Project Mayhem - Season 08

Goals

We have a few motives in setting up Project Mayhem. First up, we think having a big prize-pool tournament with deep stacks and a longer structure is a lot of fun. Secondly, we are motivated to have a more consistent set of participants showing up for our weekend games (recruiting is probably right up there with cleaning up the next day as being the least-fun aspect of hosting poker night) and PM is set up to reward folks for showing up more regularly.

Participation

There is room at the Final Tournament for up to eighteen players, so we can only accept that many Project Mayhem members. The first eighteen folks to physically buy into a Season VIII tournament will be entered into Project Mayhem. Project Mayhem events are part of our Saturday night Regular Season tournaments.

PM-eligible tournaments happen on Saturday nights. There are two each Saturday night (the Quick Tournament and the evening's Main Event). Folks who are in Project Mayhem have the option to play as PM-eligible for each of these two tournaments. To be PM-eligible, you have to pay $3 at the time you're playing (and that money will go off into a separate envelope). Playing eligible in a tournament earns you two types of points: 1) you get one Attendance Point (which ultimately gets used to determine your starting chips in the final tournament, see below for more details), and 2) you earn Project Mayhem Points (a.k.a. "PiMPs") based on how well you perform in the tournament. PiMPs also get you some starting chips, and they also have one other specific use for the final table which will be explained below.

If you've already established yourself as a member of PM you can decide to not buy-in to a tournament as PM-eligible (and save $3 in the process). If that's the case, then it's just like you didn't show up for that particular tournament: you don't get an Attendance Point, nor would you earn any PiMPs.

If you're not a member of Project Mayhem, you can attempt a direct buy-in to the PMFT assuming any seats are remaining. Details are below.

Players for Season VIII

1. Neal

2. Shannon

3. Tom

4. Dylan

5. Fred

6. Grant

7. Dallas

8. Lyndee

9 -18. open

Points

As indicated above, you need to buy into a PM-eligible tournament (for $3) to earn Attendance Points and PiMPs. Even if you've already committed to being a Project Mayhem member if you don't pay at the time of entering the tournament you're not earning either of these things. Money up front, 100% of the time.

Attendance Points and Starting Stacks

Attendance Points are earned for each eligible tournament you enter (pay your $3). Each tournament is worth T1600 chips to your starting stack at the final table. Additionally, if you hit certain attendance thresholds, you get T1600 additional bonus chips (occurring at the 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15-tournament thresholds). A table of tournaments entered vs. starting chips at the final table, then, looks as follows:

2 Tournaments = T3200 chips

4 Tournaments = T6400 chips

6 Tournaments = T9600 chips,

8 Tournaments = T14400 chips,

10 Tournaments = T19200 chips,

12 Tournaments = T24000 chips,

14 Tournaments = T28800 chips,

16 Tournaments = T33600 chips,

18 Tournaments = T36800 chips, and

20 Tournaments = T40000 chips.

Finally, before the Final Tournament starts, folks will have the option to buy additional starting chips at the cost of T1600 chips per $3 spent. The maximum starting stack, however, is capped at T40000 chips (so if you already paid $60 over the course of 20 tournaments to start with T40000 chips, you can't spend any more to chip-up at the final table). Obviously this money all goes straight into the prize pool.

PiMPs

Things which earn you PiMPS:

1 PiMP.... Enter a tournament (pay your $3)

1 PiMP.... Per player that finishes worse than you in a tournament (they do not have to be Project Mayhem-eligible players, players who chop prizes all finish one spot ahead of the last person not included in the chop)

1 PiMP.... Per knockout you put on a fellow tournament player (not affected if they rebuy: does not have to be a permanent KO; note that for the Add-on Extravaganza, making someone use a rebuy token does not qualify as a knockout)

1 PiMP.... For finishing in the money (based on prize allotment on Structure page, alternative pay-outs such as Bounty money do not affect this PiMP)

2 PiMPs.... For finishing in first place [Change new to Season VIII — was 1 PiMP in the previous seasons]

Note that we will issue partial PiMPs in the case of folks chopping a tournament before it would be considered in-the-money (say 4 people chop a tournament which has 3 pay-outs: each PM participant who is part of the chop would earn 4/3rds of a PiMP), and [new to Season VIII] also for the two winner PiMPs as well.

PiMPs are good for two things. First, for every 15 full PiMPs earned (no rounding: 29 PiMPs is just as good as 15), you get another T1600 to your starting stack (capped at T40000), so even if you don't make all 20 tournaments, if you can make it to 14 or 16, chances are pretty good that you can get all T40000 in your starting stack. Second, seating at the final table tournament will be based on the order of PiMPs. Whomever finishes with the highest number of PiMPs will have their first option of seats at the table, with the option to defer if they so choose. Each time someone selects a seat at the table, we will scroll back up to the top of the PiMP list and allow the top remaining person their option of seats. Once you've picked a seat, there's no changing your mind.

Tiebreaks amoung PiMPs first go to the person with the fewest total tournament entries (if someone gets 47 PiMPs in six tournaments, then they beat out someone who got 47 PiMPs in eight tournaments). The next tiebreak would be to add 1 extra PiMP per category starting at the bottom of the above list (so starting with the number of first place finishes) to see if that makes a difference. If there's still a tie after that, then we'll high-card to break the tie.

I won't be calculating PiMPs for everyone on the fly (between tournaments), but will update a spreadsheet and post it here between Saturdays.

Final Tournament (PMFT)

Structure

The PMFT is run using our Standard Tournament structure with these modifications:

1. longer levels,

2. bigger initial stacks,

3. no add-ons, and

4. one rebuy available through the first 16 levels.

We've settled on 15 minute levels in the general case, but depending on the number of participants (and the number of chips in play) this number may be adjusted with a target of having the PMFT run for about six hours (give or take).

Folks will have up to 40,000 chips in their starting stack. The details for PM participants are listed above in Points. For non-PM participants who would like to direct buy-in, the cost is $3 will get you 1600 starting chips, up to $75 which would get you a capped stack of 40,000 starting chips. This is the same rate that non-capped PM members can add chips to their starting stack.

Rebuys can be made for any amount of chips up to that person's starting stack. The cost for a rebuy is $2 for every 1000 chips (which is a slight modification to Season VII, which had rebuys in increments of $4, which would get you 2000 in rebuy chips).