MG Tourneys

[Nifty29]

Hey Gang

When the MG tourneys first came out, they were designed to give all entrants a chance i.e. small continue cost/number of continues, and very limited buy-ins. When one received a 'free' entry as a prize it actually meant you had a chance to win.

However, it is clear that tourneys are no longer formulated to allow the average player to win. Big spenders can more-or-less buy themselves top spot or the best prizes, which IMO defeats the whole purpose of having tourneys in the first place.

Could you imagine if a poker room changed their tourneys to allow players to keep re-buying any amount of chips they can afford at any time, even on the final table? How p*ssed would you be if you were the chip leader and bumped an opponent out, only to have them buy back in with the same amount of chips as you? I'm sure there would be outrage - after all, it gives those with large bankrolls an almost unbeatable advantage.

The whole idea of a tournament (at least I thought) was that everyone paid the entry fee and started with the same amount of credits/chips, and the last player standing was the winner. Yes, you can rebuy during the first hour in some poker tourneys but it resets your chips to the starting amount. In comparison, the slot tourneys allow you to just keep 'buying chips' over and over and adding them to your stack.

Anyway, IMO the MG casinos have lost their way with the tourney idea and they could learn a lot from the RTG tourney setup....at least your $5 is as good as the next persons and everyone has an equal chance. Obviously the prizes are smaller, but let's face it, the average player has no chance of winning the huge MG prizes anyway unless they are prepared to spend $100's to give themselves a decent shot.

On the subject of 'FREE' tourney entries...well they really aren't worth taking up IMO. A recent example was the 32RED Monthly Monster promo here at CM (for the record I think 32Red are the best but they got it wrong with this one). A tourney was held (FREE) and the top 10 all received a FREE entry to the monthly monster which would normally cost $25 (?). On the face of it, it is a good prize - until you find out that you can buy 10 continues and a huge amount of rebuys @$20. In fact, if you want to win anything decent, you have to use the 10 continues...and even then you may not make a profit. So, the FREE entry you won was really worth nothing because you would have to spend $200+ on top of that to give yourself a chance. I think the better option would have been just to have a CM only tourney with $200 in prizes - no continues, no rebuys.

The tourney offer below is what prompted me to write this post and you can probably see why:

Prize: 3,000 casino credits and a double cruise ticket
Start Time: 12 November 00h00 GMT
End Time: 16 November 23h59 GMT
Game: Spring Break
Buy In: Free
Re-buys: 10 @ $20 each
Continues: 100 @$20 each
How to take part? 1. Click the Enter Here button
2. Select Games view
3. Select the Tournaments tab
4. Select the Slots tab
5. Select the Int Casino Games tab
6. Select ICG Invite Only – Week 7 and join

Ummm, I think I'll pass on this one.

[kujis]

Lmao. Yeah, these are far from free. And if its just a tournament with the regular small win, most likely even if you get the first spot, you will win less than you already spent on purchasing rebuys Unless you get super lucky and get lots of 5 wilds etc.

Another reason I'm not playing tourneys they're always the same 4 games. Hitman, Avalon, Loaded or Tomb Raider. Sick of those already. Why not use their new games? A Dolphin Coast or Mad Dash tourney would be interesting for a change.

[Perc]

That's better than the ones with 9999 continues. Free MG tourneys are pretty much useless. They sound good, being "free", but with thousands of continues there is no way you will win on just the free entry.

In their defense, many MG casinos now have different types of tourneys, including the "One Shot" with no continue or rebuy options, though I have not seen a free tournament of that type yet.

CWC is the only casino I've seen with the One Shot free tournaments, but they obviously can't hold them very often because there is no income from them at all. They are literally just giving money away with those.

So it seems MG casinos are at least listening a little bit with the new tourney types, but you can't expect them to hold as many "free" tournaments as they do without being able to make some money from them. The tournaments that cost money to enter are improving quite a bit IMO.

The problem with holding 'free' tournaments like the one you mentioned is that many people will only play for free and never even consider paying. If these people keep winning and never put anything back, the free tournaments would stop. The continue and rebuy options are there so the casino can make money and keep offering the so-called free tournaments on a regular basis. I know everyone wants something for nothing, but the casinos can only afford to give away so much.

The number of continues available depends on the size of the prize. They need people to try to buy their way to the top so that they can afford to give away the prize that is offered. I'm sure they make quite a bit of money on most of the tourneys, but they must take a loss here and there too.

If there were no continues and no rebuys, the entry fee would have to be high enough to cover the prize, and a high minimum amount of players would be needed. The big money tournaments would be tough for people to afford and I can see many being cancelled due to lack of players. The way it is now, you get to play in the big tourneys for free, but if you want to have a chance at winning, you'll have to spend the money to climb the leaderboard.

[De Beuker]

I agree with you on this one Nifty, MG tourneys are a joke in most cases.
Not only because of the continue options, those suck indeed, but also because of the timer.
The timer makes the tourneys even more unfair, as it gives people with a stable internetconnection and a fast PC an even bigger advantage over the rest of the field.
I'm not talking about a few spins more, I'm talking about ppl playing TWICE the amount of spins most other ppl can play.
A high-end videocard and 8GB of memory can do miracles.

And thats also the problem with RTG tourneys, I mean, WHY is there a timer in RTG tourneys??
Just disable the bloody thing and there you go, same chances for everyone.
15.000 coins for every player, who cares how long it takes to finish them?

Now, if you play a paid tourney and your internetconnection drops, or your PC thinks its cool to do a spontanous reboot, or if the casinoserver fails, you can kiss your money goodbye. The timer keeps counting down.
Slow spinning reels? Bad luck, bye!

Vegas Tech casinos have BY FAR the best and most fair tournaments.
No timers, no rebuys or continues, just a starting balance, which is usually $50.- and try to make it as much as possible.
Just like normal play, you can wager your winnings too, so it comes down to self control and tactics, for example, you sit on place 10, and a few hours later you moved up 3 spots because other players got greedy and lost a part of their balance.

Such a bummer I cannot play at VT casinos, banned country...

[colly]

Agree with most of the comments . Massive rebuys are like entering comps where the top wagerer is thewinner- pretty much buy the prize. I have seen some leader boards where the residual coins balance is at least 15 times the original coins given- what makes no sense is in some of these cases the prize if won, wouldn't cover the costs of the rebuys or continues.

There are a few where wins possible eg lucky nugget invite only, but these are few and far between as they are NO purchase or rebuy tournaments.

I would rather have tournaments with a flat entry fee and no rebuys or continues available.

[chayton]

I play a lot of tourneys and although I'll play the free ones with multiple rebuys when I'm bored, I refuse to buy even a single continue if they have more than 5 or if the $ amount of playing the continues is more than the top tourney prize - 100 continues at $2 for a $50 top prize? That's just not smart gambling IMO.

So basically the casinos that offer those multiple continues have quit seeing my money going into the pool.

[steveh35]

I play the tourneys and have only won on Gaming Clubs I won the equivalent of £50 and £25 in loyalty points and didnt have to do many continues to do so. I usually try and win more than I have deposited in normal casino play and use the extra to play continues.

On the subject of the cruise tourney I played yesterday (It was Ladies Night slot) and got to 17 place without an add on which is still in a prize place - yes I am unlikely to stay in a prize winning position but it can happen.

The annoying thing is with them you have to get a huge win or a free spins feature to stand any chance.

I agree about the variety of games a big example this week was 32red having a day of 10 tourneys all Tomb Raider surely they are missing out on a big trick to promote new games or even promote games that are not very popular.

Also they need to iron out the annoying delaying parts of games ie Hitman when you get free spins all the intro titles take up about 30 seconds.

Tourneys though are very good at showing you whether the game is a good payer look at the points won on Thunderstruck tourneys compared to Loaded.

[ksech]

Back when I had an account with Royal Joker (it seems like years instead of months), I liked playing the Tomb Raider free play tournaments. But didn't they have only 1 buy in and a limited amount of time?