Saturday and Sunday it returns like every two years Poker Tournament Directors Association Summit. This year the event has reached its eleventh edition and will be held in PokerGo Studio inside theAria Casino Las Vegas with the organization of PokerAtlas and the Tda associationof course, and the participation of CardPlayer Cruises and Faded Spade.
Matt Savage, one of the main members of the TDA, announced that over 200 people have already registered for the Summit: “Thank you to Mori Eskandari, Tim Duckworth and ARIA Poker Room for hosting the 11th Summit sponsored by Faded Spade and Card Player Cruises.” Then the assist for everyone: “Anyone who won’t be able to participate live but has something they think needs to be discussed, added to the rules or changed please let me know so it can be added to the PowerPoint document.”
The event starts at 9am on Saturday with a review of the current rules. After two hours of discussion there will be a short break and then it will continue until lunch at 1pm.
From 2pm the new rules will be voted on until 5pm and from 7pm to 11pm the Tda “Savage Average” Tournament will be played, the format which is based only on the average of the blinds based on the game levels without the time running.
On Sunday we resume at 9am for a couple of hours of discussion on standard procedures and new ideas to apply to poker tournaments to improve their playability and organisation.
Some requests to Savage have already arrived such as those from Winston Pring: “The biggest problem that needs to be solved in my opinion is casinos skipping levels. In practice it amounts to false advertising. Many casinos say their tournaments have 30 minute levels, but then skip the 500, 2500, 5000, 10k, 25k and 50k, 100kbb levels (or a combination of these levels). Everyone would be happier if they made these tournaments into 25 minute levels. They would end at the same time, but provide a much better gaming experience where there would be no 50% jumps in BB. Obviously it can’t be a hard rule, but TDA should suggest casinos to use all standard levels. Adding layers is fine, but layers should never be skipped, better to simply reduce the length of the layer. At a minimum we should play 200-300-400-500-600-800-1k-1.2k-1.5k-2k-2.5k-3k-4k-5k-6k-8k-10k-12k-15k (or 16k) 20k, 25k, 30k, 40k, 50k, 60k, 80k, 100k, etc. following the same pattern until the end. Other than early on, there should never be a 50% jump in the big blind.”
Obviously the TDA can only give basic rules and guidelines on how to resolve situations at the gaming table and in the organization of tournaments but what matters is only the rules of the gaming house. There is no single regulation of the game of poker at an international level and it has always been impossible to impose the best, which is precisely the TDA. Those who follow these guidelines, however, are able to successfully manage tournaments and all situations at the gaming table.
