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Geocaching Event


JohnTee

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Our informal officially unofficial group of local geocachers (SEMOG) is getting ready to have our first event . . . SEMOG Meet and Greet

 

One event I could use a little help with is the poker run. Plan to . . .

*Have participants in the run start between 1 & 2 PM (event runs 1-5PM)

*Entry fee of $5.00 for each hand, with 100% Return - First Place = 50%; Second Place = 30%; Third Place = 20%.

*Give each participant cards/sheet with coordinates of temporary caches - I'm thinking cards so they can be shuffled as they get them. Forcing them to figure out best route and maybe avoid two people leaving together from being on top of each other.

*There will be five temporary caches (with luck, maybe we can make them loggable) containing poker chips, numbered 1-5 for each cache 1-5. You'll have to come back with chips numbered 1-5 to draw a hand.

 

One of our local geocachers has access to screen printing promo items and is going to print up inexpensive poker chips to place in the caches.

 

Now here's where I get shaky . . . :lol:

Do players with mulitple hands draw one complete hand then the next on arrival?

I figure 10 participants can play off one deck. If you get more, do you finish one deck then break out a next, or shuffle multiple decks together based on the total number of players signed up?

How do you handle 'ties' - break out a new deck and have them draw another five cards each?

Am I missing anything else?

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Just one suggestion from a cache reviewer perspective... your poker event cannot be listed as an Event Cache on Geocaching.com, nor mentioned on the Event Cache page for a larger event.

 

If you removed the $5.00 entry fee, and instead had everyone playing for prizes donated by someone, then everything would be cool. :lol:

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Just one suggestion from a cache reviewer perspective... your poker event cannot be listed as an Event Cache on Geocaching.com, nor mentioned on the Event Cache page for a larger event.

 

If you removed the $5.00 entry fee, and instead had everyone playing for prizes donated by someone, then everything would be cool. :P

 

Hi Keystone,

 

I'm basically a rule following kind of guy; I don't fling fecal matter into rotating air circulation devices, stay out of flame wars in Asia and try to be a helpful guy in the forums And I aint even got a garage, you can call home and ask my wife!. I'm gonna have to have a little clarification on your response . . .

 

You said, "nor mentioned on the Event Cache page for a larger event." Not being dense here, are you saying that an activity like a poker run can not even be mentioned on our event page, said event being, "a larger event", much less be the event? A search for Poker Run shows 5 current events listed as Poker Runs. I imagine if I could search archived events, I would find more. Thos look like not just being mentioned, but are the events! So, now I'm confused. :lol:

 

Our Poker Run would be one of several fun activities planned to take place during our Meet and Greet Event; the event is NOT listed as a Poker Run. As an optional activity OF that event is an entry fee for that activity a problem, even with 100% going back? As a fledgling informal unorganized geocaching orginization, we have no funds to do ANYTHING with.

 

I've a feeling I'm going to be sorry I even asked . . . :P

 

JohnTee

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Sorry, but when this issue has come up in the past, Groundspeak has been quite clear that its cache pages cannot be used to promote an activity that might be perceived as gambling. Having the poker players "ante" money into the game is the problem.

 

So yes, there are plenty of poker events listed. They're lots of fun. But in browsing a dozen or so of them, I saw ten with no mention of money whatsoever, one that had a $5 charge for everyone attending the event (which also included food, etc.), and one that had poker prizes donated by a business. In fact, I published this poker event just today... see how it says "FREE" in capital letters? If you set your poker run up like one of those examples, yours can be listed, too. :lol:

Edited by Keystone
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If you get the fee thing sorted out, may I suggest actually putting the cards in the caches (temporary or otherwise)? You could seal each one in an envelope, so cachers are drawing a random card from each location. To keep 'em honest, you can require they arrive back with sealed envelopes and open them at the event to reveal the hand.

 

From events I've attended, prizes could be anything and creativity is more important than value.

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If you get the fee thing sorted out, may I suggest actually putting the cards in the caches (temporary or otherwise)? You could seal each one in an envelope, so cachers are drawing a random card from each location. To keep 'em honest, you can require they arrive back with sealed envelopes and open them at the event to reveal the hand.

 

From events I've attended, prizes could be anything and creativity is more important than value.

 

Hi FamilyDNA,

 

I'm tabling the poker run unless I figure out some equitable details. I've had some generous folk in the Geocoin forum offer to donate some geocoins for prizes and I'm going to put together some preform micros along with an ammo box for another raffle/drawing (NO FEES!) :huh:

 

I guess cards would be shuffled, placed in envelopes and split up between caches? How do you deal with xx number of geocachers? Do you limit the number that can play? Go back out and restock the caches? Start out with multiple decks of cards?

 

Thanks!

 

JohnTee

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Poker runs we have done in the past have been handled in a variety of ways. I have seen it done with multiple decks of cards in the caches and out. I have seen it done with one deck and chips and a hand is dealt based upon the number of chips revovered up to 7 with 5 cards playable. I have also seen 2 or 3 bonus caches set up where there are extra cards available. The problem being for cachers is they don't know if the bonus cards have been picked up or not.

 

The last time we held a poker run we set up 2 parallel trails on oppostie ends of a park and then the teams had to split. half the team went on one trail and the other went on the other trail. It then became a multi-cache type hunt one team found their cache and called their counter part to move them to their next cache and so forth. Each team started on a different cache and there there was little chance of all the teams being jammed up at one cache. There were 10 total caches but each tema only had cards in 5 of the caches. We set up two bonus caches in extreme areas for the teams and they had to choose if they wanted to go after them for the bonus cards.

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I guess cards would be shuffled, placed in envelopes and split up between caches? How do you deal with xx number of geocachers? Do you limit the number that can play? Go back out and restock the caches? Start out with multiple decks of cards?

 

Hello JohnTee

Poker runs can be done many different ways. I would suggest that you set it up the way that it is easiest and most cost effective/time effective to you. I like the idea of the poker chips that will eliminate a lot time needed to place the cards in the envelopes and you can monitor the distribution of the cards.

 

As for how many cards. I like to use five decks. All the same size but different prints on them ( Mickey Mouse, Sponge Bob, Puppies, Horses and Barns - this helps me separate them in the end and you can quickly see that everyone has one card from each deck). You shuffle each deck separately and as the participants return and hand in their chips they draw the top card off of each deck. I have never seen a tie but a tie could be settled by drawing high card.

 

You could just as easy shuffle as many decks together as you need (2 or 3) for the number of participants, separate the cards into 5 piles and have the participants draw one card from each deck.

 

I agree with the don't play for money, if you play for prizes more people will participate, if it is gambling it gets into debates that aren't worth spoiling fun over. However, last week I was able to convince a friend's mom (that never allowed card in her house) that cards aren't evil and the pennies were only used as markers (since you could loose 3 times before you were out) and she played a few rounds of Sorry Buddy with us.

 

And if you would let me know what kind of cards you're using :signalviolin:

 

GEO.JOE

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If I remember correctly, MiGO did a poker run a few years back where trippy1976 (I think) set up a completely cheat-proof run. The cards were all bar codes, with each bar code standing for a different card. When players got back to the main event, they used a bar code reader and an Access database to reveal what card they had.

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I've held a poker rally here for the last 5 years and it's always been a hoot. In order to cover an unknown number of participants I use multiple decks of cards and keep some spares so that if necessary I can restock. (I've never had to yet though) I put each card in a coin envelope and don't let them open the envelopes until they return them to you to log the hand. Cachers pick one envelope out of every cache and I have the envelopes marked with some symbol to make sure they don't grab all from one cache. It's not hard to set out 5 temporary caches with cards in each one and they can be picked up fairly quickly after.

 

I've found that if a lot of people are planning on or might be bringing kids then a rally via car is not the way to do it. I generally lay out a course in one of our local parks that will take the average cacher about 3/4 hour to complete. It's a lot easier for families to go for a walk with the kids than have them cooped up in the car for an extended period of time and the kids enjoy it more too.

 

My prizes are always donated and I chip in a bit myself. If you want to charge an entry fee then you might consider telling everyone to bring an item to stick in a cache and the winner(s) will get the cache with swag.

 

There are a lot of ways to run it without cash involved. As long as everyone has a good time it will be a success. :signalviolin:

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I set up a similar idea for a holiday party at a campgroud. I knew I would only have about 7 people / families involved. I put the cards in make shift envelopes - regular paper doubled up and folded around the cards, and stapled shut. Evey team had to bing back 5 envelopes, number 1 - 5, unopened. At the end of the day, everyone opened up the enevelopes and the best hand won. We had a couple sneaky teams sitting together, and rumor has it they combined cards and split the winnings. No big prizes involeved, but just enough for bragging rites.

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