Re: [ba-poker] Major Tournament Payout

["Stephen H. Landrum" <slandrum(deleted the rest)>]

At 04:59 PM 1/20/2005, Ed Fernandez wrote:
> Hi all. Does anyone know where I can find out the percentage payouts for 
> one of the larger tournaments like the WPT or WSOP? Specifically I am 
> interested in the payout structure for events with 100 players, 500 
> players, and 1500 players (or more).

There is a fair amount of variance in the payout structures.

As of a few years ago, most tournament did not pay more than 3 tables (24, 
27 or 30 places depending on the game and whether the tables were 8, 9, or 
10 handed).  The TOC broke new ground with payouts of more than 3 tables, 
and lately tournaments have often paid very deeply into the field.

First place in most tournaments is from 20-40% of the prize pool, and a 
ballpark of 10% of the starting field seems to be typical number of people 
paid, but after that there a lot of difference in how the payout is 
divided.  Sometimes the last places paid get less than their buy-in back, 
but it's more usual for the bottom money to get at least their buy-in back 
(excepting rebuy tournaments).

Typically at 100 players, 1 table is paid (sometimes 2), at each increment 
of 100 players another table is paid (up to some limit).

An annoying thing that frequently happens is that even though payout 
schedules are often published in advance, they are often changed at the 
last minute.  The most extreme case of this was the Aruba WPT event where 
originally bottom money was guaranteed to get $1750, and they changed it to 
pay the same number of places but guaranteed bottom money $7000.  They 
probably got a lot of complaints because the buy-in to the tournament was 
$6200, and under the original schedule the majority of players finishing in 
the money would still have walked away losers.

Two years ago at the WSOP, tournament director Matt Savage was still 
working out different prize schedules for the main event the night before 
it started.  When 200 more players than were anticipated ended up playing, 
he had to improvise further.

Actual prize pools for specific tournaments can be looked up at 
pokerpages.com ;  although what's reported there can be inaccurate, it will 
probably suffice for you.

--
Stephen H. Landrum <slandrum(deleted the rest)>