Anthony Martino
Royal Flush
Would've happened sooner but the three owners were tough to nail down during the WSOP so we just got it done this past week.
It's a smaller 7-table room that generally sees 1-table of action each day.
My goal is to approach this completely the opposite of The Lodge, which seems to heavily focus on advertising to traveling grinders and high-stakes players (i.e. people who don't make the games better and a 100/200 NLH player pays you the same seat fee as a 1/2 NLH player but expects a personal host, free food and special treatment)
My goal with Georgetown is to market it to locals, rather than traveling grinders. I've already had some success reaching out to various groups and organizations I'd like to bring into the room
SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
A local 4-year college which has multiple fraternities, sororities, clubs and organizations. I've already heard back from a Sorority interested in attending an Invitational Poker Tournament where we put up the prizes and they come in to check us out. They can bring 30-35 ladies to participate. In addition the Coordinator of Student Activities (who works for the University) got wind I was contacting all the different clubs and reached out to me and is excited about doing some Invitational events for the student body, so wants to help me reach them.
We could do some livestream competitions between fraternities and sororities, cheerleaders vs the pom squad, chess club vs esports club, etc. But this will permit us to reach a younger demographic that will help share us on multiple social media platforms
SUN CITY
A community of 15,000 over 55 residents. There were a number of residents who used to attend the club but at some point many of them went off and formed their own poker club within their community. I reached out to them but they weren't interested in participating.
But, there's more than one way to skin a cat. The community management itself is onboard in helping us promote an Invitational Poker Tournament for their residents. So they'll put up digital flyers on their electronic poster boards in all their amenity centers as well as pushing it in their weekly e-blast two weeks prior to an event.
This is a group of people with disposable income AND time so could be a huge win for us
VFW/AMERICAN LEGION
Spoke with the Commander of the local post, mid-August they have a members meeting and will bring up their participation in an Invitational event. Military guys enjoy poker AND they tend to have strong, deep bonds with friends and family. So they could share that we're going to have a livestream of an event they could appear on so people tune in and become aware we exist.
I have tons of other ideas as far as various groups to connect with, won't go into all of them here.
In addition I'm looking to build sustainable lower stakes games with "fun players" rather than appeal to the headphone wearing misregs with their perpetual scowls. The Lodge can have all the pros, I don't want em!
I will be looking into adding some fun daily tournaments for people to play as well. Current ownership has been out of touch with their membership, they have a "ring" event today where they are hosting a "rebuy frenzy" $200 buyin with add-on as well. This doesn't target their demographic, so I expect it to not go great (I participated in a ring event awhile back and we had 1 table for it)
So I think putting in some lower buyin events, freezeouts or 1 optional rebuy events, etc. will appeal more to their customer base.
In addition I noticed a LOT of local rooms see their tournaments getting chopped 4 ways, 9 ways, etc. This tells me the players aren't comfortable with the top-heavy payouts and the pay jumps.
I'll be looking to flatten payouts and pay a larger percentage of the field than 10%. This has a two-pronged effect:
1. Recreational players are happy as a pig in shit just to cash an event, and it distributes the money more evenly throughout the poker economy, which results in those players returning and putting that money back into rotation
2. the vocal minority of tourney grinders will absolutely hate flatter and deeper payout structures, so it may keep them away, attracting more of the fun crowd rather than the misreg crowd, which is a good thing.
It's a smaller 7-table room that generally sees 1-table of action each day.
My goal is to approach this completely the opposite of The Lodge, which seems to heavily focus on advertising to traveling grinders and high-stakes players (i.e. people who don't make the games better and a 100/200 NLH player pays you the same seat fee as a 1/2 NLH player but expects a personal host, free food and special treatment)
My goal with Georgetown is to market it to locals, rather than traveling grinders. I've already had some success reaching out to various groups and organizations I'd like to bring into the room
SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
A local 4-year college which has multiple fraternities, sororities, clubs and organizations. I've already heard back from a Sorority interested in attending an Invitational Poker Tournament where we put up the prizes and they come in to check us out. They can bring 30-35 ladies to participate. In addition the Coordinator of Student Activities (who works for the University) got wind I was contacting all the different clubs and reached out to me and is excited about doing some Invitational events for the student body, so wants to help me reach them.
We could do some livestream competitions between fraternities and sororities, cheerleaders vs the pom squad, chess club vs esports club, etc. But this will permit us to reach a younger demographic that will help share us on multiple social media platforms
SUN CITY
A community of 15,000 over 55 residents. There were a number of residents who used to attend the club but at some point many of them went off and formed their own poker club within their community. I reached out to them but they weren't interested in participating.
But, there's more than one way to skin a cat. The community management itself is onboard in helping us promote an Invitational Poker Tournament for their residents. So they'll put up digital flyers on their electronic poster boards in all their amenity centers as well as pushing it in their weekly e-blast two weeks prior to an event.
This is a group of people with disposable income AND time so could be a huge win for us
VFW/AMERICAN LEGION
Spoke with the Commander of the local post, mid-August they have a members meeting and will bring up their participation in an Invitational event. Military guys enjoy poker AND they tend to have strong, deep bonds with friends and family. So they could share that we're going to have a livestream of an event they could appear on so people tune in and become aware we exist.
I have tons of other ideas as far as various groups to connect with, won't go into all of them here.
In addition I'm looking to build sustainable lower stakes games with "fun players" rather than appeal to the headphone wearing misregs with their perpetual scowls. The Lodge can have all the pros, I don't want em!
I will be looking into adding some fun daily tournaments for people to play as well. Current ownership has been out of touch with their membership, they have a "ring" event today where they are hosting a "rebuy frenzy" $200 buyin with add-on as well. This doesn't target their demographic, so I expect it to not go great (I participated in a ring event awhile back and we had 1 table for it)
So I think putting in some lower buyin events, freezeouts or 1 optional rebuy events, etc. will appeal more to their customer base.
In addition I noticed a LOT of local rooms see their tournaments getting chopped 4 ways, 9 ways, etc. This tells me the players aren't comfortable with the top-heavy payouts and the pay jumps.
I'll be looking to flatten payouts and pay a larger percentage of the field than 10%. This has a two-pronged effect:
1. Recreational players are happy as a pig in shit just to cash an event, and it distributes the money more evenly throughout the poker economy, which results in those players returning and putting that money back into rotation
2. the vocal minority of tourney grinders will absolutely hate flatter and deeper payout structures, so it may keep them away, attracting more of the fun crowd rather than the misreg crowd, which is a good thing.
