17 way chop - was it a good decision

[MCS]

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Mathematically I don't think it was too bad - your chance of finishing less than 4th was very high.

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This is not the right way to think about it, because the reward for finishing higher than 4th is significantly more than the penalty for finishing lower than 4th. You can't just estimate his average finishing position and then take the payout for that to determine his EV. The more steep the payouts, the worse this deal becomes.

I would guess it was a bad chop with regard to tournament $EV, but like others have said, there may be other considerations.