Headhunter Challenge - New Poker Tournament Style

Author: Simon Dexter

It may seem unlikely, but what do conkers and poker have in common?

In a contest between two fresh conkers, the eventual winner emerges victorious with a score of one and his (or her) conker is known as a “one-er”. If the same conker subsequently beats another say, three one-ers, it becomes a four-er.

However, if our four-er then defeats another conker which itself had previously beaten five fresh opponents (and thus was a ‘five-er’), our steadfast nut would then become a ten-er, ie, its own four, plus its latest victim (1) and finally, its victim’s previous count of 5.

These rules do not apply at the World Conker Championships, held every year on the second Sunday in October on the village green at Ashton in Northamptonshire, but they’ve served British schoolchildren well for 150 years. Given their longevity and simplicity then, perhaps it’s no surprise that the same rules have been dusted down and applied to poker where they’re proving equally attractive to a generation of online players who were probably forced into wearing goggles in order to play conkers. No such attire is required when playing in a Headhunter Challenges, the latest MTT from Littlewoods Poker and the nearest thing you’ll find to playing online conkers.

The Headhunter Challenge brings a whole new dimension to tournament play, one which has already proved immensely popular to players of all abilities, be they reckless or circumspect types. Furthermore, (and this is particularly attractive), players do not necessarily have to make the final placings to win money or to see a profit on their buy-in. In contrast to standard tournaments, Littlewoods Poker’s prize pool is split 50:50 between the top placings and their Headhunters’ bounties.

It works like this: each player pays the same entry fee, a proportion of which is allocated to the prize pool, with the balance distributed as each player’s ‘bounty value’, ie the value on his head, or what it’s worth to other players to knock him out.

So, you might ask, how do I know who the most valuable guy at the table is?

Once registration closes, the value of each player in the tournament is calculated based upon his ‘Headhunter’ rating – which in turn is based upon his placings in similar MTT’s over the previous three months. Helpfully, an information box appears on-screen which shows the Headhunter value of each player; knock a particularly valuable player out and a proportion of his value, usually around three quarters, is allocated to your head. In a relatively short space of time, your status can change from hunter to hunted as other players drool over the bounty on your head.

Readers scratching their heads during the introduction will now be able to see that the Headhunter Challenge is really poker’s version of playing conkers for real money. In other words, the more players you knock out, the more valuable you become to your opponents. It follows that you can expect to find the low stacks as well as professional “Headhunters” in the field gunning for ‘high-value’ players and raising all-in on a regular basis.

But apart from playground fun (did anyone really play conkers for real cash? Ed) you will find that in a poker setting, better players will deliberately lower their standards. Watch for these guys and try to capitalise on their sluggish play by calling them when they have a decent hand.

In addition, Littlewoods’ bounty tournaments offer everyone the opportunity to eliminate some big names, each of whom will be allocated a specific cash bounty which then accrues to the player who has knocked them out.
Who would have thought that a game first played with hazelnuts in fifteenth century England (known as cobnuts) could be applied to have such modern day appeal?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 11:29 am and is filed under General Poker, News & Promotions Blog.