Tourney Calculating end of tournament with BB ante (1 Viewer)

[trigs]

I know the standard way of figuring out when a tournament will end:

Total # of chips in play * 5% = most likely the last blind level

However, how does this change with BB antes in play?

Just curious if others have noticed the BB ante having a big effect on the length of the tournament or not. I've never seen a calculation as the one above that factored in antes.

 

[Mr Winberg]

From my experience, and this is just based on my tournaments with my group of degens (in other words: YMMV), my BB ante tournaments end when there are around 30-50 BBs left, i.e., ~3.3%-2%. Other aspects come into play, though, where the total playing time and nr of hands per hour are important factors. The more you can streamline your tournament, and the less time the players waste, the more hands will be played. More hands means more chances of eliminations.

For example, I changed the table sizes from 10 to 8, which greatly improved speed. The tournaments ended a little earlier, meaning I could make the blind structure less aggressive and still hit my deadline.

Of course, if heads up starts with 60 BBs left, and the shortstack keeps surviving, it can still end with 5% left, or beyond! The probability of it ending earlier is higher, though.

Just my 2 cents...

 

[BGinGA]

I use 20bb remaining in play as an indicator for typical maximum non-ante tournament length, and 30bb remaining for tournaments with antes.

I see no reason why table ante events (with appropriate ante amounts) should be any different than individually-posted player antes in this regard, nor I have I experienced any deviations in events I have run.

Only issues I forsee are:

• if the table ante is introduced from the very beginning of the event (most individual antes do not come into play for several levels), it may slightly shorten overall play
• if the table ante value is not scaled to the number of remaining players (unwise not to do so, imo) -- a unnecessarily-large table ante will have a negative time affect on short-handed tables, and at the final table as the number of players decreases.

 

[DeeVee8]

I've been using BB antes for a couple of tourneys and the 5% rule has still worked very accurately.

 

[CraigT78]

if the table ante value is not scaled to the number of remaining players (unwise not to do so, imo)

Can you explain how this would be accomplished?

 

[Mr Winberg]

Can you explain how this would be accomplished?

One way would be to have the table ante be the size of the big blind down to, say, 6 players at the table, from 5 to 3 you could have it be the size of the small blind, and heads up it could be removed completely (or replaced by standard antes, but that could require you to re-introduce smaller denoms when heads up).

 

[Mr Winberg]

The point is that when there are, for example, 4 players left, a table ante the size of the BB would be equivalent to a standard ante of 1/4 of the BB, which is extremely high. If reduced to the size of the SB, it would be equivalent to a standard ante of 1/8 of the BB, which is quite standard. Therefore, adapting the table ante to the number of players at the table makes it resemble standard antes to a greater degree.

This would mean that when down to two tables, the ante size can be different at each table.

 

[BGinGA]

Can you explain how this would be accomplished?

What ^he^ said.

 

[Mr Winberg]

my BB ante tournaments end when there are around 30-50 BBs left, i.e., ~3.3%-2%.

if [...] the shortstack keeps surviving, it can still end with 5% left, or beyond!

I'm glad I wrote that disclaimer. I hosted a T20k freezout tournament on Saturday for 18 degens. With on-time-bonus and rounding up on color-ups there was around 400k in play towards the end. I had planned on it ending at the 8k/16k level at the latest, but the final three lasted long and it wasn't down to heads up until the last minute of that level.

The next level had a steep increase to 12k/24k and was only 16 minutes long (I call this the "time to leave" level). With around 8 BBs each they managed to survive the whole level!

The next level (the "Still here? GTFO!" level) is 20k/40k and only lasts 12 minutes. I have no idea how, cause I was busy destroying the cash game (which may or may not be true), but somehow 5 BBs each was enough for them to stay afloat! WTF???

The next level, 30k/60 (or the "how is this even possible!?" level) finally ended things. I'm not sure why, but it seems that having just 3.3 BBs per player causes them to make rash decisions...

I have barely had a tournament survive past 30 BBs left in years, and never ever had one survive 20 (except turbo STTs). I didn't think I'd ever experience one surviving to 6.7!