MG Tournament - Taking the P***

[vinylweatherman]

Here is a screenshot from the latest Fortune Lounge Tournament.

20 Minutes of play,


Starting with 150,000 coins


What a complete piss take! (Although, it was a "free" tournament for depositing into the casino during the week).

This would entail the play of 2000 spins in 20 Minutes, or a rate of 6000 per hour. This is nearly 10x the maximum speed for NORMAL Tomb Raider, and the tournament version comes nowhere near this.

Why bother with rebuys for more coins in other tournaments, this shows that this whole idea of "coins to play" is a cynical stunt thought up by MG to get players to part with more and more money for endless continues and rebuys, all of which are clearly unnecessary if they can have a tournament with a huge wad of coins and a single, hopelessly short, session to play them in. With 150,000 coins, there is ZERO opportunity for "strategy", it's a case of whipping out the Cray II supercomputer, and the pneumatic mouse

[RobWin]

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

Here is a screenshot from the latest Fortune Lounge Tournament.

20 Minutes of play,


Starting with 150,000 coins


What a complete piss take! (Although, it was a "free" tournament for depositing into the casino during the week).

This would entail the play of 2000 spins in 20 Minutes, or a rate of 6000 per hour. This is nearly 10x the maximum speed for NORMAL Tomb Raider, and the tournament version comes nowhere near this.

Why bother with rebuys for more coins in other tournaments, this shows that this whole idea of "coins to play" is a cynical stunt thought up by MG to get players to part with more and more money for endless continues and rebuys, all of which are clearly unnecessary if they can have a tournament with a huge wad of coins and a single, hopelessly short, session to play them in. With 150,000 coins, there is ZERO opportunity for "strategy", it's a case of whipping out the Cray II supercomputer, and the pneumatic mouse

Well you did a lot better in that Tournament than I did vinyl, I came in somewhere in the 200's I believe.....

I agree with you though on the amount of credits they give you to start with...its ridiculous, theres no way in hell anyone could even come close to playing those...I have a T3 line connection and 4.0 Gig of ram but it can not move any faster that their servers let it...

[Simmo!]

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

...this shows that this whole idea of "coins to play" is a cynical stunt thought up by MG to get players to part with more and more money for endless continues and rebuys...

Agree. That is shocking behaviour for a charity


Seriously though, why does a high number of coins matter? I don't get it? 5000 coins on the freerolls isn't enough...always have 30-40 seconds spare if i don't hit the free spins. I'd much rather have more than enough then less than enough.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by Simmo!

Agree. That is shocking behaviour for a charity


Seriously though, why does a high number of coins matter? I don't get it? 5000 coins on the freerolls isn't enough...always have 30-40 seconds spare if i don't hit the free spins. I'd much rather have more than enough then less than enough.

It's not just more than enough, it is just so over the top.
If the number of coins does not matter, why have coins at all, why not just a timer.
Why can't we have an end to all the rebuys that inflate the cover price of a tournament to some 6x the initial amount. They could be more honest and just give one big playing session and a single round of play for the set price. "Free" tournaments would also really BE free, as advertised.

Even THIS event was not strictly free, as a deposit and play was required to gain an entry. It would be far better to do away with coins altogether, as well as the pretence that their is ANY "strategy" other than press spin as quickly as possible.

Oddly enough, when these tournaments first started, the slots ran a good deal faster than they do now, and it was easy to use all the coins if there were no bonus rounds. Now, not only do the games run slower, but there are communication holdups way above the level of the normal problems with Microgaming casinos. This forum has been awash with many complaints about other technical problems with these tournaments.

When Microgaming publish audited payout figures for these, I will be willing to believe they offer a good deal, but the fact that Microgaming, always known for making audited payout figures available, resist publishing figures for prizes paid as a percentage of tournament participation revenue, leads me to believe they offer a far worse deal than the lobby slots which generally offer 95%.

In the end, I came 18th, and after this screenshot I had mainly naked spins for the last 4 minutes of play, with a couple of Idol bonus rounds.

25,000 coins would have been enough to ensure ALL players were able to play for the full 20 Minutes. Maybe they mistook Tomb Raider for Loaded when they allocated the coins.

[Nifty29]

Im a bit annoyed with the MG tournaments - I just cant seem to do any good at all, and yet the same people seem to be in the top 10-15 very often.

Is there something I am missing?? Or am I just very unlucky and they are very lucky??

Vinyl- I know you do pretty well as a rule....and I notice you stated something about 'strategy'....dont you just keep betting max in these tournies (given theres no point having coins left)??

*sigh* - I JUST WANNA WIN ONE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!

[Rusty]

Hard to argue with VWM (as usual) if a tournie is advertised as a freeroll then that is what it should be.
If it is a buy in tournie then as long as it is a level playing field we are just arguing about the logistics.
IMO slot tournaments are fine as promotional tools but after that I fail to see their value.

[SlotsWizard]

I stopped playing these stupid things about a month ago, and since then my blood pressure has improved dramatically.

[vinylweatherman]

Originally Posted by Nifty29

Im a bit annoyed with the MG tournaments - I just cant seem to do any good at all, and yet the same people seem to be in the top 10-15 very often.

Is there something I am missing?? Or am I just very unlucky and they are very lucky??

Vinyl- I know you do pretty well as a rule....and I notice you stated something about 'strategy'....dont you just keep betting max in these tournies (given theres no point having coins left)??

*sigh* - I JUST WANNA WIN ONE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!

I used to do well, then MG "did something" to the tournament servers, and at the same time all MG casinos offering them had to redownload the tournament slots all over again. That same weekend, there were such severe technical issues with the tournaments that operators had to apologise, and some tournaments were extended. Since then, it has been all downhill, and I seem to have prolonged spells of naked spins on one continue to offset any good spell I have on another, and my scores on the weekender seem to have very little variance at all. The top players keep on hitting 50,000 to 60,000+ on the same number of coins that I can never get outside the range 25,000 to 45,000 on. To get those high scores, the slot has to play well throughout, and this just does not seem to happen for the tournament version.

This time, I had 22,000 from my first couple of rounds, but the other 4 only added a further 10,000 or so, as there were long spells of completely naked spins with only isolated wins. There ARE no really high payouts on Tomb Raider, unlike Thunderstruck, mainly because the second highest win only pays 2500 coins, and not 7,500 coins as on Thunderstruck. With such a flat game, it seems odd that the top scores are so high week in and week out. Since pretty much everybody uses all coins, it can't be to do with speed.

Last weekend, I hit a special pattern in the free spins, rarer than wild hammers on Thunderstruck, yet it paid a mere 15,000 coins, and still only had me at 8th place. Such a hit on Thunderstruck (wild hammers on free spins) pretty much guarantees first place due to the size of the payout, some 22,500 coins.

The ONLY strategy is to bet the max each spin, and spin as fast as possible, any other strategy will leave more coins unused than necessary. Each session has to be played in one go, so you can't even log off when the slot gives a few naked spins as one might do on the lobby games, perhaps coming back later.

[cheekymonkey]

Originally Posted by vinylweatherman

I used to do well, then MG "did something" to the tournament servers, and at the same time all MG casinos offering them had to redownload the tournament slots all over again. That same weekend, there were such severe technical issues with the tournaments that operators had to apologise, and some tournaments were extended. Since then, it has been all downhill, and I seem to have prolonged spells of naked spins on one continue to offset any good spell I have on another, and my scores on the weekender seem to have very little variance at all. The top players keep on hitting 50,000 to 60,000+ on the same number of coins that I can never get outside the range 25,000 to 45,000 on. To get those high scores, the slot has to play well throughout, and this just does not seem to happen for the tournament version.

This time, I had 22,000 from my first couple of rounds, but the other 4 only added a further 10,000 or so, as there were long spells of completely naked spins with only isolated wins. There ARE no really high payouts on Tomb Raider, unlike Thunderstruck, mainly because the second highest win only pays 2500 coins, and not 7,500 coins as on Thunderstruck. With such a flat game, it seems odd that the top scores are so high week in and week out. Since pretty much everybody uses all coins, it can't be to do with speed.

Last weekend, I hit a special pattern in the free spins, rarer than wild hammers on Thunderstruck, yet it paid a mere 15,000 coins, and still only had me at 8th place. Such a hit on Thunderstruck (wild hammers on free spins) pretty much guarantees first place due to the size of the payout, some 22,500 coins.

The ONLY strategy is to bet the max each spin, and spin as fast as possible, any other strategy will leave more coins unused than necessary. Each session has to be played in one go, so you can't even log off when the slot gives a few naked spins as one might do on the lobby games, perhaps coming back later.

I thought Eliot Jacobson summed tournies up here very well (Class II game characteristics):

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/210054-post2.html

I have always assumed that in a tourney, there will always be 1 player (or maybe 2 or maximum 3) who will hit the 5 wilds or 5 scatters in a free spins round to determine the winner.

i.e - The tourney will identify 1 winner as soon as they have entered, and whoever else has entered is just playing and will not win as the winner has already been 'chosen'.

Or maybe I'm just being silly?

[LOOKAWAY]

Hi i have to agree and disagree as the tournaments are free if you dont rebuy.
but i hate the rebuys also like you guys.

And simmo what kind off cp are you running there?

If i dont hit a bonus round or free spins on tomb raider ill have 20 secs left
If i dont hit free spins on thunder struck i will have anyware between 300-500coins left, This would be on the 5000 coin tourns.

I have to say i have had alot off luck in the $200@$50 tourns but none at all on the $20k big weekender as i have never come close to the money to even think off doin a rebuy. I play by the name off TIM7777.

Also i think that simmo must have a realy good cp which is all his doin and deserves the extra play time thats how the world works right.
My cp isnt all that bad at all so its hard on me because having an extra 40 secs on me in the $20k big weekender even if bonus rounds or a free spin round is won would mean that you could see a whloe free spin round more than me. Noteing that my free spin rounds take about 40 secs on average.

But im not complaining as i do ok anyway even if im up against it.

I used to think that it was the closer you lived to the servers the quicker your play would be.