Tourney Double Or Nothing Tournaments (1 Viewer)

[CrazyEddie]

The common wisdom in standard tournaments is that the tourney will end when there are twenty blinds total in play, plus or minus one level.

What would the corresponding estimated endpoint be for a double-or-nothing tournament? Assume 10 or 9 players playing down to five survivors, or 8 players playing down to four survivors.

Here's a guess: In a standard tourney two players shuffle twenty blinds back and forth until one gets a good break and takes them all. So probably four players can shuffle forty blinds around the table for a while without any of them going instantly broke, but with a decent chance that one of them will bust at any moment? And sixty blinds for six players? So when the tournament hits sixty blinds, you can expect that it will quickly get down to six players if it isn't there already, and that there's a strong likelihood that one of the remaining six will bust before the next level comes around. So... sixty blinds for 10/9 players playing down to five. Maybe fifty, to adjust for the likelihood that the tall-stacked players have taken chips from several players rather than several players all taking chips from a single player and pushing him out. And then maybe fifty or forty blinds for 8 players playing down to four.

Your thoughts?

 

[Poker Zombie]

The common wisdom in standard tournaments is that the tourney will end when there are twenty blinds total in play, plus or minus one level.

What would the corresponding estimated endpoint be for a double-or-nothing tournament? Assume 10 or 9 players playing down to five survivors, or 8 players playing down to four survivors.

Here's a guess: In a standard tourney two players shuffle twenty blinds back and forth until one gets a good break and takes them all. So probably four players can shuffle forty blinds around the table for a while without any of them going instantly broke, but with a decent chance that one of them will bust at any moment? And sixty blinds for six players? So when the tournament hits sixty blinds, you can expect that it will quickly get down to six players if it isn't there already, and that there's a strong likelihood that one of the remaining six will bust before the next level comes around. So... sixty blinds for 10/9 players playing down to five. Maybe fifty, to adjust for the likelihood that the tall-stacked players have taken chips from several players rather than several players all taking chips from a single player and pushing him out. And then maybe fifty or forty blinds for 8 players playing down to four.

Your thoughts?

My 2¢...

First cent: Players may really tighten up in such a tournament. Many players tend to tighten up when on the bubble - it's natural for players that are short-stacked and have little hope for finishing at the top of the tournament. However, when you eliminate the benefit for finishing #1, the #2 stack has no incentive to shove if #1 has yet to act. Nobody wants to be the guy that loses it all because of a bad beat. Even Pocket Kings is a foldable hand if you are virtually guaranteed to finish in the money by folding.

So in theory, short stacks don't want to shove, big stacks have no incentive to shove. The game runs much later than you would calculate.

Second cent: I have run only one similar event - a Survivor event. Played short stacks with cash chips. When the tournament got down to the money, play ended and players cashed out for exactly what they had remaining in chips. This gave the big stacks incentive to shove when they perceived an advantage, as each chip increased their winnings. In that particular event, we had 17 players, and paid the top 5. That tournament ended when there were 100 big blinds on the table.

Ironically, because of a triple knockout, only 3 players actually took home any money. Two short stacks got it in, and a last-to-act big-stack called covering both of them. He wouldn't have made that call if he had nothing to gain.

 

[CrazyEddie]

I appreciate that you enumerated each of your two cents.

 

[CrazyEddie]

I wonder if adding bounties would do enough to incentivize aggressive play to overcome the "nothing to gain" issues of a DoN structure...

 

[CrazyEddie]

... and maybe adding antes to encourage looser play. The whole affair might end up being super-gambly but it would probably have its appeal, especially for being fast and with little player elimination so as to do multiples back-to-back.

 

[trigs]

I have played in double or nothing SNGs before and I would suggest that people do tend to get very short stacked just trying to hold on for reasons @Poker Zombie mentioned above. It's not uncommon for multiple players to have 3, 4, 5 BBs in front of them trying to wait for one more guy to bust. So, I'd say your general "10BBs per person" is probably a little off.

 

[legonick]

I wonder if, instead of doing a DON-style, you did a 50/50 style, that would loosen up players a bit.

Top 50% get paid, but they get paid out with a base amount + some amount per chip count. PokerStars runs these, you could see them for info. on the payout, but dump the rake.

Pros:
- Might encourage slightly less super-tight play because winning chips has real value VS just "surviving".
- More fair payout. If one guy has 80% of all chips in the play, doesn't he deserve more than the guy who has 3 BB left?

Cons:
- Could be difficult to calculate payouts for a IRL home game.

 

[CrazyEddie]

I'd been thinking about a structure like this:

$10 buy-in (or whatever, alter stakes to suit the audience)
$5 goes to the prize pool
$5 goes to bounties

Play until half the field is eliminated
Split the prize pool between the survivors (so each gets $10)
Pay the bounties, including paying the survivors for their own bounties (so each survivor gets at least another $5, plus $5 for anyone they knocked out)
The lowest survivor pays the highest survivor one bounty (so worst-place is $5 short and first-place gets an extra $5)

Payouts are dead simple, but there's an incentive to not just survive but to try to place well among the survivors.

 

[legonick]

I'd been thinking about a structure like this:

$10 buy-in (or whatever, alter stakes to suit the audience)
$5 goes to the prize pool
$5 goes to bounties

Play until half the field is eliminated
Split the prize pool between the survivors (so each gets $10)
Pay the bounties, including paying the survivors for their own bounties (so each survivor gets at least another $5, plus $5 for anyone they knocked out)
The lowest survivor pays the highest survivor one bounty (so worst-place is $5 short and first-place gets an extra $5)

Payouts are dead simple, but there's an incentive to not just survive but to try to place well among the survivors.

Yeah that sounds solid and worth running to see how it goes! I may try this out in the future.

If you have an uneven amount, say 9, then you could just do away with lowest-highest thing and highest gets the extra chip.

1-4 get $5 from 5-8. 1 gets $5 from 9. Bounties paid normally.

The only thing is, the winner is going to make out pretty well as is usually the case with single table bounty tournaments. Usually it's 1 guy busting 90% of the people or more.

 

[CrazyEddie]

Yeah that sounds solid and worth running to see how it goes! I may try this out in the future.

If you do, please report back here and let us know how it goes!

For odd numbers, I was considering letting "the middle guy" break even (more or less). So #6-9 would pay #1-4 $5, #5 keeps his $5, bounties are paid (and survivors collect their own), and #4 pays #1 an extra bounty.

 

[legonick]

If you do, please report back here and let us know how it goes!

For odd numbers, I was considering letting "the middle guy" break even (more or less). So #6-9 would pay #1-4 $5, #5 keeps his $5, bounties are paid (and survivors collect their own), and #4 pays #1 an extra bounty.

Will do.

Did you run your's yet? I'd be interested to know how that went and what the timing looked like on it!

Yeah that is better. "More people paid" - #5 is not a loser.

 

[CrazyEddie]

I'll let you know when I do!

(Don't hold your breath...)