Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 4 -- Percentage Players

Have been here since Tuesday morning and still am out-of-whack sleep-wise, so I’m cutting this entry short so as to get some snooze time sooner than later.

The bubble burst in the Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event today, but with 695 players making the money out of 3,447, that made the event a little less climactic, particularly since the first wave of cashers were only getting their €1,100 buy-in back.

Was saying yesterday how I tend to prefer freezeouts. Not sure what to think, really, about the idea of paying a higher percentage of players in these things -- namely 20% (instead of 15%), a change the EPT introduced this season.

There were some in the €50K Super High Roller tweeting negatively about their event featuring 20% payouts, and today I heard Frank Op de Woerd interviewing EPT Tournament Director Neil Johnson about it. (EDIT [added 8/21/16]: Here’s that interview, if you’re curious.)

I’ll have to think further about it to decide what I think. Having the top 10-15% cash has always seemed like a reasonable amount, but I can also imagine entertaining arguments that such a range is arbitrarily selected -- that is, if another percentage had been adopted as the “standard,” we’d feel differently about this one.

All I know right now is my energy level has dropped to that same 10-15% range, so I’ll cut it off here and sign off. Check the PS blog. More here mañana.

Photo: courtesy René Velli/PokerStars blog.