Hello everyone! My name is Scott Merritt and I wanted to come in and get some of your valuable opinions on a concept that I am starting in January, 2012. A good friend an I, who are avid cash game and tournament players, are going to start up a regional poker tour covering Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri called the Tri-State Poker Tour. My partner and I want to develop a more affordable poker experience here in the Midwest without having buy-ins and entry fees that are out of the average poker players budget. I know January, 2012 seems a long way off, but we will need time to contract all the tournaments with the casinos, work out the details, address any concerns with the gaming commissions in each state, and make sure the scheduling does not conflict with other events the casinos already have in place.

With the Heartland Poker Tour charging $1100 to $1650 and WSOP Circuit Events going $1600 up to $5K, we are aiming at a more affordable level around the $6-700 range for our tournaments. We feel that this puts our Tournaments right around the middle of the pack which would be lower than the Heartland and WSOP circuit events but higher than the $2-300 regular house events that most poker rooms host on occasion.

We are currently looking at enlisting 4 casinos per state (12 total) with each casino hosting 3 tourneys each per year or 36 tourneys a year altogether. Each state will also host a State Championship Tournament with each state champion being crowned getting a cash prize plus a WSOP Main Event seat and the privilege to represent their respective state. State championships will rotate around to each casino in the state each year to be fair to all the poker rooms we go to. Similar to the other tours and circuit events, there will be qualifiers the week of the tournament and the will consist of standard, shootout, and bounty style formats to add a little variety. We will also have a mystery bounty in each tournament. No one will know who the mystery bounty will be except the dealer at the selected bounty's table. A free entry will be given to the player who collects the bounty which can be used at any tournament we host except the state championships.

Now, I know true poker players will frown on this but we are also looking into possibility of acquiring virtual poker tables to be able to bring in tournaments to those facilities that do not have a large enough poker room or even have a poker room at all to handle tournaments. These require no dealers or chips and can be setup anywhere like a convention hall, meeting room, or similar areas. This may not happen the first year but with the technology that is expanding faster than you can follow it, nothing is out of reach.

Some of the input gathered from the players and poker room managers from all three states that we have spoken to over the past several months have given us some very positive feedback, but we are still looking for more input from those players who frequent these larger buy-in tournaments. I appreciate any and all input you all may have, positive or negative, or if you have a favorite poker room that you play at that may be interested in having us come in and host an event, please let us know.

Any specific questions can be posted here or you can send me an e-mail at mer071898@mchsi.com

Virtual poker tables??? What? As far as I know, the tri-state area has no shortage of poker rooms, at least not in Iowa, we got poker everywhere. Any of these events going to be in Meskwaki (They have an amazing poker room and people 18+ can play).

Hope you can get this worked out, because yeah, HPT is WAY WAY expensive.

Originally Posted by KnightofNarg

HPT is WAY WAY expensive.

As expensive as it is, they do have satellites. I played a turbo into a satellite and then I won a seat into a $1,600 event (sadly busted in the first hour playing dumb)

When you said tri state, I thought NY, NJ CONN

Virtual poker tables??? What? As far as I know, the tri-state area has no shortage of poker rooms, at least not in Iowa, we got poker everywhere. Any of these events going to be in Meskwaki (They have an amazing poker room and people 18+ can play).

Hope you can get this worked out, because yeah, HPT is WAY WAY expensive.

I know, I'm not fond of virtual tables either, but there is a guy in Australia that make a virtual table that is actually pretty cool looking and seems extremely well thought out. There is also a company in Europe called Real Table that has a virtual table with virtual chip movement with actual chip sounds (I know it's still not the same, but it helps). Unfortunately, you can't run a MTT on either of them yet as they are setup only for single table SNG tournaments only.

Yes, we are in talks with Meskwaki and also Prairie Meadows, The Horseshoe in Council Bluffs, and several others. Also waiting to see if the new Grand Falls Casino Resort in Larchwood (opening in Summer 2011) will have a poker room too. The toughest part is finding a poker room that can handle that size of a tournament. Scott at Diamond Jo's in Northwoods only has 7 tables but can set up 24 tables in an outer conference area. Same with Zack at the Argosy in Sioux City, he doesn't have a huge poker room, but they can set up to 50 tables on the lower deck, which would be an ideal place for the state championships to be held. In Missouri, the Harrah's in St. Louis has 24 tables and is the host for Dennis Phillips "The Final Table" radio show. So there are plenty of rooms out there, it's just more of a matter of contracts and scheduling.

As expensive as it is, they do have satellites. I played a turbo into a satellite and then I won a seat into a $1,600 event (sadly busted in the first hour playing dumb)

When you said tri state, I thought NY, NJ CONN

We will have some satellite tourneys as well, although not as heavy of a schedule like the Heartland does, mainly because we are a smaller tour. Even though $6-700 bucks is more palatable to some, it is still a chunk of cash and satellites do allow you the chance to test the waters and helps build the entry base for the main event. I'm Sorry Jarr3tt88 that this is not in your neck of the woods, but if this goes well as expected, I plan on franchising this out to other states.

Another gentleman in one of the other forums suggested maybe a rewards program for those who will frequently play these tournaments and I thought that would be a cool idea since Full Tilt, Poker Stars, WPT, WSOP, NAPT, or the Heartland Poker Tour have anything like this. Maybe you could earn 1 point for every tournament entered, a bonus point for cashing, and another bonus point for a tournament win. The hard part is how many points would be a fair amount to earn a free tournament entry, 10? 20? 50? Any thoughts?

State championships at the Argosy would be awesome, since that's in my hometown.
I used to work there and quite a few people I know still work there (my mom included), so if I need to harass some people to make it happen, I will!

I hope Meskwaki is a yes, since it is such a FANTASTIC poker room, my favorite room. They even have a high stakes room (Maybe someday).

State championships at the Argosy would be awesome, since that's in my hometown.
I used to work there and quite a few people I know still work there (my mom included), so if I need to harass some people to make it happen, I will!

I hope Meskwaki is a yes, since it is such a FANTASTIC poker room, my favorite room. They even have a high stakes room (Maybe someday).

Being the first year of the tour, I can't make any guarantees. But if they are willing to set up to 50 tables, they are definitely a front runner.

When I spoke to the poker room manager at the Argosy, he said that if the Horseshoe runs a tournament that he might not do it and I told him that we would make sure not to schedule the tournaments too close together from each casino that they wouldn't clash and pull business away from each other.

I know the Heartland is already coming to Tama next month on 3/27, but they have no idea on the 2012 dates, so I figured I would head up there to chat with the owners of the Heartland to see if I can possibly use their production crew to televise the state championship final table, as long as it doesn't conflict with their schedule.

I'm also trying to get some higher stakes cash game tables opened up at the casinos when we host for those players who want to gamble. Most are running 1/2 NL, 2/4 NL, and 3/6 limit around here and I'd like to see them run some 5/10 NL cash games for those players who stay after the daily qualifiers and the main tournament.

Just a little update, we have had some positive feedback from 6-7 casinos who are definitely interested in having us hosting our tournaments. I have meetings with 3 more next week to show my proposal, address any concerns, and finalize details.

I've also contacted some special event insurance companies, the same type of companies who do the hole in one contests, to inquire about some pricing for my events. If they can do it and if the price is reasonable, I'm going to offer anyone who wins a regular Tri-State Tour event, then wins a State Championship, then goes on to reach the final table at the WSOP Main Event, a $1,000,000 bonus! If you go on to win the WSOP Main Event, we will DOUBLE your WSOP Main Event winnings!!!!

ok

I wanted to pose another question to everyone. I had a question messaged to me the other day.

Q. Will all the tournaments will use two flights and how do you determine the max amount of entries?

A. I am using two flights, Flight A on Saturday morning for most of the direct buy-in players and will assign Flight B for those players who won their entries through the qualifiers during the week, along with any last minute direct buy-ins, to try and keep both flights as even as possible. We will take the top 10 from each flight and bring them in Sunday after Flight B for the final two tables. I am also going to have a last chance qualifier on Saturday after Flight A for those who want to take one last crack at squeezing in. This is going to be the standard schedule to maximize the entries for each venue. The maximum entries per flight will be the maximum number of players that can be fit in the poker room. If the poker room has 10 tables with the ability to fit 10 players at a table, the maximum entries for each flight is 100 players or 200 players total for the tournament. I don't like to limit the maximum amount of entries, but you have to remember that this is our first year and we don't want to get overwhelmed until we get our feet wet.

I just want to be fair to everyone. Does this seem fair enough for everyone? If anyone has any other suggestions, they will be evaluated before any final decisions are made.