[juannt]

So, those Express Reward, 4 boards that cost 10 cents a year or so ago? You know, the ones that you jacked up to 20 cents and then 29 cents and now charge 50 cents? Yeah. Those. What, are you greedy or stupid?

You don't have to pay a TD to do anything. You don't have to hire a guy to calculate the huge prize money or the thousandths of BBO points that are worthless anyway. You don't have to assign anybody to create a list of daily or weekly or monthly or yearly suckers.

I'd like to know which it is: greed or stupidity?

[upstate]

I think it is also a shame that for the Zenith and other Reward Daylongs, the BBO cut (the rake), which started at a reasonable 20%, then went to BBO taking 30%, has now gone to BBO raking 48%.

I used to play these most days. I won’t ever play with BBO taking 48% and returning only 52% in prizes.

But it’s their business, and they can run it however they wish to.

[nxw0016]

upstate, on 2025-May-11, 23:27, said:

I think it is also a shame that for the Zenith and other Reward Daylongs, the BBO cut (the rake), which started at a reasonable 20%, then went to BBO taking 30%, has now gone to BBO raking 48%.

I used to play these most days. I won’t ever play with BBO taking 48% and returning only 52% in prizes.

But it’s their business, and they can run it however they wish to.

@upstate I really appreciate your speaking up. If a good player like you is quitting Zenith Daylong because of its ridiculous 48% cut, there is certainly no need for me to continue playing.
I really don't know whether those people who are the ultimate decision makers of BBO understand math or bridge, or neither.
With the old format (20% cut), the player participation was growing steadily over the years -- slow growth, but growing for sure. I keep a record of my own results over the years so I know.
Then they raised the cut to 30%, it lost about 20 to 25% of the players. Which to me was a really dumb move, the profit of the game wouldn't increase much because the increase in cut is offset by the decrease in participation.
At that time I thought it would make more sense if they just increased the entry fee to 1.20 or so and kept all the other math the same -- just like they were doing with other tournaments.
Then they finally realized increasing the cut wasn't enough to quench their greed, they raise the entry fee to 2BBO$ (see, I told you so... but 100% increase, dude, seriously?)
And they lost about another 40% of the players.
Then they added this Zen Ten tournament as a "mini Zenith" with $1 entry but still 70% pool, plus a new prize distribution formula that's kind of weird, that sort of split the field as a "low table" and a "high table", which further reduced the participation of Zenith.
And now they think increasing the cut to 48% is the way get their coveted private jet faster? Only people who don't know how to play bridge would come up with this play.

If they want to make more money out of daylong, they should bring it back to 20% cut and remain $2, it will be the most winning line of play among all previously tried options.
But of course, they will not believe that. (They don't know how to play bridge.)


Maybe now there is a tariff on imported intelligence too?

upstate, on 2025-May-11, 23:27, said:

But it’s their business, and they can run it however they wish to.

Well said... but do I see an autocorrect typo? run or ruin?