[Silent A]

I've been looking into this year's WCOOP tourneys and I've noticed that once the tourney gets established (i.e. at least 3 hours after the tourney starts or re-buy period ends) the average chips stack almost always has an M of about 25 (55-60BBs).

For example, as I type this the 200R is on the 9th break. At the end of level 18 (2000/4000/400) the average stack was 232,222 for an average M of 24.2 (58 BBs).

You can use this to estimate lost of things, for example (using the current 200R):

1) how many people will be left at the next break?

The current 200R NLHE as 23M chips. Level 20 is 4000/8000/800. A M=25 chip stack will be 25*(4000+8000+800*9) = 480,000. So the number of players will be about = 23,000,000/580,000 = 48.

2) When will the final table start?

The average chip stack will be 23,000,000/9 = 2.56 million. So it should start when an orbit costs 2,560,000/25 = 102,000. This works out to late level 27 (96,000/full-ring orbit) or early level 28 (120,000/orbit).

3) When will it go Heads-up?

I'll base this on 55-60BBs since the antes become less significant short-handed relative to the blinds.

The average chip stack will be 23,000,000/2 = 11.5 million. So it should start when a BB is 11,500,000/57.5 = 200,000. Unfortunately, this tourney caps off at a BB of 100K (level 31), so all I can say is that you can expect it to be about 4 handed after 30 minutes of level 31. That's 15.5 hours of playing time plus 2 hours of official breaks plus 15-30 minutes of miscellaneous delays.

Expect it (4 handed play) to happen at 15:00 ET + 18 hours = 9:00 am ET.

I hope someone finds this useful.