EFF Benefit PokerCon

[Xodia]

Are people still interested in the idea of a Texas Hold'em tournament to benefit the EFF? I tried with the Riviera our first year, but that didn't work out. I would love to get something going at the Rio if possible.

Before I start seeing if this is even feasible, I would like to know if the community would still be interested in an event like this? Gambling for a good cause...you know you want to.

[Chris]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

Are people still interested in the idea of a Texas Hold'em tournament to benefit the EFF? I tried with the Riviera our first year, but that didn't work out. I would love to get something going at the Rio if possible.

Before I start seeing if this is even feasible, I would like to know if the community would still be interested in an event like this? Gambling for a good cause...you know you want to.

I mentioned this in the thread that ThePrez had going when he was trying to organize a pokercon last year. I am 100% interested in a Def Con poker tournament. 100% not interested in another EFF fundraiser. We are getting to the point where we should just change the name to EFF CON.

[Xodia]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

I mentioned this in the thread that ThePrez had going when he was trying to organize a pokercon last year. I am 100% interested in a Def Con poker tournament. 100% not interested in another EFF fundraiser. We are getting to the point where we should just change the name to EFF CON.

Haha, fair enough.

Honestly, the EFF angle was purely to make it more beneficial to the community circa 2007. That angle very well could have changed since then. I have no problems making it beneficial to any charity that we could come to a consensus on. A charitable cause is essential in my mind, whatever it may be.

The gods honest truth is, I just want a fun event for social engineers that enjoy poker.

[Club81]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

I'm down with some poker. Maybe it could be for the "Be the Match" bone marrow registry as they were at the CON last year. Or Hackers for Charity. Or the Las Vegas Boys & Girls Club. Or maybe let the winner pick the charity.

Does it even need to involve a charity? Not to take the "giving" out of it, but there was a poker tournament at Caesar's during Black Hat for the hacker community and I honestly don't remember if there was a charity involved.

[theprez98]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

Having gone through most of the steps to do this last year with the Riv, believe it or not, making it a charity event makes it even more difficult to pull off. You'd have to form a Nevada non-profit and give the money to another Nevada non-profit, or all hell will break loose. Well, not that far, but it's a tough thing to pull off.

Best bet is to find the person at the hotel who deals with this sort of stuff and start negotiating now (providing you get preliminary approval for the event by the event staff).

[Club81]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

Having gone through most of the steps to do this last year with the Riv, believe it or not, making it a charity event makes it even more difficult to pull off. You'd have to form a Nevada non-profit and give the money to another Nevada non-profit, or all hell will break loose. Well, not that far, but it's a tough thing to pull off.

Best bet is to find the person at the hotel who deals with this sort of stuff and start negotiating now (providing you get preliminary approval for the event by the event staff).

Perfect. Then let's just let Rio take their cut for blocking off tables, hosting, and pulling this off (dealers, supplies, etc...) and figure it out from there. I'm pretty sure the Black Hat event had the Caesar's poker room for 4 hours. It was a $200 buy-in. Just as an FYI.

[hexjunkie]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

I'm in same as last year. If not I'll try to get a Wednesday night thing going this time. Hoepfully I'll be sober enough to acutally see the cards :)

[Xodia]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

Well, thats enough interest for me to try.

I'll get in touch with event staff and make sure its alright. I know the Rio offers private tournaments, so cost will really be the only prohibitive factor if they are cool with the idea.

[arahel_jazz]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

If you want - I'll be at the Rio in March - I can inquire about a private tournament and costs.

What night would you think would be best?

[arahel_jazz]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

OK - here's the scoop:

I met with Jim Tinney who is the Rio Poker Room Manager (and a WSOP manager) this last Saturday.

The Rio poker room has 10 tables. That's it. They will gladly spread us a private MTT for anywhere between 20 and 80 people in the room. Anything larger, they would have to set it up at Caesars. As long as they have enough notification to bring in dealers (couple of weeks?), there will be no special charges for something of that size. If we want to do something bigger and keep it at the Rio - then it gets REALLY pricey, REAL quick (hall rental, special table setup fees... blah blah blah).

So, I propose the following:

DEFCON POKER 2011: $100 buy-in $15 service fee. (cheap - we can talk about making it more)
Hold it on Saturday night 8/6/2011 around 11:30PM - after Hacker Jeopardy or something like that.

Structure: 20-30 min blind levels, 2000 chips starting stack -- anything more and we will be there until 4AM. Blinds TBD.

Payout: TBD - probably pay top 10-15% based upon tournament size. The Rio can help us with that.

NO Charity - too much red tape. If the winner wants to donate a percentage of their winnings to EFF or their favorite charity - that is their option.

Jim was really great and as long as we just give them notice - it's all no extra charge (other than the standard tournament fees). The managers were all asking me if they should leave their cellphones on during DEFCON - I told them to leave everything at home that week. ;-)

OPTIONS: If we get a huge intrest early - like more than 100 runners - maybe we turn it into a three day with day 1 and 2 being shootouts where the winners play on day 3 for a lot of cash... this may be cool, but too ambitious for right now. Elsewize - we can take it over to Caesars if we want to do it big.

[TheCotMan]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

Xodia and arahel_jazz: Here is where we have some difficulty with planning as there are 2 proposals for PokerCon at Defcon. With both you would need to talk with the hotel/casino about space for this and follow-through. There is probably not enough room for both of these, unless one runs and finishes one day and the other runs and finishes another other day.

Because this is not in the Defcon contests space, the presentation rooms or covered by goons that control spaces, and will almost certainly be Unofficial.

I'll give you 2 weeks to sort out if one will run, or the other will run or you will cooperate and run on different days, or work together or something else, and if you have answers for this,I can make a forum for what will be running based on what you plan to do.

It is probably a good idea for there to be only one pokercon to avoid confusion.

If there is no discussion on this over two weeks, or only only one of you responds withing two weeks, then the first to respond with claiming plans to go forward with this will get a forum.

(Posting this reply to both threads.)

[Xodia]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

Xodia and arahel_jazz: Here is where we have some difficulty with planning as there are 2 proposals for PokerCon at Defcon. With both you would need to talk with the hotel/casino about space for this and follow-through. There is probably not enough room for both of these, unless one runs and finishes one day and the other runs and finishes another other day.

Because this is not in the Defcon contests space, the presentation rooms or covered by goons that control spaces, and will almost certainly be Unofficial.

I'll give you 2 weeks to sort out if one will run, or the other will run or you will cooperate and run on different days, or work together or something else, and if you have answers for this,I can make a forum for what will be running based on what you plan to do.

It is probably a good idea for there to be only one pokercon to avoid confusion.

If there is no discussion on this over two weeks, or only only one of you responds withing two weeks, then the first to respond with claiming plans to go forward with this will get a forum.

(Posting this reply to both threads.)

I fold on the concept of a PokerCon (PUN CITY). With the massive amount of pre-con events, and parties during the con itself, I really don't see where it can fit into the schedule. The Rio has Poker tournament sign ups every evening anyway, nothing is keeping a large group of con goers from just signing up all together. It just doesn't seem worth the cost for a private tournament in my mind when a flash-mob esque signup routine could eliminate the need for it.

If arahel_jazz wants to get something going its all good with me, best of luck, man!

You can read more about his proposed structure here.

[TheCotMan]

Re: EFF Benefit PokerCon

I fold on the concept of a PokerCon (PUN CITY). With the massive amount of pre-con events, and parties during the con itself, I really don't see where it can fit into the schedule. The Rio has Poker tournament sign ups every evening anyway, nothing is keeping a large group of con goers from just signing up all together. It just doesn't seem worth the cost for a private tournament in my mind when a flash-mob esque signup routine could eliminate the need for it.

If arahel_jazz wants to get something going its all good with me, best of luck, man!

You can read more about his proposed structure here.

Ok, thanks man. I'll close this thread for your idea then. If someone else wants to do something similar with a pokercon-related fund-raiser, they can start a new thread.