Today begins the 3rd online gold point regional. The early support your club games drew so many players that pairs needed to register 90 minutes early to secure a spot. In April, the first online gold point regional was so popular that BBO crashed for many. The June regional was also super successful, at 552 tables for the kickoff Super Gold Rush session.
Are The Games Still Big?
Short answer, yes. We still have large demand, and mostly concentrated in the Golden Sunshine Gold Rush Pairs. A whopping 737 tables competed!! Logistically, the tournament ran as two separate 360 table games. But that was simply a software load balancing (and director load balancing?). The ultimate overall results treat it as one combined event.
How About The Non Gold Rushers?
The High-Tide Top Flight Pairs game had 89 tables, which is an improvement from Strawberry Ice Cream Open Pairs at 79 tables. By the way, I know there exist some naysayers, but I applaud whoever comes up with these event names. You gotta appreciate the creativity and attempt at keeping to a fun theme.
The Sandcastle Mid Flight pairs had 138 tables, compared to Blue Butterfly Mid-Flight in June with only 90 tables. Excellent news so far – the games are larger for all stratifications, and concentrated mostly in the gold rush. As we write this, with 5 minutes to go before 5:15pm, the evening schedule Gold Rush already has over 500 entries (250+ tables). It seems morning is more popular among the gold rushers (so you should do evening if you can!).
How Much Do You Get For Winning a 737 Table Gold Rush?
What is the prize? We expect it will be 24.98 gold for first overall of 737 tables. Why is it less than the 552 table game from June? Because June was a SUPER Gold Rush, with a masterpoint limit of 0-1250. It pays about 10% more than a normal gold rush. Which just goes to show, even though the game today had 33% more players, the prize increase was minimal.
Unfortunately, the way the masterpoints formula works for large games, we all get more points by splitting into separate, smaller games. Especially once the table count crosses 60 when the marginal entry adds increasingly less to the prize pool.