Hi all,
A fair bit of discussion has taken place between the team and myself with regards the "format" that we utilise for Season 6 of the National Online League.
I"d like to open up this discussion to the players and we"d welcome your thoughts on the options that we are currently looking at, and would welcome any further development ideas that you might have.
For the purposes of this discussion it would be good to focus in on the topline League format, as opposed to the night we play on, prizes, structures etc. We can finalise in those areas once we have the topline format nailed down.
In summary, there are two topline formats currently on the table for Season 6 and they are as follows:-
1) We reduce the number of clubs to approximately 8 to 10. Those clubs become regionally based as opposed to city based, so they would all be large clubs; think Ireland, Scotland, North of England, South of England, Central England etc etc. In this format a degree of regional identity is retained and groups of players who have been playing with each other for several seasons would continue to do so.
2) We retain the current identity of approximately 20 odd poker clubs but we introduce a draft (American Football style) whereby each club is assigned a captain (ideally local to the area) and we then evenly allocate players to each club (based on league performance over the last couple of years) to create one large division of teams, even in number and ability. In this scenario, we would remove the geographical requirement for players to play for their "local" clubs.
In either case we would ensure that the scoring allows for more clubs to score points every matchday to reward more clubs.
There are pros and cons to both approaches and I"m sure you will have queries around how each team would be finally formed in either format. However, in an ideal world where we could make both options work without issue, which of the two formats most appeals and why?
Cheers,
Des.
