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

[Daniel Negreanu]

Strange thing happened, I just drew Steve Z in the first round of the heads up tournament. I played bad, he played worse, lol. Anyway, it was clear to me that he isn't one to take advantage of deep stack play as he routinely over bet the pot in marginal situations. he had me down 8900-1100 and I came back in a hurry to win.

I also talked to him about his article and it was as suspected, he was more concerned with short stack play later and rather than sacrifice play later would prefer having earlier levels sped up to compensate for the later stages.

[LVZEE]

Neither of us played well, but I'd say Daniel was much weaker in the deep stack play. We played 2 big pots. In the first I was a big favorite after turn, he kept calling & I won, leaving him short stacked. He fought back valiantly to take the lead, usually calling my small pr raises with 2 overs, hitting & winning (as far as I know, he drew out every time, bet or raised & I folded correctly.) Then he trapped himself - got all-in with worst hand & worst draw about a 3-1 dog, but he won easily.
(I wonder what I would have had to do to gain his approval-I got all-in when I had best hands & got away when he outdrew me.)
On to important stuff: structures-I would like to see deep stack play when it matters (ie when money is on the line.)
Here is one possibbility of adding in later play.
Instead of everyone starting with 50 Big blinds at opening level, then getting to where average stack has 10 when getting into money. Let's start everyone with 10 big blinds, and not raise the limit until 80% of the players are gone, at which point the average stack will have 50 big blinds & we would be close to the bubble.

[LVZEE]

I was basically saying that given a choice between an early crap shoot and a later one, I'd prefer to have it early. We must remember that there are a lot of players who have to be eliminated to have a winner & there are only 3 to 5 days of play.

I have always liked to idea of playing the whole tournament with a constant number of big blinds for the average stack, unfortunately this would probably lead to long slow tournaments, unless that number was relatively small.

The goal should be to have 50 BB or so when 80% of the players are gone & your decisions start to have a real dollar impact. I have been in the money in a lot of tournaments and have found that: In limit tournaments the average stack seldom had enough to play through at most one hand with betting & raising and In NoLimit Tournaments players go all-in before flop or on flop about 10 times as often as they do on the river. These basically means that there is almost no deep stack play at the end. (The main event at the WSOP is an exception,)

See my answer to Daniel N's post for one possible solution.

[Alan Goehring]

[ QUOTE ]

Here is one possibbility of adding in later play.
Instead of everyone starting with 50 Big blinds at opening level, then getting to where average stack has 10 when getting into money. Let's start everyone with 10 big blinds, and not raise the limit until 80% of the players are gone, at which point the average stack will have 50 big blinds & we would be close to the bubble.

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't a possibilty, unless you are willing to substantially increase playing hours, and your suggestion for shorter days actually makes things worse, not better. The geometric mid-point of a 625 player tourney would be 25 players remaining. So the choices would be to make the structure substantially worse to eliminate 600 players (96% of field), and then make it better for the last 4%. Or alternately, Instead of playing 50BB early & 10BB late, lets play 10BB early and 15BB late.

I think many people underestimate the difficulty of "substantially" improving chip depth late in an event. The suggestions in the CP article (e.g. shave 30 mintues off starting levels or eliminate one or two early levels, and re-allocating this time to later in the event), would increase the average AS/BB from 42x to maybe 45x or 47x late in the event. I don't think playing at 47BB's instead of 42BB's is going to solve the problem of needing to go all-in on or before the flop most of the time.

btw, even if you played 4 hour levels late in an event, you would not be playing "deep stack" poker (using my definition of deep stack which is AS/BB>100).

[Alan Goehring]

[ QUOTE ]
I was basically saying that given a choice between an early crap shoot and a later one, I'd prefer to have it early.

I have always liked to idea of playing the whole tournament with a constant number of big blinds for the average stack,

The goal should be to have 50 BB or so when 80% of the players are gone & your decisions start to have a real dollar impact. I have been in the money in a lot of tournaments and have found that: In NoLimit Tournaments players go all-in before flop or on flop about 10 times as often as they do on the river. These basically means that there is almost no deep stack play at the end. (The main event at the WSOP is an exception,)


[/ QUOTE ]

I would rather have the crapshoot at the end. The reason is that I am guaranteed (or nearly guaranteed) the opportunity to play some poker with a great structure, and if I play good/great I have been given the chance to accumulate a "big stack" (e.g. 3x par) so that I am entering the more random portion of the tournement from a "postion of strength". Secondly, you simply will not get to play poker with a great structure late in an event, unless you consider AS/BB=50x to be great.

Playing the entire tourney at the same AS/BB multiple will mean the best player will win the event less often (i.e. you have reduced the skill component and increased the luck component). In addition, it seems a lot of players don't know what they are doing at 200BBs or simply have a weak deep chip game (i.e. weak post flop players). Should these players be given a "free pass" and not have to play such a game. There are already a lot of events for these guys, they are called preliminary events, and they are numerous.

What is so special about 50BB? Not much different from 40BB if you ask me. I think 150BB is great without antes, 200BB is great with antes. 50BB is not great. The WSOP ME has about 5% deep chip play, it is the first two levels.

[LVZEE]

There are so many points it is almost overwhelming to try to discuss them all. Let's look at a 4 and 5 day tournament, starting with 536 players. If we want the last day to be the final table of 9 (or 6 or 10) and the next to last day to have 27 or 36, we are left with 2 or 3 days to eliminate the other 500. Compare early speed to late speed. With 2 days: I strongly favor a format that eliminates 400 then 100 to one that eliminates 100 then 400. With 3 days I favor 350, 100, 50 to 100, 150, and 250.

[Alan Goehring]

[ QUOTE ]
There are so many points it is almost overwhelming to try to discuss them all. Let's look at a 4 and 5 day tournament, starting with 536 players. If we want the last day to be the final table of 9 (or 6 or 10) and the next to last day to have 27 or 36, we are left with 2 or 3 days to eliminate the other 500. Compare early speed to late speed. With 2 days: I strongly favor a format that eliminates 400 then 100 to one that eliminates 100 then 400. With 3 days I favor 350, 100, 50 to 100, 150, and 250.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets just agree that we disagree.

I think the first day should be about building relative chip position rather than eliminating players. I also disagree that it benefits players to eliminate them rapidly so that they are "free to play other casino games or catch shows", etc. I think the MAJORITY of players who play these events would agree with me. (I do agree that reducing average playing time per person is good for the casino as it lowers their expenses marginally).

This underscores why "standardized structures" are a bad idea. I don't want to play every event, so I will play the events with the slower structures & a fair amount of (more interesting) deep chip play, and others are free to play the events with rapid bustouts and less playing time----let the market decide.

There are other points/arguments in the artictle where I stongly disagree, but I won't get into that here, unless you really want to get into it.