UB to relaunch new Tournament Blackjack schedule

Can these tournaments be played via UB's instant play version of their software (no download)?? TIA

Edited to add: The reason I ask this question is that it is 15 minutes till 1pm PDT and I can't see the tournament games via the instant play version of UB.

I don't know what is going on with the software, but after I sign on to the instant play version of UB I can only see games under the 'ring games' tab under blackjack. The 'tournaments" and 'sit and go' tab are "dark" to me and don't show any games under them??

UB only offers blackjack tournaments/sngs and the mixed poker game tournaments/sngs thru its PC version, not on Mac or Instant Play at this time.

Personally I have a Mac but use VMware to run Windows XP & load the UB PC version to play. We should see full functionality for all games sometime later this year....

-hd.

Thanks for the update on this. I switched over to using the IP version of UB just last week after my system warned me that there was malware on the regular UB site ... so I deleted the regular software and switched over to using the IP.

OK guys, here it is. I waited an extra day to release this info because I wanted to be 100% sure on some things, and it looks like there is some good news & bad news to report:

First, the bad news. Thanks to the 11th-hour testing some of you helped me with last week, we discovered a small issue in the way our payouts are being reported in the tournament lobbies that needs to be fixed before we can officially launch things.

Basically, one of the things I've changed from the old BJTs you may have played is the way players are awarded finishing position. It used to be, for instance, that in a tourney that awards prizes for the top 9 spots, finishers 1-6 at the final table would receive their corresponding prize, but finishers 7-9 would end up being awarded to the 3rd-place players at the semifinal table (assuming 3 SF tables advance 2 each to the FT of 6) in what I considered to be an unfair order (ie, arbitrarily awarding 7th, 8th and 9th place to players based on final chipcounts or what hand they made it to before being eliminated, etc). I changed this so that these 3rd-place SF players would all finish in an equal TIE for 7th-place position, rather than trying to determine who to specifically award 7th/8th/9th place to.

Sounds good, right? Development made the changes for me, and as you may have noticed during testing last week, if you finish in the money before reaching the final table, players finish in a series of ties corresponding to how far they made it. So all 3rd place players at the SF tables tied for a spot, all 4th place players tie, etc etc. However -- and this is the small issue that's holding the launch up -- the actual prize breakdown listed in the tournament lobby still lists individual prizes for all finishing spots! So in the example above, where 9 places pay, there are actually separate prizes listed for spots 7, 8 and 9 -- even though the three players finishing in those spots end actually end up in a TIE for position.

We wanted to test the default logic the system uses to award prizes in that scenario, and found that it was doing the appropriate thing -- taking an average of the 3 individual prizes & awarding the money evenly to players. So that's good. But unfortunately it created a lot of confusion, as players finishing in a tie have no way of knowing exactly what they win until after they're awarded a random amount of money, then have to manually add up 7th/8th/9th place money, divide by 3, etc. The tournament lobby SHOULD be displaying prizes for finishers 1-6, and then ONE prize amount for 7th-9th, not 3. Get it? And obviously it only got more confusing when satellite seats were involved, and lets say 8 seats were beind awarded, but 3 players were tied for the last 2. Confusing!

So, long story short, UB decided they needed to fix this prize display issue before it could officially launch our new schedule. I've been given estimates from the Development team of about a month to do the permanent fix & run appropriate testing on things, so its not the end of the world. Personally I pushed for us to launch as-is since I know most of you guys here would understand the logic behind these unique prize breakdowns, but ultimately the goal is to attract as wide an audience as possible for these new events & confusing new players in their first BJT experience would potentially turn them off from returning... something none of us wants.


SO! Time to get to the GOOD news!! I can officially release the new schedule we've all been waiting for, which will be in place when the new launch happens just as soon as the prize display issue is resolved. Here's what I've crafted:

DAILY GUARANTEES:
$100 ($5.50 entry)
$250 ($11 entry)
$500 ($27.50 entry, or play a satellite for $4.40)
$1000 ($55 entry, or play a satellite for $6.60)

WEEKLY GUARANTEES:
Wednesday $2500 ($130 entry, or play a satellite for $16.50)
Sunday $5000 ($215 entry, or play satellites for $5.50, $22 & $33)

MONTHLY GUARANTEE:
Replacing the Weekly $5k on the last Sunday of the month:
Monthly $10,000 ($320, or play satellites for $5.50, $33 & $44)

PLUS! FREEROLLS:
Mon-Fri Freerolls awarding seats to Main Freeroll on Saturday, where seats are given away to the big Sunday events!

ALSO:
As a thank-you for everyone's continued patience (and hopefully some more help with a final round of testing in a few weeks!), there will be a series of freerolls giving away additional cash and/or seats to big events for the first few weeks of the new launch!

*** AND SPECIAL LVA EXCLUSIVE *** i am working on a round of added-money tournaments similar to the Pokertube ones currently on UB that offer added-money prizepools! Anthony will decide on how to award seats, most likely a password situation or other LVA-exclusive qualifiers he can give you details on as soon as things are settled ***


So.... that's it for now. Thanks again everyone, rock on --

-hd.

Just met with Hollywood. Things are looking good, though delayed (again) for a bit. I think we're talking about a few weeks till actually being able to play. Even though I'm highly confident this will happen, I don't want to encourage anyone to put up money yet. It looks like the optimal deposit will be $1,171, as that will yield a $128 maximum bonus (I reserve the right to amend this if I'm not understanding our own deal properly). But there's no reason to part with the money until it's time to play. I know more about the whole effort now, so feel free to ask any questions you may have.

I thought that might have been wrong. Apparently a $1,171 deposit returns a $1,300 bonus. Now, there are things to consider, including how fast the money converts from dormant bonus bucks to live money and the time you have to complete the conversion. We'll discuss these things as we go.

Problem I've got (and would bet a few others do, too) is a lack of understanding as to how the "bonus" translates into real $$$. Spent quite a bit of time on UB's poker side trying to find out but apparently didn't come across the right page. I figured it has something to do with cycling real $$$ through tournament play but am clueless as to conversion rate, etc.

Bonus dollars convert as you accumulate 'Status Points' on UB.... all the info can be found by clicking the 'RAI$E' link in the UB.com main page, then on the sections to the left labeled 'STATUS Points' & 'Bonus Dollars' : http://www.ub.com/raise-loyalty/earn-climb/bonus-dollars & http://www.ub.com/raise-loyalty/earn-climb/status-points

Basically, you earn 1 Status point for every $0.30 in vig you pay the site as part of rake in a real-money poker game, or as the % of vig you pay the house for a BJ tourney or sng (for instance, for the $120+10 weekly $2500 guarantee BJT, you are paying $120 into the prize pool and $10 in vig to UB). At the outset, you'll need 20 Status Points to release $1 of bonus, which means after spending $6 in rake, you get $1 back (bonus released in $5 increments to your acct). However, after you've accumulated different TOTAL levels of Status points, you advance in levels of the Status program & receive many other benefits on the site, including freeroll entries to events as well as the ability to actually convert bonus dollars at a premium rate of $1 for 17 points (instead of 20), which means you can ultimately expect to receive $1 back for every $5.10 you spend on rake.

This ~20% refund on rake is similar to the comp programs we are all familiar with. But if you're gonna play on the site, might as well get a partial refund on the rake you're already paying for as long as possible -- hence why juicing your acct with the most bonus dollars possible makes tons of sense. Bonus Dollars have a shelf life of 60 days before expiring, but there are reload-bonus offers that show up every few weeks to allow you to keep reloading with fresh bonus dollars. Good thing is, the 1st-time deposit bonus is always so much more lucrative than the reload offers, so it makes sense to put the big investment down all at once, once the new schedule officially launches & you determine how many events you actually foresee yourself playing.

I've set Anthony up with one of the best 1st time deposit offers available on the site, but i suspect he'll wait to make that announcement until we have confirmation on exact start date & finish setting LVA up with their own unique promotional tourneys, so check back in the next few weeks for more details

-hd.

OK, thanks, Dave. Think I've got it. As suspected, I hadn't found the right page for an explanation. Oops.