Tourney Estimating tournament time by entrants (1 Viewer)

[krafticus]

I’m curious, how much does the number of entrants in a tournament factor into the total time of the event?

I’m hosting another WSOP qualifier this year, but might have to break the game into 2 flights (morning & late afternoon). Both flights would have the same starting stacks and roughly the same amount of players.

Of course, if doing 2 flights, I won’t need to get to a single winner at each event, as I’d take the final 8 or 9 from each game to a final the following day.

I’m trying to estimate how much time I’ll need for each flight, and potentially the final round of 18 on Sunday. Also, if the events finish at different blind levels, which one do I start with on Day 2?

I’m following the WSOP seniors event structure (with 30 min levels instead of 60)

 

[Tonystark137]

Could do play till X blind levels ( That typically result in X players) and make the second day a bit longer?

 

[LotsOfChips]

The standard method for estimating tournament end time (level) is when the big blind equals or exceeds 5% of the total chips in play (total chips =< 20x Big Blinds).

The number of players will affect the total chips in play (as will number of rebuys/add-ons, starting stack size, etc.)

Adjust your blind levels and/or duration to achieve the 5% (20x) threshold at (or near) the time you want the tournament to end.

 

[LotsOfChips]

Also, if the events finish at different blind levels, which one do I start with on Day 2?

This shouldn't happen. With identical levels/duration/blinds, both flights should end at the same time and the same blind level (unless I'm missing something).

Edit , NVM, I see that you are doing a morning and afternoon flight. You can just end both flights at the end of Level (x)

I’d take the final 8 or 9 from each game to a final the following day.

This could complicate things. You would be leaving chips out of play (players >#10 would still have chips that aren't in play on day 2), so it would be challenging to predict total chips in play. Unless you just did a second tournament on Day 2 with everyone who qualifies starting again with identical stacks.

Alternatively, you could set up the flights to end when you reach 9 (or 8) players for that flight, which would keep all chips in play, but then you have the issue of possibly different levels for each flight. Also, it would be hard to ensure that the first flight ends before the scheduled start of the second flight

 

[TheRealStephen12]

If you could play 15 levels you should be good to get down to 8-9 per flight, maybe fewer. I would probably bump the levels down in time a bit for day 1 (say, 15 20-minute levels), then increase them day 2. With 2 15-minute breaks after levels 5 and 10, each day 1 flight would be finished in 5.5 hours.

If you really want to play down to half the field of each flight, then start where the earlier flight ended on day 2.

 

[Frogzilla]

Doesn’t add a crazy amount of time. If blinds increase 30% on average then an extra 30% adds roughly the time of a level.

For flights the fairest are either
-stop at a level (ideally out of the money)
-stop at a certain %

If doing the %, it’s standard to do the restart at the level/time that the quickest flight finished. The longer running flight would rewind a bit on day 2.

 

[Moxie Mike]

I’m curious, how much does the number of entrants in a tournament factor into the total time of the event?

Here's what I've figured out over the years:

If I want an event to end at a certain time, I set the blind structure to start creeping into 'crapshoot mode' around an hour before I want it to end.

To accomplish this, I calculate the approximate number of chips in play. For Moxie league events, that number is usually around 1.6 - 2 million.

So I set the blind structure to hit the 10k/20k level (no antes) at 11:30 pm (to end the events at 12:30 am). Regardless of how many players remain in the tournament at that time, that's a max of 100 BBs total on the table. Then they go up to 15k/30k; then 20k/40k; then 40k/80k in 15 minute increments.

By the 80k level, that's only 20-30 BBs total on the table, which ends things pretty quickly.

So the number of entries/rebuys/break add-ons really doesn't affect run time very much.

 

[Taghkanic]

This shouldn't happen. With identical levels/duration/blinds, both flights should end at the same time and the same blind level (unless I'm missing something).

In many tournaments I’ve played in, each flight ends when a certain percentage of that flight’s entrants remain (typically 12.5%, 1 in 8).

However, not all flights end at the same blind level when using a percentage. The last one I played (final tabled, sick brag!) my flight got well into the 4K/8K blind, while other flights were done as early as two levels earlier… We resumed on Day 2 at that lower level.

While the number of entrants can affect how long it takes to get down to 12.5%, I think another factor is how the chipstacks are distributed.

If you get down to 20% left and most players remaining have relatively even stacks, it can take a long time to get down to 12.5%… Whereas if you have several monster stacks and a lot of small ones, it can cut down quickly.

My flight in the tourney above had fewer entrants yet lasted longer than the other four flights.

Using the percentage left to end flights I think makes more sense than all flights playing to the same blind level, at least when everyone making Day 2 gets the min cash. Otherwise people in one flight could all just tank endlessly to get through the blinds.