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.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 3 -- The Big Freezeout

Crazy huge field for the third and final Day 1 flight of the Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event, which my colleague Jack and I helped report once again along with help from our photographer friend René.

That to the left is a pic of the registration line early in the day. Ended up with 1,755 players on this day alone, which brought the overall number of runners up to 3,447 -- a little over 150 more than what they drew for this same €1,100 buy-in event from a year ago. That makes the prize pool €3,343,590 with €423,600 up top for the winner.

It’s kind of a unique thing these days to have a relatively big field event for a relatively low buy-in and there not being any reentries involved.

Looking at this past summer’s World Series of Poker, there were seven events out of the 69 that drew larger fields in terms of entries, although four of these were reentry events. Only the Main Event, the Seniors, and the Monster Stack were freezeouts drawing more “uniques” to play -- of those, only the Monster Stack really compares (being a $1,500 event).

As a fan and reporter, I very much prefer freezeouts. As a player I do as well, although that could be in part because when I first started playing tournaments, “rebuy” events (as they were called, and for which there is a distinction) were then the exception, not the norm.

From the reporting side of things, it’s tedious enough to do multiple Day 1s, but to have the same players entering over and over and report on their bustouts time after time is more than a little absurd. I’m remembering one event from a couple of years back I covered in which a player entered seven times, and I reported five of his bustout hands.

Talk about chronicling trivia.

Anyhow, things get a bit more interesting tomorrow with the bubble bursting and everything becoming a bit more meaningful going forward. Thankfully I’m catching a slight break with these 10 a.m. starts, as Jack is covering the start and I’m doing a little extra at the end, giving me a bit more time in the mornings for other things. I won’t go on about it, but I’m no fan of the pre-noon starting times, no way no how.

Back at it tomorrow. Check that PokerStars blogfor more on the ESPT, as well as for reports from the first €10K High Roller which should be playing down to a winner.

Photo: courtesy René Velli/PokerStars blog.

The Last Long Day

The World Series of Poker Main Event has long been a special one in terms of its structure, with the two-hour levels being more or less entirely unique when it comes to tournament poker. I can’t think of another live tournament that has ever employed such lengthy levels.

I don’t know when the WSOP first instituted the two-hour levels. I know they were in place in 2003, and perhaps before that as well. Of course, a starting stack back in 2003 was just 10,000 chips (one chip = one dollar).

In 2007 they moved to what they called “double stacks” for many events including the Main, which meant ME players began with 20,000. Then in 2009 they upped it again to “triple stacks” of 30,000 where it stayed until 2015. Then this year Main Event players (still paying $10K to play) began with 50,000, superficially turning the event into a “deep-stacked” tournament.

Of course, the schedule of increases for the blinds and antes have been adjusted as well, which diminishes somewhat the depth of the stacks in a relative sense, making them more comparable to what has been used before.

Today is the last day of the summer for the WSOP and the Main Event, with 27 players returning and a plan to play down to a final table of nine. Looks like they are partway through Level 31, where the blinds are 100,000/200,000 with a 30,000 ante. The average stack with 27 players left is about 12.475 million, or just over 63 big blinds.

Last year when Day 7 began there were also 27 players left. They had about 40 minutes left to go in Level 30 to begin that day, where the blinds were 60,000/120,000 with a 20,000 ante. The average stack to begin the day was 7,133,333, which meant they were on average a little over 59 big blinds deep, not too far off where they will be to begin today.

They made it just over halfway through Level 35 on Day 7 last year -- i.e., just about 10 hours’ (or five levels’) worth of poker. Could go a little longer today, I suppose, and just eyeballing the blinds/antes increases over the next half-dozen levels (and comparing them to last year), they’ll go up just a little more slowly this time; e.g., five levels in today and the blinds will be three times what they are now; last year they went up 3.33 times over that stretch.

I can’t quite remember which year it was -- I believe it was 2009 -- that we all expected a marathon final day thanks to the 27 players returning to super-deep stacks. As noted, 2009 was the first year of the “triple stacks,” and looking back at the coverage the average stack was more than 72 big blinds to start that last day (although the level was about to end).

I think that was the year I actually brought my suitcases to the Amazon room, half-expecting to be cabbing it straight from there to the airport as I had a very early flight at 6 a.m. or something. But the day ended up going by in a blur, finishing in around four levels, and I was able to take my stuff back to my apartment for one last night.

It’ll be a reasonable-length day for those covering the sucker today and tonight, I expect. Then again, let’s not say that out loud and jinx it for them.

Tuning In: A Few Recent Poker Podcasts

Was doing some work in the barn today and listened to a few poker podcasts while I did.

I first went back about a month to hear Bill Chen’s segment on Episode 371 of the Two Plus Two Pokercast. Chen’s always an interesting one to listen to -- very relatable for me, not because of the depth of his analytical thinking, but for the place of poker in his life as something very important but not all-consuming.

Then I checked out the latest PokerNews podcast -- Episode 326 -- which started with some discussion from Donnie and Rich about the recently completed PokerStars Pro Tour in California and then featured a enjoyable conversation with WSOP National Championship winner Loni Harwood. All interesting and fun and a good quick catch-up on recent events in poker.

Finally I dialed up a podcast I hadn’t tuned into for a while -- Ante Up! -- which just last month made it a full decade’s worth of podcasting. I used to listen to these guys -- Chris Cosenza and Scott Long -- constantly back when they first started out and wrote about their shows here fairly frequently, too. Tuning in again, I had to grin at how much the show had remained the same with the familiar mix of personal anecdotes about their own play, a run-through of news items, and some strategy talk.

They aren’t numbering their shows, but 10-plus years’ worth of weekly podcasts must add up to well over 500 by this point. Kind of brings to mind the story of this blog (into its 10th year now) which I know by this point readers sometimes drift away from and then return occasionally, perhaps surprised to see things still chugging along as usual.

The episode I grabbed was from a couple of weeks back, the one in which they discussed Matt Savage’s recent Facebook poll and discussion inviting players to weigh in about what they thought constituted an excellent tournament structure -- the 7/30/15 episode.

If you didn’t follow that whole discussion from Savage, the Ante Up! show is a good way to catch up with its particulars. (Indeed, as one of the few not on Facebook, I’ll admit I didn’t quite follow the entire structure discussion.) They get into it about the 12-minute mark and the discussion lasts about 15 minutes.

By the way, according to those responding to Savage’s poll, the most-important to least-important factors when it comes to creating an excellent structure were determined to be (1) time; (2) levels; (3) player ability; and (4) chips, or starting stack.

Savage agreed that of these four, the number of chips in the starting stack should be considered the least important -- since the length of levels and schedule of blinds/antes increases can obviously make a “deep” stack less deep, relatively speaking. Meanwhile, Savage agreed with the importance of having well measured levels (e.g., not skipping steps along the way), and that the length of levels does in fact have a lot to do with how great and/or appropriate a structure is.

Gonna have to get Ante Up! back into the regular rotation here. Have always enjoyed the way Chris and Scott approach all things poker, representing as they do the perspective of the great majority of us -- i.e., non-pros who greatly enjoy playing the game and following the stories surrounding it (including the stories involving those who are pros).