Re: [ba-poker] Tourney poker popularity

[Steve Daniel <stephen.daniel(deleted the rest)>]

Exactly the question I am working on right now.  After returning from the New
England Poker Classic a few weeks ago I made this point on several of the *ARGE
lists stating that I believe that given that live fields have increased by 2X to
4X while payout structures have remained the same a player that was above
average in skill would see perhaps just a small increase EV but a large increase
in Variance.  To put in simply, you will make the money less often but when you
do you will win more.  This has significant implications since we are all to
some degree working from a fixed bankroll.  If my analysis is correct then the
you should adjust your tournament strategy taking more risks early to either get
a stack large enough to survive more bad beats, or bust out early and play
Satellites and live games which now have higher EV without any major increase in
variance.

My chat friend Bill Chen disagreed so I am building a model to analyze this
other related tournament questions.  Given that I have to find time to do this
it may take me a few months to accomplish this.

Crunch


James Kittock wrote:

> In my mind, it is not a question of too much
> dead money; rather, it is yet another question of
> expectation vs. variance.
>
> Even the best player in the world, if pitted
> against 1,000,000 complete gamb00lers (for the
> sake of exaggeration), would find it hard to
> win consistently, simply because the probability
> of taking a bad beat would be so high.  When
> he/she did win, the prize would be enormous
> of course.  Hence the high variance.
>
> Having said that, I've played several times in
> a huge freeroll online (2000 - 3000 contestants),
> where the vast majority of the players play like
> complete idiots, and I have moneyed maybe 30%
> to 50% of the times I've played.
>
> Has anyone seen any good studies of how # of
> players in a tournament affects variance?
>
> --j
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rodney Chen" <rchen(deleted the rest)>
> To: <ba-poker(deleted the rest)>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 9:48 AM
> Subject: [ba-poker] Tourney poker popularity
>
> > I'm sure it's been discussed to some degree in published articles and in
> > forums, but I was curious of the thoughts of folks on this list that are
> > more regular tourney players.  There's no question that poker's popularity
> > has helped prize pools to record levels (WPT Five Diamond has $8.4 million
> > to split), and even the supersatellites (1 supersatellite had $1.08
> > million to give 42 seats).  Since payout structures still pay 12-15% and
> > the pools are still top heavy, is there such thing as too much dead money?
> >
> > Rodney
> >
> > Bellagio WPT Championship
> > PLACE %
> > 1st 32.5  2nd 16.5  3rd  8.5  4th  5.5   5th  4.0
> > 6th  2.8  7th  2.0  8th  1.6  9th  1.4   10th 1.2
> > 11th - 15th 1.0
> > 16th - 20th 0.8
> > 21st - 30th 0.6
> > 31st - 40th 0.5
> > 41st - 50th 0.4
> >
> > and:
> >
> > http://www.pokerpages.com/pokerinfo/wsop/2004championship-payout.htm
> >