random prize?

[tandemrx]

Here is a goofy suggestion.

In the automatic prize allocation, I would like the program to kick out a random prize to a random finish place.

I do a number of "couples" kind of tourneys (a bit more social than my more serious tourneys) and have a variety of prizes that I set up manually (first woman out, first man out, bad beat prizes, bubble-finish prize, etc).

Most of the prizes are silly or token prizes (poker magazine issue, idiot's guide to texas hold-em book, poker odds charts, boxes of chocolates, etc).  Sometimes I have some prizes that are just above the token level (nice poker book, maybe a vase or piece of pottery or something we happen to be thinking of selling on ebay anyway).

I am running out of ideas of how to allocate some of these token prizes and I thought that it might be nice for a prize to be allocated randomly (maybe with the option of it being not in a cash prize placement - in other words, if you get place for a cash prize you wouldn't be in the running for a random prize - or maybe you would).

This could actually be a nice thing for a charity type event where you might have some very nice item donated to the event and you would just give it out to a random finishing place that just shows up when you bust that person out (even event staff don't know who it would be going to until that person busts out and the program assigns the prize).

Just a goofy thought.  Probably too difficult to implement.

[Corey Cooper]

Actually, I do have on the to-do list a feature for choosing a player at random.  Ideas so far for the feature:

- how many to choose (originally just 1, but now thinking it would be nice to choose several random players at once)
- limit the set of players that we are choosing from to:
  - all players
  - only bought-in players
  - only paid-in-full players
  - only seated players
  - "placed" players (post-tournament)

Any more ideas?  Choosing a random player actually at bust-out time isn't hard to do, but it might require a bit more configuration from the user, turning something seemingly simple into a complex task, so I'm a little leery of doing that.

[tandemrx]

can't think of other choosing options than you present.

I would only be using it for players who have bought in.

Only problems with not having the prize chosen at bust-out time are:

1.  People often leave after they bust out - so I couldn't award the prize to them until well after the fact if it doesn't show up until after the tourney - probably looses it punch at that point (especially if it is more of a token prize).

2.  If the random prize is listed pre-tourney, then people see that the person who gets say 14th place (chosen randomly) would get a "random prize"  . . . then if short stacked, they might try to make sure they lose at that point (14th place) to get a prize.  Again, the random prize kinda of losing its "random punch".

While I would like to see multiple random prizes, if it makes it any easier, maybe the random prize at bust-out would only be a single prize and thus possibly make user set-up easier?? (maybe not).

I say that a random prize is a unique thing that not everyone would use and if it is a bit more complicated to set up for the user (like modifying automatic prize structures - not easy, but still very doable - even with limited computer skills) then so be it.

Thanks for considering Corey