Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Non-premier/Unsanctioned Cash Tournaments?

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FMaholic

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Anyone ever try to organize one of these?

It seems feasible, and it seems like something that a lot of adult players would love.

Granted, no CP of course, since these would have to be non-premier/unsanctioned, but personally i would rather walk away with green.

Here's an example. $10 entry, that's reasonable.

Say 30 people enter.

$300 total

1st $125

2nd $50

3rd $25

4th gets their $10 back


Leaves $90 for the house, enoughly to fairly compensate a staff of 2-3 for the tourney (not much, but more than they get at normal tourneys)
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Why do they have to be unsanctioned?

I think you're confusing sanctioning with Premiere Events.
While all Premiere Events are sanctioned, not all sanctioned events are Premiere Events.
 
There's Premier, Sanctioned, and Unsanctioned.

Premier Tournaments are free and can earn you Championship Points.

Anyone can run an "unsanctioned" tournament, like your house game of poker. P!P just won't help you advertise it, and you can't use the Tournament Organizer Manager software to run it.

Sanctioned Tournaments can be run by approved Tournament Organizers, and can be publicized on the pokemon.com web site. They can even charge an entry fee, though usually that is meant to cover the cost of the venue and/or prizes.

I haven't yet heard of anyone running regular Sanctioned Tournaments for profit. For only 30 people, I wouldn't think a staff of 2-3 would even be necessary...the Tournament Organizer could run the tournament and Judge by him/herself. But attendees can do the math....would players begrudge an organizer from earning $90 for their trouble? Would P!P?
 
Excuse my vernacular misusage, but thanks for the education, "unsanctioned" has been edited to "non-premier".
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^^

The house can't legally take money. The money to compensate the venue must come from something else. Fund raising, out of pocket, or finding a free venue would be the obvious answers.
 
Ignatious said:
^^

The house can't legally take money. The money to compensate the venue must come from something else. Fund raising, out of pocket, or finding a free venue would be the obvious answers.
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The idea of this is nothing new.. This system is used for all sorts of competitions.

I'm simply proposing its application to Pokemon.

I'm no lawyer so I don't know how "illegal" this is (or why it would be), in my state or others, and if it is, which laws it breaks.
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^ This is because it walks a tightrope when it comes to gambling laws. Don't let that discourage you from making this happen, but also be wary of the consequences, and be sure to accommodate for your state's rules vis-a-vis "bets," "gambling," and so on.
 
I didn't even consider any gambling/betting laws yet. I think there's a discussion to be had before we worry about that, about what the players would think and what P!P would think.

In briefly searching, I happened to come across this thread where someone asked this very same question in 2009.
 
Cash tournaments wouldn't really translate for Pokemon like it does for M:tg and some other games. There is way more luck involved with this game. Not to say Pokemon isn't a skilful game, just that big $$ shouldn't be decided without best of 3 in the swiss rounds AND topcut
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A quick 5 minute Google search tells me that in some states this is 100% legal as is, in others it's borderline if the organizer makes money, in those states it would need to be winner(s) take all to remain clearly legal, not unlike an office/dorm March Madness Pool, if i can make a familiar comparison.
 
None of us are really qualified to determine if such an event is legal. Either way, POP wants nothing to do with this. Even in the case of a tournament where all of the money is redistributed to the players, we don't want to be associated with it.

To be clear:
Organizers may use our website to sanction tournament that have an entry fee.
Organizers may not use our website to sanction tournaments that have cash prizes.
This applies to all tournaments, not just Premier Events.

We cannot possibly monitor every tournament or league listed on our website. If you see a tournament that violates our sanctioning rules by offering cash prizes or by being held in an inappropriate location, such as somebody's house, please let us know by submitting a ticket via support.pokemon.com
 
losjackal said:
I didn't even consider any gambling/betting laws yet. I think there's a discussion to be had before we worry about that, about what the players would think and what P!P would think.

In briefly searching, I happened to come across this thread where someone asked this very same question in 2009.
Click to expand...

We know what the players think and it doesn't matter what P!P thinks. If you want to run your own private event, no one is going to stop you. Private tournaments have been ran for the Pokémon TCG long before & after any form of organized play existed. Regarding premier vs sanctioned vs non-sanctioned, the best choice is unsanctioned. I would highly recommend such an event be as distanced from P!P as possible. Distancing the event from P!P gives the hosts opportunities to run the tournament as they see fit. For example, we could allow 75-90 minutes for the top cut, we could allow ties in swiss to ensure the tournament is not held up, we could start every player with a 0-0 record - things we want at large tournaments, but are currently not getting. You could also do alternative or multiple formats, adjust the swiss time limits - tons of possibilities. You are not going to get any help from P!P trying to run a large tournament regardless of whether or not it is sanctioned. You are simply going to limit your options and deal with a bunch of nonsense.

Some friends & I toyed with this idea for about a year now and I am hoping by 2013 we'll see a large, privately-ran tournament in a large city like Chicago with an entry fee and big prizes. In fact, this is one of TheTopCut's, especially Kyle Sucevich's biggest goals for the game. If you want my opinion on how to do it, I'd have the event hosted by a large store (such as Troll & Toad or Collector's Cache) and have an entry fee between $20-$30/player. I would create separate age divisions - some people think it would be better to combine them, but what 13- kids want to play with adults? The high costs of a downtown venue would ideally be paid for by the revenue generated from selling Pokémon cards. The entry fees would cover the prizes. I do not think gambling laws are much of a concern. If any such laws exist in the state of the tournament, they are easily circumnavigated by guaranteeing a small prize to every player in exchange for their entry fee.
 
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Ness said:
We know what the players think and it doesn't matter what P!P thinks. If you want to run your own private event, no one is going to stop you. Private tournaments have been ran for the Pokémon TCG long before & after any form of organized play existed. Regarding premier vs sanctioned vs non-sanctioned, the best choice is unsanctioned. I would highly recommend such an event be as distanced from P!P as possible. Distancing the event from P!P gives the hosts opportunities to run the tournament as they see fit. For example, we could allow 75-90 minutes for the top cut, we could allow ties in swiss to ensure the tournament is not held up, we could start every player with a 0-0 record - things we want at large tournaments, but are currently not getting. You could also do alternative or multiple formats, adjust the swiss time limits - tons of possibilities. You are not going to get any help from P!P trying to run a large tournament regardless of whether or not it is sanctioned. You are simply going to limit your options and deal with a bunch of nonsense.

Some friends & I toyed with this idea for about a year now and I am hoping by 2013 we'll see a large, privately-ran tournament in a large city like Chicago with an entry fee and big prizes. In fact, this is one of TheTopCut's, especially Kyle Sucevich's biggest goals for the game. If you want my opinion on how to do it, I'd have the event hosted by a large store (such as Troll & Toad or Collector's Cache) and have an entry fee between $20-$30/player. I would create separate age divisions - some people think it would be better to combine them, but what 13- kids want to play with adults? The high costs of a downtown venue would ideally be paid for by the revenue generated from selling Pokémon cards. The entry fees would cover the prizes. I do not think gambling laws are much of a concern. If any such laws exist in the state of the tournament, they are easily circumnavigated by guaranteeing a small prize to every player in exchange for their entry fee.
Click to expand...


Beautiful, I knew I was not alone in desiring such a tournament system, P!P run, or otherwise. It's relieving to see that such influential players (at least to other players, if not to the game itself) are on board in creating such tournaments, and as it would seem have already begun the groundbreaking process of doing so.

Good call with the "door prize" idea, if you will.

Please keep us updated with any further information as this is most relevant to me as i'm sure it is to most others, as you've even made clear.



Pete De Shaw said:
None of us are really qualified to determine if such an event is legal. Either way, POP wants nothing to do with this. Even in the case of a tournament where all of the money is redistributed to the players, we don't want to be associated with it.

To be clear:
Organizers may use our website to sanction tournament that have an entry fee.
Organizers may not use our website to sanction tournaments that have cash prizes.
This applies to all tournaments, not just Premier Events.

We cannot possibly monitor every tournament or league listed on our website. If you see a tournament that violates our sanctioning rules by offering cash prizes or by being held in an inappropriate location, such as somebody's house, please let us know by submitting a ticket via support.pokemon.com
Click to expand...

I think you for your most useful contribution. There is no clearer answer than one from the source.
 
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I am currently talking with Behman Zakeri (owner of Collector's Cache) about running such an event. If Behman does not express interest, I plan on contacting Troll & Toad or any other vendor who expresses interest. The biggest issue is the venue cost. A downtown venue in a big city is going to cost at least $25,000 for the weekend. That means we need to expect a large turnout to cover the costs, and whether or not we can get such a turnout I am not sure. You have to keep in mind that players have States, Regionals (now two of these, too), Nationals, Worlds...there are so many tournaments you cannot expect most players to attend all of them. I worry that if players had to skip one or two that the private tournament would be the first to get the axe, and we wouldn't get the turnout we needed.
 
As Ness points out, you are certainly able to organize any tournament you want as long as you don’t involve POP or Pokemon. com. We really don’t want to ruin your fun; companies just have to be careful about these sorts of things.

It is the same reasoning that makes us ban all events held in private residences. There is a PTO who holds an annual tournament/BBQ/pool party at his house. He invites all the local players and their parents. This event is not only perfectly wholesome; it is an awesome promotion for organized play. I am absolutely certain that every one of those children is perfectly safe. I still just about swallowed my tongue when I saw that he had sanctioned an event held in a private residence on our website. Words were had; won’t happen again. Unfortunately that is just the way the world works.
 
Ness said:
I am currently talking with Behman Zakeri (owner of Collector's Cache) about running such an event. If Behman does not express interest, I plan on contacting Troll & Toad or any other vendor who expresses interest. The biggest issue is the venue cost. A downtown venue in a big city is going to cost at least $25,000 for the weekend. That means we need to expect a large turnout to cover the costs, and whether or not we can get such a turnout I am not sure. You have to keep in mind that players have States, Regionals (now two of these, too), Nationals, Worlds...there are so many tournaments you cannot expect most players to attend all of them. I worry that if players had to skip one or two that the private tournament would be the first to get the axe, and we wouldn't get the turnout we needed.
Click to expand...

Have you perhaps considered a venue that isn't so much of a "do or die" situation? Plenty of suburban towns/cities have convention centers that must be leagues cheaper than a downtown Chicago location to lease/rent for the weekend. It seems that a smaller location would be the way to go at first, and if for the first event it seems that the inital venue is too small and you will need to grow for future ones--well, I can think of worse problems to have than that.
 
Pete De Shaw said:
As Ness points out, you are certainly able to organize any tournament you want as long as you don’t involve POP or Pokemon. com. We really don’t want to ruin your fun; companies just have to be careful about these sorts of things.

It is the same reasoning that makes us ban all events held in private residences. There is a PTO who holds an annual tournament/BBQ/pool party at his house. He invites all the local players and their parents. This event is not only perfectly wholesome; it is an awesome promotion for organized play. I am absolutely certain that every one of those children is perfectly safe. I still just about swallowed my tongue when I saw that he had sanctioned an event held in a private residence on our website. Words were had; won’t happen again. Unfortunately that is just the way the world works.
Click to expand...

Pete, I have an important question for you if you don't mind answering here for other PTOs & players to read:

One fear I've had is that Organized Play may actually be against this kind of tournament if it gets too large. I recently heard a story of a Yu-gi-Oh PTO who hosted his own, large private tournament. His PTO status was subsequently revoked. I guess Yu-Gi-Oh's Organized Play worries that something bad can happen at a private event that would then damage the game's reputation. While they could not legally stop him from hosting his own tournament, it was clear the company did not want this tournament to happen and thus revoked his PTO status.

Should we expect the same type of reaction from Play! Pokémon if a private tournament was to become large enough? What I'm basically asking is: Do you guys frown upon this? If a PTO was helping run such an event, is he in jeopardy of losing his PTO status? If I attempt to promote such an event, am I going to Fed-Ex'd a ban letter stapled to a horse's head?

FMaholic said:
Have you perhaps considered a venue that isn't so much of a "do or die" situation? Plenty of suburban towns/cities have convention centers that must be leagues cheaper than a downtown Chicago location to lease/rent for the weekend. It seems that a smaller location would be the way to go at first, and if for the first event it seems that the inital venue is too small and you will need to grow for future ones--well, I can think of worse problems to have than that.
Click to expand...

Remember, we are trying to draw a large turnout. Afterall, what fun would come from another 100-person tournament? We have dozens of those a year. You are not going to get a 500-person event by hosting it in Podunk, Iowa. You want a large city because it appeals to people as a vacation. Big cities are fun. They give people who aren't as die-hard about Pokémon another excuse to travel.
 
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Ness said:
Pete, I have an important question for you if you don't mind answering here for other PTOs & players to read:

One fear I've had is that Organized Play may actually be against this kind of tournament if it gets too large. I recently heard a story of a Yu-gi-Oh PTO who hosted his own, large private tournament. His PTO status was subsequently revoked. I guess Yu-Gi-Oh's Organized Play worries that something bad can happen at a private event that would then damage the game's reputation. While they could not legally stop him from hosting his own tournament, it was clear the company did not want this tournament to happen and thus revoked his PTO status.

Should we expect the same type of reaction from Play! Pokémon if a private tournament was to become large enough? What I'm basically asking is: Do you guys frown upon this? If a PTO was helping run such an event, is he in jeopardy of losing his PTO status? If I attempt to promote such an event, am I going to Fed-Ex'd a ban letter stapled to a horse's head?



Remember, we are trying to draw a large turnout. Afterall, what fun would come from another 100-person tournament? We have dozens of those a year. You are not going to get a 500-person event by hosting it in Podunk, Iowa. You want a large city because it appeals to people as a vacation. Big cities are fun. They give people who aren't as die-hard about Pokémon another excuse to travel.
Click to expand...


I understand your point, let me cite the Chicago Marathon--it was called the Chicago Marathon, but none of the tournaments actually took place inside of the Chicago city limits.

You could still advertise it as being a "Chicago" tournament, as the marathon was, and host it in the Convention Center or something of a neighboring community, many of which should still be able to host hundreds of people no problem while saving lots of cash over a downtown location.
 
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