have more entrants that those held on the weekend.

* there are times when the tournament pays 50/50 free play/cash for the top 1-3 scores but it's not consistent.

If you place you get free play which can be in slot play or table game. The table game I think are valid only on even money bets and the last I saw they were given in $50 increments (nothing smaller.)

If you got the invite you might check to see if you can register without staying there. This way you can stay at TI w/out the resort fee but still get to play. They may have changed the rules on this.

Don't give up after the 1st or 2nd session if you have a low score. You never know what can happen in the last. My mother played in one (her first), went into the 3rd round not even in the top 250 and ended up in 10th play for 3K in free play.

Have fun and I may see you there. I've played in all of them for the past few years.

[pokerpokerpoker]

Thanks for the info, guys.

It is the weekday tournament, Monday and Tuesday. Wow, 250 players. The man on the phone thought it might be capped at 65 players- but that didn't sound right to me because he mentioned that there was no real rush to sign up.

I thought about staying at Ti while playing the tournament. I don't know if they will allow that though. That (guaranteed) free play at Ti is tempting.

[sinnh_old]

The payouts advertised with the VP offer is based on 800 entrants. Those tournaments usually get 800+ entrants. If they get much less they adjust the payouts down but I've never seen them increase the payouts when there were 1400 entrants.

[DaBurglar]

Tournaments of all kinds (slot, VP, blackjack, or a combination of games played out over a entire day or two days) are hugely popular ways for casinos to pack people in during OFF periods of the calendar.Video Poker tourney events, as others so far have described, can be quite variegated as to how they play out and pay out.  I only have ONE actual participatory experience in a video poker tourney, but I have witnessed about half a dozen others that I either did not qualify for or showed up too late to register.   I have seen three VP tournies in AC at CET properties, two at Harrahs and one at the now defunct Showboat which was played on their ubiquitous JOKER POKER machines......I actually was invited to play in the Showboat joker poker VP tourney but I was LATE arriving.....just as well, I am not at all well versed in the perfect strategy for Joker Poker, nor is it one of my favorite games.     But the two events I saw at Harrahs a couple years back pretty much followed what Tedlark described.In early 2012 shortly after the holidays when it is notoriously DEAD in AC, at the now DEAD & defunct ATLANTIC CLUB, they tried (what I was told at that time) to have the only Video Poker tourney in that property's history.....plain old Jacks or Better (8/5).....The way their event was set up was as follows:   there were 300 registered participants (of which 291 ultimately competed), and we each played two (2) sessions of 15 minutes starting at 10 AM and running through about 5 PM, on 20 designated machines in the VP section that used to be located in the corner of the casino floor near the exit.   You signed up for which ever 30 minute "session" you wanted (first come first served/choice) to play your two 15 minute playing sessions to achieve your score(s), but here is the first little ripple:   at AC club, each 15 minute session score stood alone, you did not combine the two, such that at the end of the contest, with 291 people playing, there were about 582 individual scores to view (although several people, mostly older "confused" people) did not bother to play their second session and thus, at the end, there was something like 573 actual scores......thus, a person theorettically could actually have BOTH the first and SECOND highest scores!DO NOT ASK ME why they did it this way, or whatever the fark they were thinking, because I am pretty certain about every other person including ME asked them "What the F are you guys thinking??!?!   why not just combine them and make this easier on everyone, ESPECIALLY YOURSELVES?!?!"     Probably explains in part why they never had another VP tournament (as far as I know), and probably explains why they are now out of business.ANWAY, there was also NO hand limit or target, you just started with 1000 credits (which means you could bust out and a number of people did so there was also some strategy with regards bet size and all that).....you just played as many hands as you could in 15 minutes (which I DO ACTUALLY like better than having a set or specific HAND limit or target.....by simply allowing players to play as many hands as they can in a set time limit, you allow the really sharp AND fast players to distance themselves from the slower, less astute players, which really adds or emphasizes the "SKILL" aspect of video poker and mitigates the possibility of less skilled players winning simply because they hit a few lucky hands!)    This might be the only thing they actually got right in my mind......  the top 10 scores received cash, where as the next 20 scores received free play and/or comp dollars.   First place was $1500, second place 750, third was $500, fourth was 300, fifth was $200......6th - 10th was $100;  11th thru 20th got $100 slot play;  21 thru 30 got  $50 comp dollars.     Pretty dismal by other casino standards, but remember, the AC club by 2012 was sucking vapors.     I finished with scores of 1,900 and 1,085 respectively, good enough for 99th and 297th place respectively, in other words a big DONUT.     First place was around 6,200 or so (obviously they hit a royal in their 15 minutes).   No one hit more than one royal and I think only the top 3 or 4 scores indicated a royal hit (scores of 4000 or more.)  fith place I believe was around 2700 so theoretically he might have hit a royal and then had a slew of "duds" during that 15 minutes of VP fury.    Remember, it was 8/5 JOB so unless you catch a ceaseless string of fullhouses with a few quads mixed in, the only way your score is changing significantly is with a royal (or 10 straight flushes!!!)But the choice of JOB again allows SKILL (speed, accuracy, etc) to be emphasized over  other factors.

[pokerpokerpoker]

Damn, 800 entrants!
Sounds like the better offer is just to stay at Ti and get my $250 in free play and forget about the tournament. Also avoiding the $25 per night (plus tax) resort fee, while staying in a more convieniet location. My Ti host would probably upgrade our room too.

[BillyJoe]

Damn, 800 entrants!
Sounds like the better offer is just to stay at Ti and get my $250 in free play and forget about the tournament. Also avoiding the $25 per night (plus tax) resort fee, while staying in a more convieniet location. My Ti host would probably upgrade our room too.
The TI and RIO are two different casino 'groups', so you could book rooms at both, and just stay at TI. You would have to balance the RIO resort fees against the received FreePlay and possible tournament winnings, in addition to the time/expense of traveling to RIO for the event.

[alpax]

Been reading through the posts of this thread.

Is the DDB 9-6, 9-5 (most common on the Las Vegas strip in my opinion), or 40-10-6?

200 hands in 5 or 10 minutes is not possible for me to play that fast unless I just mash the draw button like a slot tournament. Even 15 minutes will be a stretch.

[Vman96]

Been reading through the posts of this thread.

Is the DDB 9-6, 9-5 (most common on the Las Vegas strip in my opinion), or 40-10-6?

200 hands in 5 or 10 minutes is not possible for me to play that fast unless I just mash the draw button like a slot tournament. Even 15 minutes will be a stretch.

Yeah, if the game is that fast...might be better off learning the "Royal Only strategy" Depends on prize pools though.

As for paytables, I am pretty sure it would never be any version of 10/6. Could be either of the other two I suppose.

I remember seeing the payback of a slot in tourney mode at Tunica Roadhouse once. It is a Red, White, and Blue game, and I think the payback is 2064%. You can never get a blank...neither of us have even advanced to the money round yet (~1 in 16), have probably done it about 10 times each now.