SPT

Jac35

+1 with everything here.

Jac35

I've just looked at the 'Sky Poker Live - TV, SPT & UKPC part of the forum and read that 

"Plans are afoot for something different this year"

Hopefully I can be corrected on this but I'm assuming that this means the end of the SPT's that so many Sky players have enjoyed so much over the years.

This would be such a shame in my opinion. I realise that the recent high buy in event was a great success and Sky and the team behind it deserve huge credit for that. I just think that Sky will be moving away from its roots if this kind of event is the future.

At the lowish buy in SPTs, the casinos were full of Sky regulars and they were fantastic weekends. Nobody took it too seriously and low stakes players such as myself were able to sat in for tiny amounts. I would estimate that at my first SPT. 90%+ of the field were Sky regulars. I noticed that at the £220 buy in at Nottingham, there were far less Sky players and certainly at the recent event the % was very far lower. 

I understand that there will always be sats into the higher buy in tournaments. The difference is that the lower stake players will probably have to go through a fair few sats to get to qualify for the event. There is always the temptation to just take the cash as well when you qualify for a £240 sat and your normal level is for example £5 tourneys.

Part of the attraction of the SPTs has been getting to meet the people who you've chatted to on the forums and making friendships. As someone who has never really had 'poker' friends this was fantastic. Certainly far preferable than sitting at a table with some very serious young men in sunglasses and hoodies.

I'm far from convinced that the £1000+ buy in events attract new players to the site. I imagine that players who are comfortable buying in directly to these events already have a pretty good idea of where they want to play their online poker.

Ideally for me, the standard SPT's and the big events could run in tandem together. I have no idea if this would be feasible

though.

It would be really good to know what the plans are moving forward as soon as possible.

Slipwater

I only started going to the live Sky events last year (Newcastle was my first) and I have thoroughly enjoyed them. As you have alluded to, we shouldn't be going down the road of continually increasing the live buy-ins, as this will exclude a lot of the regulars who are simply not rolled for it (satellites notwithstanding).

I hope the hesitation of Sky to announce the 2014 tour is not because they want to come up with something more expensive and therefore more exclusive. The best thing about the tour is the atmosphere: don't dilute that by alienating many of your supporters with hefty entry fees.

unknown_username

The ukipt took a hit on numbers when they upped the bi to 1000+ And struggle to make gtds. Now they have brought it back to 700ish and they are getting the numbers back. 

FlashFlush

I suppose it all comes down to what are SPTs designed for? If you think of it as a business idea, what is the point in losing money on live events to only please the players that will continue to play on the site regardless.

SPTs have to be seen as "Spend some to get some" kind of mentality, make the site more well known, grow the reputation to increase the player base. I remember back in the day, Skypoker's main event was an £11 7 minute blind tournament, that was extremely fast paced, and people I spoke to at live events would laugh about it and say it was a bit of a joke site really. The SPTs (Or SPUKT's as they were known then) were only £50 buy ins and very fast paced structures. Since then Sky have done wonders for their image, bigger tournaments, bigger fields, bigger guarantees and that's not easy when poker in general is in decline.

It does seem to be getting to a point now though where more and more Skypoker regulars are not playing the SPTs due to the big buy ins. Yes we do need to show the poker world that Sky is a serious player, but we seem to be leaving behind the grass roots reputation that has helped Sky grow to this point.

Personally I'd like to see the buy ins go back to £100 and 1 day events, then when we go to the more serious card rooms like DTD they can be increased to £250 2 day events to get the DTD regs in. Don't get me wrong the UKPC was a fantastic event, and that should 100% continue, but only once a year.

DTWBANDIT

   +1 to OP

Donttelmum

+1

peter27

Agree with everything Jac35 said!

Was really excited to potentially attend my first SPT this year ..