PokerHost suddenly drops "freebuy" MTT's
I know PokerHost gets a bad rap. Since moving from the merge network, things have not seemed to improve at all for this site. I doubt this kind of management thinking helps....
A few days ago I logged on to see what kind of games they have and was surprised - shocked actually - to see a cascading set of what they were calling "freebuy" games; games with large guarantees, free to enter. How big? Well, the ones I missed were already off the list, but 1,000/2,000/6,000/12,000/25,000. You got 1k in chips to start, 10 minute levels, and rebuy amounts that varied (smaller prize pool = smaller rebuy amounts and vice-versa).
The stunning part was certainly not that none of them made enough to cover the guarantee, nor that they have canceled the remaining games (no more 12k or 25k, no duh right?) but rather how could they not know they could never get enough rebuys and add ons to cover the prize pool? The 6k I played in had no less than 3700 players. I entered for free and made it all the way to 180 before going out (payouts started at 144 players) without spending a dime on rebuys or add ons. They did not even come close to breaking even, despite 700+ rebuys and 90 addons.
This was a huge waste of the sites money. Since they have cancelled the remaining scheduled games, one can only assume
they actually thought they had enough traffic to hit the guarantee via rebuys and add ons. After all, if it were a "loss leader" type of deal to generate interest in the site and get new depositors, then they would still be on, wouldn't they? Since they have been scrapped, this means they actually thought this would work. Amazing.
Even worse, some people who might have deposited will invariably be upset that the 12k and 25k was dropped, and most likely will not deposit now, assuming the large guarantee games they see coming up might simply be cancelled due to not enough players entering. We regular players/enthusiasts get the why and the what of it, but newbies don't.
I wonder if we have a PH rep on here who might explain this debacle?