I entered a Satellite To 15K MTT tourney yesterday. By the time late registration was over there were 102 entrants.
Think about it…
102 entrants paying a 2K buy-in = 204,000 chips
9 prizes @15K each = 135,000 chips
Only 67% of the pay-in is being paid out as prizes.
It would be pretty dumb for me to keep entering these tourneys with such a low ROI.
The problem is…I can’t calculate(with any confidence)the ROI when I enter because of late registration.
I posted this here because the combination of a fixed pay-out tourney and late registration illustrates & magnifies the distaste some of have for late registration.
I do not believe that late registration provides any advantage. Yes, other players have to pay the blinds that late registering players don’t, but those blinds go somewhere → to the other players at the table! You have an opportunity to increase your stack by registering early that late registering players do not. This balances out their advantage of not going out of the tournament. If you think that not playing poker (sitting out and registering late) is an advantage over playing poker (starting the tournament on time), then you might as well not play poker at all! Sometimes I’m late and sometimes I’m not, but I play poker because I know it is a game of skill and that I am likely to win, not to try to sit out and wait for other players to eliminate each other.
If you are the 9th player to register and 4 players have already been eliminated, your starting stack will be tiny compared to the remaining players putting you at a huge disadvantage. If you had been playing, maybe you would have been one of those big stacks.
The satellite tournaments are pretty much not worth playing in general. It seems like there always more entrants than the tickets are worth, and the sheer amount of variance involved in final tabling a tournament with a 2k buy-in to win a measly 15k and then to turn that 15k ticket into cashing a second tournament makes it pretty much pointless. You would be much better off playing a 2k SnG, winning actual 15k instead of a ticket and then playing that 15k as you see fit. It’s not really the fault of the other players in the satellite tournaments or late entrants.
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The fixed payout structure has been brought up in another thread here and Replay Poker says they are looking into moving towards a variable format with guarantees. I had the exact same issues with these satellites - why would anyone play a negative EV tournament? Well, no rational person would frankly. This isn’t a function of the late registration thing though, just a function of the tournament structure and of people not knowing what EV or ROI are so they keep registering even after it is no longer profitable to do so.
1: KEEP Late Registration, it is a disadvantage, case closed.
2: to JoeDirk & Warlock, not worth playing a sattalite ?
…a: lets say you take 3rd-4th in a 1k buyin with max3 rebuys. your profit might only be 4-6k at best… a 15k ticket, at worst, costs 2k.
…b: as long as you understand bubble dynamics, which is easier 3rd-4th or 9th ???
…c: so I guess to me… very worth playing in general.
Sarah -
I think you know that I value the satellites in general. However, after a certain number of entrants, the value goes negative, meaning your expected value of playing is less than the expected value of not playing. This is why I was trying to see if Replay Poker would move to a variable format rather than a fixed one. If you include entry-fees in the calculation (and I do since they are chips I have to spend), then the EV in the satellites goes negative after 67 players register. The prize pool remains fixed at $135K in value despite the amount of entrants inflating the total outlay to well over $200K (when # of entrants goes over 100).
Its just a matter of risk and reward. At 68 or more entrants to the satellite, your expected cost of that 15K ticket exceeds 15K. Just the math, not a function of anything else. If they switched to a variable format, I’d play almost all of them I could. I think you’d have a problem with any tournament where the host (Replay Poker) is keeping up to 35% of the total chips for themselves though, right?
If they changed the payout structure of the League 15K tournaments so that the total payout was going to be 25-30% less than it is now, with everything else staying the same, you’d have an issue with that I’d think. If the number of spots that paid out in those tournaments did not increase beyond 10 spots, even as the number of entrants went over 100 to 150 or so, that would be an issue for you, correct? That’s the concept I’m talking about with the satellites as they are structured now. This may be different than what Joe is saying. I cant speak for him.
Yes I see, what you are saying is … across the line, they should add more tickets due to excess entry fees collected… so using your #, 67… some structure of 1 per x, additional tickets are added as players are added. I can see why you feel that is unfair to cap at 9.
For me, I guess its a exponential function… that determines “time spent” vs say # of entrants. Also a sattalite never counts towards the monthies, and since I do like to play the red 15k’s, I can always use those 15k tickets… you use ROI, well yes I gotcha covered there, but " I of what "… you are talking investment ( chips ), but it can also be inverstment ( time ). Are you also talking only 1 table at a time, because its possible to realistically play 4 tables at once… Sometimes its no harder than, winning 4-5 hands, and folding the rest…voila - a ticket.
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You got it exactly. My only problem is with the cap on prizes, not with the satellite itself in any other way. Time value is unique to each player - some will find it worthwhile and others wont. Some will have bankrolls so large that the 15K entry fee isn’t even worth thinking about for them. For me, at under 1.5 million, it is absolutely worth thinking about, especially if I am going to attempt to treat these chips as I would my actual bankroll for live play.
We got wayyy off topic from late registration… lolololol
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How often do these tournaments have less than 67 entries?
Almost never from what I’ve seen, other than maybe the 2:45am game. Mostly in the ~100 player range these days.
The pay out of the Satellites will be changed, now we have a fixed prize pool, in future we will have a prize pool of tickets based on the number of participants.
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Happiness, will there be a min number of tickets tho ? Do you know if in all MTTs, the prize structure can be shown in realtime, as ppl enter… Many people want to know this before registering.
( Warlock, I have noticed the deadzone is between11pm and 4am ( MST USA ), I’d love to play with over 100 ppl consistantly, alot better t-pts… but I am a latenighter, usually its 30-65 ppl MTTs.
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Happiness - thanks for the update. Shakeraise had responded to this on another thread where I had addressed this concern before. I was just bringing it up here because another user seemed to have similar questions as I had. Sorry if I sounded like I was carping on this again. I wasn’t trying to, just trying to answer questions.
Sarah- I see the same thing here on the East Coast. Sometimes I cant get away all day to play a game and go looking for one later at night. There are games to be had but I can see where this would not be a good time to go hunting for tournament points. #runners is the key element of their formula so without the entrants, not as many points available.
I too would love to see real-time payouts and have mentioned this to RP. Its easy to do and I agree that its an important element in deciding whether to play a game or not. I’d even love to see the raw formula for each tournament posted in the info box on each as a matter of general info. This type of information is available for every live tournament played ahead of time (I think by law in most jurisdictions here). Anyone playing for money wants to know ahead of time how the payouts are calculated so they can decide whether the entry fee is worthwhile for them or not.
Happiness, Well done. TY
I hate playing tournaments when several early entrants show up after 10 minutes and still have 3/4 of their starting stack left.
This is correct If someone feels it is advantage then he/she should register late who prevents them Why to done away late registration for every body
If you find late registration has got advantage why you do not register late who prevented u to register late
To me, it is an issue of basic fairness.
Everyone should start equal with the same chance of winning. Nobody should ever get to enter a tourney in a better position than anyone else in the tourney.
So, is late registration fair?
And if late registration is fair for 15 minutes, why isn’t it still fair for 30 minutes? or for 1 hour? or for the whole tourney?
Well I think most of us can see the problem with allowing late registration for the whole tourney but I will lay out the scenario anyway…
Player A battles for 90 minutes and finally gets in the money(the tourney pays 15 places and there are 15 players remaining). Player A is down to 1,000 chips. Suddenly Player B enters the tourney and has the standard 2,000 chips. Player A blinds out while Player B folds and watches. Player A finishes in 16th and out of the money.
I think we would all say that is unfair.
So we have established that late registration can be unfair.
But why was it unfair?
I would argue that although both players started with the same amount of chips, Player B entered the tourney in a better position than Player A.
And in tourneys we ultimately are playing for position because the payout is based on position.
It follows that anytime a player enters a tourney with a position advantage over any other player, there is some unfairness involved. It is only a matter of the degree and visibility of that unfairness.
In my 90 minute example above the unfairness is obvious and to a high degree.
But a 60 minute late registration would also carry unfairness. It would just be less obvious and have less impact.
A 10 minute late registration must also be unfair. But impact of that unfairness is very low and very subtle.
The question then becomes…is the subtle unfairness of late registration offset by it’s advantages, mainly more participation and easier tourney entry?
I would vote no on late registration but I won’t be upset if it continues.
I believe that the real problem is not late registration but players that get up to a decent size stack and than sit out and watch the game hopping to get to the prizes
I have had the experience that a player stayed out and watch other knock out the opposition and whilst not playing still get a prize
I believe that if a player is away from the [lay for 5 minutes he should forfeit his place on the table
If we allow this practise to continue we could have the silly situation od all players sitting out and we would not have a game at all