Last night I couldn’t sleep.
I kept thinking about Squid.
I love poker. I love Squid. I love competition.
And suddenly I had this stupid question:
Why can’t a cash game have a real champion?
Tournaments have champions.
You start with a field. People get knocked out. There is a final table. Eventually someone holds up a trophy and everybody knows who won.
Cash games?
You sit down.
You play.
Someone wins 500,000.
Someone loses 500,000.
Everyone goes home.
There might be a massive winner for the week, but there isn’t really a race.
So I started wondering:
What if we could keep everything beautiful about a cash game
real money, freedom, recreational players, bosses, people coming and going but put a Championship on top of it?
And then my brain went completely fucking crazy.
⸻
50 / 30 / 20
At first, the obvious answer was:
Whoever wins the most money becomes Champion.
But that felt wrong almost immediately.
Cash games are violent.
Someone can cooler the entire room for three days, be up a million, decide he has had enough, disappear, and somehow become Champion.
Maybe he played brilliantly.
Maybe he ran like God.
Probably a bit of both.
That is poker.
But I wanted the Championship to reward something more.
So I started breaking it down.
50% Overall Game Result
Can you actually win?
This has to remain the biggest component.
At the end of the day, it is still poker.
30% Squid Result
Because this is not just another cash game leaderboard.
Squid matters.
A lot.
Some people play completely differently when they are Squid.
Some people hate being Squid.
Some people become maniacs trying to escape it.
Some people somehow is the djokovic of squid 😆
Being good at Squid is a skill of its own, and if we are going to call this a Squid Championship, it deserves serious weight.
20% Volume
Did you battle?
Did you put in the hours?
Someone who plays 60 or 70 hours should have an edge over someone who came in and sun ran two sessions and disappeared.
But volume shouldn’t be enough by itself.
You still need to perform.
So:
50% Result / 30% Squid / 20% Volume
Then It Started Getting Interesting
The more I thought about it, the less it felt like a scoring system.
It started becoming an ecosystem.
Imagine a 10 day Championship.
Eight official Championship hours every day.
During those eight hours, your result, your Squid result and your playing time count toward the leaderboard.
After eight hours?
Championship is over for the day.
You can keep playing.
The cash game continues.
You can win another million if you want.
But none of it counts toward the Championship anymore.
Then something interesting happens.
The strongest regs have a reason to concentrate in the same place, at the same time.
The serious competitors all want those Championship hours.
But recreational players don’t have to register.
They can just come play the cash game normally.
And if they don’t feel like battling an army of super regs during the Championship window, maybe they come later.
Then the recreational players attract other players, maybe the regs that don’t want to compete. Those pussies bum hunters.
I suddenly thought:
Wait. This might actually work.
⸻
Every Pot Matters Twice
And then there is the meta game.
Imagine I’m currently #2 in the Championship.
Everybody can see the leaderboard.
Everybody knows I’m behind in Squid.
Now I shove.
The guy across from me thinks:
Bobby needs Squid points.
Maybe he is shoving wider.
So maybe he calls me lighter.
But I know that he knows that.
So maybe now I can value shove thinner.
Suddenly the leaderboard itself is affecting poker strategy.
A guy might be chasing first place.
Another guy might desperately need Squid.
Someone else might be leading and trying to protect his position.
A recreational player who isn’t even registered might know all of this and start fucking with everyone.
This is fun.
Every pot matters twice.
⸻
Then I Tried to Destroy My Own Idea
This is where I got obsessed.
Every time I thought I had solved it, another problem appeared.
What if somebody only plays three days?
What if someone wins an insane amount early and stops?
What about rake?
What about rakeback?
What if there is a tie?
What if friends soft-play each other?
What if teams collude?
What if not enough player?
What if recreational players want to play but don’t want anything to do with the competition?
What if somebody misses a Squid because he went to the toilet?
What if somebody just folds for five hours protecting his lead?
What if nobody fucking shows up?
😂
Every answer created three more questions.
And somehow that made me like the idea even more.
⸻
The Pilot
Eventually I realised I was doing too much thinking.
There is only one way to really find out.
Run the fucking thing.
Not ten days.
Start small.
Right now I’m thinking:
Squid Championship — Pilot #001
4 days
100/100(300)
8 official Championship hours per day
32 maximum Championship hours
50% Result / 30% Squid / 20% Volume
Normal cash game players can sit in the game too.
They don’t need to register.
They don’t need to care about the trophy.
They are just playing poker.
Only the registered players appear on the Championship leaderboard.
⸻
I Want to Record Everything
The first pilot isn’t really about getting all the rules perfect.
It is an experiment.
I want to know what actually happens.
Do people care about the leaderboard?
Does Squid become more exciting when it matters beyond the immediate payment?
Do people from different clubs come together?
Do the games get better?
Do they get worse?
Do people drop out after getting smashed?
Do recreational players come later?
Does anyone actually care who becomes Champion?
We will record hours.
Results.
Squid results.
Multipliers.
Who hit x2.
Who hit x5.
Maybe there is even a stupid little side award one day:
Multiplier Master.
Why not?
This whole thing started with a stupid question anyway.
⸻
Maybe It Fails
Maybe nobody cares.
Maybe after the pilot I discover ten reasons why this should never become anything bigger.
That’s okay.
Maybe someone from another club hears about it and comes over.
Maybe a recreational player takes great pleasure in destroying the Championship leader.
Maybe a super boss finishes second in cash, first in Squid, plays almost every hour and becomes Champion.
And everybody looks at him and thinks:
Yeah. Fair enough. He fucking earned it.
That is what I want.
Poker has luck.
It should have luck.
I have no idea if this works.
I really want to find out.
Life is about showing up.
Apparently sometimes it is also about inventing ridiculous poker Championships at 4am.
