CardPlayer article re: high buy-in structures----agree or disagree?

[Alan Goehring]

An article in the 12/20 CardPlayer (p.74) makes two primary points:

1. We should eliminate players from tournaments quickly until the money is reached. "In the early stages of the tournament, eliminate players quickly. This can be done by starting at a higher level, playing shorter rounds early, or eliminating some of the early levels".

Reading this made me cringe, as I believe the "typical" big buy-in structure today is deficient in deep-chip play and the early bust out rate is too high. I think we need to see more play in the 100-300BB range, not less. For example, 30k SC with 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 100/200/ante, 150/300/ante, 200/400/ante----would give six levels of deep chip play (i.e., over 100BB's assuming 1/4 field gone by end of level 5).

I do agree there is such a thing as "too deep". For example Fallsview started 800BB's (25/25 & 20k SC) and skipped the critical 100/200/0 level, and the upcoming Borgata event starts 600BB's (25/50 & 30k SC) but has no (extremely sweet) 100/200/25.

2. "When it doesn't matter, you have a lot of play. When it really counts, you have little or no play"

This argument says it is not really important how much randomness you have when AS=12k, it is significantly more important to have less randomness when AS=120k. I think one could make the opposite argument that if you are out of the tournament, the structure doesn't matter to you, and the play at AS=120k only impacts 10% of the players (vs. AS=12k). I believe the correct answer is that the "aggregate amount of chips in play" is constant throughout the entire event, so it "really counts" equally throughout the entire event (as the aggregate amount of chips impacted remains the same at every level). My view is you need to start off slow so that early volatility can be accomodated, and time is given for a large stack to both be accumulated AND maintained.

I guess I view the suggestions set forth in the CardPlayer article as a way to turn existing tournaments into even bigger "donkaments". And since I am already not traveling to events with marginal structures, I would play even fewer events if the early randomness factor is further increased.

So I ask you, am I misunderstanding the article, are my views those of an almost non-existent minority, or does the CardPlayer article not make sense?

[MicroBob]

I'm not much of a tourney player. And I don't know if your opinion is in the minority or not.
But I pretty much agree with you 100%.


Who wrote the article?

[Taborcarn]

It's by Steve Zolotow. The article can be read here: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/16399

[hotmark777]

I know this is off topic but how do you feel about the fact that many major tournaments are given twice the buy in starting chips instead of the actual buy in.

[Alan Goehring]

[ QUOTE ]
I know this is off topic but how do you feel about the fact that many major tournaments are given twice the buy in starting chips instead of the actual buy in.

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends how it is implemented, but it is usually a small positive as you get one extra extra level of relatively deep cheep play---e.g. AS/BB=110 or 120 (when BB repeats during first level of antes).

[Daniel Negreanu]

[ QUOTE ]
I know this is off topic but how do you feel about the fact that many major tournaments are given twice the buy in starting chips instead of the actual buy in.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally I find this to be silly and totally irrelevant, yet I hear lots of people say, "Wow, 20,000 in chips, that's great!" What they fail to realize, is that it doesn't matter how many chips you start with at all. All that matters is the starting stack in relation to the blinds.

10,000 buy ins used to always start with 10,000 in chips and 25-50 blinds. More and more now, we see 20,000 in starting chips with 50-100 blinds. In other words, both tournaments start out with the identical structure, only the one with 20,000 in starting chips moves up even more quickly because antes are introduced earlier.

As for Alan's points, he's absolutely right and Steve's view of the unimportance of the early stages is more an inidcation of his playing style than anything else. Steve doesn't really look to play lots of pots with a deep stack. He generally prefers making major decisions pre-flop, so a tournament with less play would benefit his style of play.

[kutuz_off]

[ QUOTE ]
10,000 buy ins used to always start with 10,000 in chips and 25-50 blinds. More and more now, we see 20,000 in starting chips with 50-100 blinds. In other words, both tournaments start out with the identical structure, only the one with 20,000 in starting chips moves up even more quickly because antes are introduced earlier.

[/ QUOTE ]

While antes may kick in earlier, you don't have to deal with doubling of blinds between 1st and 2nd levels. So it isnt necessarily shallower now than before.

[nath]

[ QUOTE ]
"donkaments"

[/ QUOTE ]
YES WE GOT ALAN GOEHRING TO SAY DONKAMENTS

anyway, i agree with you. anything that allows a structure to play deeper and longer and benefits more skilled players is good with me. i've been ranting about the pokerstars structure, the one all the online kids love, for a long time (too many big jumps, the antes are laughable, etc.) the last thing i want is more sped-up structures. and the whole wpt "let's cut the levels in half at the final table so our camera crew can wrap early, who cares if we're forcing these players to a crapshoot for the large majority of the prize pool?" is vile and disgusting.

[Exitonly]

wow, that's a really really bad article.


i agree 12-14 hour days are a bit excessive (9-10 is good), and that twoards the end of tournaments there are often some levels taht should be added, but i dont understand why we're trying to take out some skill advantage in the beginign. and how confidently he writes about it is disturbing, it oculd actually convince some tournaemnt directors to reverse the trend about caring about the structures.

and does anyone remember the world series main event? bad players spew off their stacks just as fast when they have 100bb as they do with 20bb. The main event actually got pretty damn deepstacked at the end because of how fast people were getting knocked out.

[NoahSD]

The current structure of tournaments is amazingly good for good players. Stacks are deep in the beginning, which naturally favors good players obv. And then when bad players typically get way too tight, stacks get really short and we get to pick on their blinds. Changing this would suck soooo much.