Project Mayhem

Fight Club was the beginning, now it's moved out of the basement, it's called Project Mayhem."

— Tyler Durden

Project Mayhem is the name we use for our completely voluntary championship tournament at the end of the season. PM has existed since Season 5, and is linked to our Saturday evening tournaments (which we call our Regular Season).

Season 15 sees Project Mayhem going through its biggest modification yet! (So bear with us...)

Summary

The gist of Project Mayhem is that as you participate in tournaments during the ten regular season Saturdays, you earn a discount to the buy in for the end-of-season-championship known as the Project Mayhem Final Tournament. Discounts are generated mostly based on how many tournaments you enter, but there's also an aspect to how well you do in the tournaments which can reduce your ultimate buy-in price. Previously, I'd collect money every Saturday from folks who knew they wanted to participate in the PMFT, but this process didn't scale very well as our group got larger. Now we collect all buy-in money from folks who are able to attend at the time of entry.

For Season 15, we're playing on 17 May 2025 for the PMFT.

Past Champions

Goals

We have a few motives in setting up Project Mayhem. First up, we think having a championship tournament with a big prize pool 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

In past seasons we had folks volunteer to be members. I'd collect a fee from them each Saturday they showed up. They'd get the invite email a day or two ahead of the general population. Well that system has gone by the wayside — now everyone who plays in a regular season tournament is considered a member of Project Mayhem!

The final tournament can handle up to 37 participants, so if we have more folks who want to buy into that event then we have seats, we'll open up seating to the most active folks first. I don't anticipate this will actually be a true constraint (but I'm here for it if we garner that much interest!). Only folks who've participated in one of our regular season events are eligible for the final tournament. I am very sorry if you are someone who wants to participate but aren't eligible. This is a hard rule.

Up above I talked a little bit about how we used to do things — that's intended to shed some light on how we ended up with this zany system. (I don't think anyone would use a system exactly like this one without our prior history.) The results from each Saturday you participate in will earn you chips towards your starting stack at PMFT (though we're all up against the same 50,000 chip maximum.) And each Saturday's worth of chips would cost you $15 if you wanted to participate. This is a significant discount over the direct rate you'd use to top-off your stack.

Points

Points are broken up into two categories based on attendance and performance. The more points you earn, the more opportunity you'll have to purchase chips for your PMFT starting stack at the cheaper rate.

One quick note: some Saturdays we hold two tournaments. The point system below is accurate for each tournament in the two-tournament night. Many Saturdays we only hold one tournament. On those nights, everything below gets doubled (the Standard Tournaments are supercharged).

Attendance Points and Starting Stacks

Attendance Points are earned for each eligible tournament you enter. Each tournament is worth T2000 chips to your starting stack at the final table.

PiMPs

Things which earn you PiMPS:

1 PiMP.... Enter a tournament

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

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 3/4ths of a PiMP towards the in-the-money point), and similarly for the two PiMPs given to the winning player: if there's a chop we break those points up (the calculation here is based on actual dollars won ahead of posted 2nd place prize compared to the gap between first-and-second place posted prizes).

More PiMPs are more better for three different things:

Adding chips to your starting stack more cheaply than via direct-buy
Receiving an invitation to attend the PMFT
Benefitting your position in the seat draft prior to the PMFT

Starting Chips

For every 15 full PiMPs (without rounding) you earn an additional 2000 chips to your starting stack. 29 PiMPs is as good at 15 PiMPs (in either case you've added 2000 chips).

Invitation

We are willing to seat up to 37 people for a poker night (we assume — 31 is the most we've ever had participating in a tournament, and we're not really sure the maximum number of folks who'd fit comfortably around the Upstairs Table so this upper cap may change based on experiences). Because we'll have more than this number of people eligible to come to the PMFT, we will use the ranking of PiMPs to determine the order that invitations go out. The first batch will go out to the top of the PiMPs list, up to this number, and they'll have two or three days to RSVP to the big tournament. For folks we don't hear back from (or folks who reply they aren't coming), we'll open up invites to the next group of people on the list. Once we have a confirmed number that hits our maximum seating capacity, then we'll stop sending out invites. I'm pretty sure we won't hit the capped number, but I don't know that with certainty, so we're being careful with this one.

Seat Draft

For the PMFT, everyone picks their starting seat. The person at the top of the PiMPs list goes first and they may either pick a seat, or they may defer, in which case the next person on the list chooses (or defers to the third person, etc.). Once a seat is selected, then we start over back at the top of the list for anyone unseated. If we ever get deferrals all the way down to the last remaining attendee on the list, they have to make a selection. This is a fun "perk" for folks who perform well during the season, and can help you ensure you don't start at a table with (or sit next to) a particular competitor who has your number (or doesn't use enough deodorant). Or maybe you want a view of the TV, or don't want to sit by the windows, etc.

Tiebreaks among 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, even if it only a decimal amount was earned on a given tournament) 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.

One way to think about the Project Mayhem Final Tournament starting chips is in terms of "bundles." Each bundle is 2000 starting chips. Every time you buy into a tournament it's worth one bundle of chips., and for every 15 PiMPs you've earned you get a bundle. For a maximum stack at the final tournament, you should be trying to earn 25 bundles.

Costs

To turn Attendance Points and PiMPs into chips, you've got to pay! The rate is $15 per each Saturday night. (If you somehow only attend one tournament on one of the two-tournament nights, then your rate for that one tournament performance is $10.) I will calcuate your chips starting with the earliest events you participate in during the season. If you attend enough tournaments you may earn enough chips to cap your starting stack. Once that occurs, that's the end of you accumulating the $15 per nights to the cost of your PMFT entry.

If you don't earn enough points to cap your stack, then the alternative is to use the direct rate to cap your stack. The direct rate is $5 per additional T1000 chips. This is a steep price compared to earning chips through attendance, so if you're interested in the PMFT, try to make it to as many regular season events as you can!

The starting stack cap is 50,000 chips.

Topping off your stack is completely voluntary. If you've earned 38,000 chips at the "$15 rate" and you're happy to start with that number of chips, then you're not obligated to spend the additional $60 to hit the cap.

Similarly, if you earn 8,000 chips on the first Saturday you attend (having the time of your life, I'm sure!) and keep coming for the rest of the season, you'd be able to pay just that $15 entry cost and use that first week's result. (I may think you're crazy, but I probably already think that about you anyway — you keep coming to our basement events, and I know we're all crazy!) I don't expect this will ever come up, but the option exists.

Final Tournament (PMFT)

Structure

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

1. longer levels, and

2. no add-ons or rebuys.

Folks will have up to 50,000 chips in their starting stack. The details for earning chips are listed above in Points and Costs.

We are playing on May 17, 2025 for our PMFT Championship.

Seating

PMFT seats are awarded based on the number of PiMPs you have earned. A ranked list of participants in the PMFT will be created based on PiMPs, then based on direct buy-in amounts (tie-break for those will be based on when you email me that you would like to participate). Seat selection will be in rounds starting at the top of the list. Someone can defer each round to someone lower on the list and if the list makes it all the way to the bottom, the last person is forced to make a selection. After each round, the next selection begins with the remaining person at the top of the list.

Standings

PiMPs:

A couple of updates to our venerable PiMP table:

For folks who've maxed out their starting stack, the "Cost for Earned Stack" (conveniently in green text) is their actual cost despite having earned points beyond what's required to max out the starting stack..
I put in a line after the first 37 entries. Above this line and you'll get a first-round invite to attend the PMFT (you'll have a few days to let us know you plan to attend, if I don't hear back from someone in this first round, I'll send out notes to the next few names below the line to try to fill up all the seats).

Starting Chips:

Earned starting chips is based on your performance during our regular season. "Chips To Top Off" is the shortfall you'd have to get a full stack, and "Cost to Top Off" is how much that shortfall in chips would cost you (on top of the regular season entry fees).

PMFT Buy-In Options:

This table lists a hypothetical range of top-off options as if you wanted to buy into the PMFT after your performance so far. Values listed are amount of chips in your starting stack based on different hypothetical buy-in-with-top-off amounts. The last two columns are based on just paying for the events you've attended and how many chips you'd have.

These tables list a range of options people have for buying into the PMFT. The first table has money spent options across the top, and the resulting chips you'd have in the table entry. The final two columns show how people situated themselves based on their regular season performance. Any amount above Entry Fees to get your starting stack up to 50,000 chips costs you a higher rate (which is reflected in the table).

The second table flips things around. Now you see a range of starting chip stacks and the table entries show how much each of those would cost the participant.

Results

Note that the evening recaps are going into their own link on the left-side site menu, so there wouldn't have to be as much scrolling on this page which primarily contains Project Mayhem data.

Column values for each player in the Event Results will sum up to the PiMPs table, above. The "Counts Double" indicator is for evenings with a single tournament, in which case you earn twice as many PiMPs as you would in a single tournament on a two-tournament night.

History

Links

Previous seasons of Project Mayhem can be found:

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