Dag Otto, I think your criticism of the payout structure is well-founded. The only thing I would say in favor of the large percentage payoff for the first round is that this way, everybody who makes it to the second round has gotten their buy-in back, which, from this player’s viewpoint, is a nice thing. But overall, I wouldn’t mind if they changed the percentages so that only 1st place finishers of round one made the buy-in back and pushed some of the resulting money out of round 1 and into rounds 2, 3 and 4.
I knew going into the shootouts that the payoff for making the money at the final table was going to be much less than it would be for a regular MTT with the same number of entries. However, I’ve played a lot of SNGs and small MTTs and am more confident in my play in those situations than I am in massive MTTs, where the best I have ever finished is somewhere in the 20s. Would I rather have won $1700 (the 21% that first would pay in a $5 MTT with 1670 entries) instead of $370? You betcha! But I consider a first place finish (even a top 5 finish) in such a tourney to be a tremendous long-shot for me, whereas I always thought that I could make the final 5 at a shootout.
Capn, I didn’t see more reckless play in the first rounds than I would consider normal for a single-table SNG. Not like in rebuy and add-on tournaments, where many players just seem to go completely nuts during the rebuy period.
The tournament took almost exactly 5 hours, which I don’t think is considerably shorter than a regular MTT with 1670 players would take.
I agree. It doesn’t seem shorter to my untrained eye. But one of the big advantages I saw listed on the PP page was shorter tournaments. So I was just curious.
Interesting that the play isn’t reckless. It would appear that all my surmises of the day are incorrect. Not that this makes today much different than any other day, but still…
I don’t think reckless play is likely pay off in a shootout, the more I think about it. I finished each round except for one with a very close to average stack. (The one exception was the fourth round, which I entered with a pretty comfortable lead over average). While there are probably some advantages to bringing a dominating stack into the next round, I personally think they’re outweighed by the dangers of bringing a tiny stack into the next round. Overall, I’d rather make it through the early rounds with average or slightly better stacks and be in decent shape heading into the last round than take chances on less-than-stellar hands which might result in my being crippled with a small stack early in the next round.
When I went into heads-up at the end of this tournament, I had 900K chips to my opponent’s 2 million, blinds 50K-100K. We played 14 hands heads-up and by the last one our stacks were reversed – his 800K to my 2 million. Now, a large part of that swing was due to chance – I went all-in preflop with A9s and it turned out he had KK. Two aces on the flop and a 9 on the river, and his KK had crippled him. Three hands after that, he went all-in preflop and I called with QTd. Flopped a straight, not that it mattered because his all-in was a bluff – he had 74o, and the game was over.
I outlasted a lot of people who had big stacks coming into each round. But I never saw a player who started the round with the minimum number of chips (or slightly more) get through to the end of the round.
I just can’t do worth a flip in these tourneys. I’ve been kinda busy lately and haven’t even played, but last time I entered a tourney I went out in about 4 hands or some such.
Congrats, Black Widow! Here’s to your continued success (except on Thursdays, when I ain’t gonna root fer ya!)
Dag, been cogitating on your post and playing around in Excel, and discovered that I rather like a formula that goes 25%, 15%, 10%, and 50% for rounds 1-4, respectively. I think it makes a lot more sense. (Also, I would have won close to $2k that way. Not that that’s influencing my thinking).
I wonder whether PP’s payout structure is typical of shootouts (internet and B&M) or if it’s unique to them. It seems to me they’d likely copy what other sites/casinos do in setting up their payouts.
I have no experience with shootouts, so maybe they way they do it is common.
However, I would probably be interested if the payout was 0%, 20%, 30%, and 50% for rounds 1-4. I don’t see any reason to get paid for making it past the first table.
1 Dag Otto the suck out king of the night
2 Nanook
3 nesta
4 Ganster Oct
5 Aholibah
6 Miss Take
7 Dead Guy
8 Duck of Suck
9 Capn
10 Yeti
11 Xray
12 Fubbleskag
So dominated Otto you bastid But it was a nice heads up up til then, back and forth.
But it was a nice heads up up til then, back and forth.