While we welcome any and all players of all skill levels, the end result I hope to achieve is to hang out with each other, play poker, and have fun. The money is just a secondary added bonus. You're paying an extra $1.40 roughly on top of the $7-7.50 buyin per game for good clean fun. Shouldn't be about 9% or a decent prize pool.
Just an FYI, 1st in the regular games has been paying between 9000 and 12000 chips for 1st. That alone is a decent prize pool considering the buyin.
You're right, money isn't the main point of this series. I've been following and observing this from the sidelines since the beginning but a few factors led me to not participate, the main one being that I live in Australia and didn't really want to wake up 3am in the morning to play. That's not anybody's fault (it's one of the disadvantages of living here) but I reckon that would outweigh a large portion of the fun I'm sure I would have.
When I was asking about the consolation tournament, I was planning to do an all-nighter just once. I hope you can understand how being told I'd have to play in the series as well to enter sounds dissuading. I'd simply rather play at a time I'm normally awake; the rake is indeed insignificant but reminds me that I could just play any regular tournament.
Even if I didn't mind waking up early, I can't possibly join in late now as I wouldn't forgive myself for not giving myself the best chances to win by playing from the start. Best wishes to your tournament and I hope there'll be a more favourable opportunity to play poker with you guys in the future.
The start time is very inconvenient for you. I wasn't aware of your timezone. Not to mention the game usually lasts a minimum 3 hours. I wish we could accommodate everyone on this issue.