A new game at Canterbury – “Survival”

Canterbury Park, in the midst of a major reconstruction that is scheduled to finish roughly one month from now, recently unveiled a new no-limit hold’em game called “Survival.”

But isn’t no-limit hold’em illegal in Minnesota? Cash games, yes. But not tournaments. Survival is technically a tournament game, but it plays a lot like a no-limit cash game.

How it works (for a player’s point of view, check out Luke Otterblad’s recent post):
- Using “Survival $200+30″ as an example
- As soon 9 players sign up, a table begins play
- Draw for seats, and each player gets $200 in tournament chips
- Blinds are set at $1 small, $2 big, and the blinds NEVER increase
- Players may re-buy anytime they are under half of the buy-in

“I think it is as close to the feel and play of a live NL cash game as Minnesota can get,” said Canterbury floor supervisor Annie Adlin, “but there are definately rules that make the separation to tournament.”

These rules, most notably, that players cannot cashout whenever they’d like. They must play the full two hours. Players are also unable to arbitrarily add to their stack whenever they want. Plus, in live games Canterbury uses a forward moving button. For tournaments and Survival they use a dead button.

Survival is governed by TDA rules.

“We think Survival will catch on once the word gets out and players get a chance to see them in action,” Adlin said. “So far, the players seem pleased with the new choice.”

The idea for Survivor actually started brewing three years ago.

“We were trying to come up with some out of the box promotions that we could offer our players,” Adlin said. “Inevitably the discussion of  spread-limit came up. During that long and rehashed debate, my thoughts drifted to our ‘Timed Christmas Tournament” and how there is a segment of players that really want to play No-limit, but by Minnesota state law, we cannot offer that as a live game.

“I had a ‘what if” moment (with Survivor), and the more thought I gave it, the more the pieces just fell into place. After getting input from fellow shift managers and floorpersons, I soon had a workable plan on paper to present.”

Of course, the next topic of conversation should revolve around why Minnesota doesn’t allow no-limit cash games in the first place. Doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, but that’s a discussion for another day.