4 way Chop of $14k Party Tourney

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I played in a marathon Party tourney last night with over 700 entrants. It was a $20 tourney and when we were down to 4 players remaining (all with similar sized stacks) we decided to chop based upon stack size. A chop is beneficial in this scenario unless you have a monster stack, because the normal payouts are so heavily weighted to the top 2 spots. With 4 players remaining with similar stack sizes, and theoretically similar ability, the actual placement was going to come down to the distribution of cards. Rather than relying on luck at the end, we all preferred to chop. It was a nice payday and the highest finish I have had in such a large tourney.

Since I am a member of PokerXFactor, I have uploaded the the entire tourney into the PXF Hand Analyzer and you can view it for free here (you will need to register, but viewing is free). My overall PUFF was 65 which was slightly above the average of 50. PUFF is a factor developed by PXF that estimates the amount of good cards you were getting in the tourney. A player would expect to have a rating of 50 (ave good card distribution), so my 65 was a bit above average -- I got some good cards, but was certainly not hit by the deck in this tourney.

A couple of interesting hands occurred at the final table and I have described them below:

Hand 282: Right after we arrived at the final table, I had J9o in the bb with a midsized stack of 146k chips. The blinds were 8k/16k and the antes were 400, so there was 26k in the pot to start the hand. It folded to the cutoff who minraised to 32k, the button called and the sb folded, so it was to me with huge pot odds to call -- there was 90k in the pot and I had to call 16k to see the flop. I could try a squeeze play and move in here, however I was not excited about putting my tourney on the line with J9o. Additionally, I had gone out of several tourneys in the 7th-9th spot recently and the payouts are so low there that I really wanted to try to get to the top 6 spots. I called the 16k and the flop came JT4 rainbow and I was first to act.

Now the pot was at 106k and I had 115k chips remaining. With top pair I was going to be all in on this hand and the only question was how to get there. My choices were to lead out with a 1/2 pot bet to induce a raise or lead out with an all in bet. At this point I would really be happy to take the pot with any bet since it would be almost doubling my original stack. I decided that I needed to move all in. If I bet half the pot and was called, I would be kicking myself later if overcards called me and got lucky to draw out. I really did not think anyone else had a J and they both would likely fold to my bet. One player had me outchipped (slightly) and the other was a smaller stack.

I moved all in and the bigger stack called with JQ -- oops I was in some trouble. I really was shocked to see another J, but stand behind my move completely. With so much money in the pot and top pair and a vulnerable stack, I was going to get all in! In the end, I was a lucksack on the river and caught a 9 to take down a huge pot and take over the 2nd in chips position.

The other hand was a mistake I made when we were down to 6 players:

Hand 329: I was the chipleader with 555k and the blinds were 15k/30k with a 700 ante, so each pot was starting at almost 50k. Again I was in the big blind, this time with 87s (diamonds). It was folded to the button who min-raised (yeah same guy) to 60k, the sb folded and it was up to me. The button started the hand with 408k in chips so I had him outchipped. Now 87s is a nice speculative hand, although late in the tourney is not a time to be playing drawing hands since it is so expensive to draw. If I called here, I was hoping to catch a flop or a really good draw and if I caught that draw I needed to be prepared to semi-bluff all in. If I was not prepared to do so, I really should just fold down the hand.

However, with about 110k in the pot I was getting 3:1 pot odds to call the remaining 30k. I could also reraise here which really would have been the smarter move. Then if he came over the top all in I could fold the hand, but hopefully I would take it with the raise. Instead, I made my first mistake and just called his minraise. The flop came 56J with two spades and a heart. I had an open ended straight draw. This actually was a good flop for me and I led out with a 1/2 pot bet of 70k. My options were to check raise him or bet out. I figured this was not a flop that likely hit him so I led out.

He minraised me to 140k --- and here comes mistake #2. I called. This was a perfect semi-bluffing opportunity. He very well could be bluffing here or maybe raising with a pair, but either way he probably did not have a big hand. If I move all in over the top, I really think he would be folding the vast majority of hands he could have and even if I am called by a better hand, I am only 2:1 against to catch my straight with 2 cards to come. I should have moved all in and put him to the test -- likely taking down a very big pot and extending my chip lead.

Instead I called and the next card was the Q of spades. I checked and he moved all in and of course I was forced to fold. I gave up the semi-bluff advantage and compounded the problem by calling off another 70k in chips. I ended the hand with 355k in chips which was a middle of the road stack. This was a very bad play but I feel I learned something from it and hopefully will not make the same mistake next time.

Check out the tournament here and more importantly check it out in PXF's hand analyzer -- it is a great tool for analyzing your tourney results. The tabs on the side, allow you to flip ahead to hands where I won or lost a lot of chips. This allows you to analyze a tourney in a fraction of time it would take sorting through hand histories.

I hope you enjoy it and hopefully I can post some more wins again soon.

Site Structure Comparisons

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I have been meaning to write this article for quite some time, but the task just seemed so daunting. However, if you play tournaments regularly you know how important structure is to consistent success. A tournament in which the blinds are increasing very rapidly is akin to playing the lottery -- those at the final table will have gotten their almost entirely by luck.

All sites are not created equal when it comes to tourney structure -- far from it! There is already such a high variance in tourney success, you need to stack as many odds in your favor by playing sites with favorable blind strutures.

I have prepared this analysis for lower buy-in tourneys (less than $100). Most of the top sites add additional chips for higher buy-in tourneys (e.g., at Stars and UB you start with 2,500 chips instead of 1,500) and some slow the blind increases. I may look at a comparison of those in the future, but not in this article.

There are three key components that contribute to how favorable a blind structure is to better players:

1. Blinds Increases: This is the increase at each interval and varies dramatically between sites.

2. Increase Interval: Amount of time between blind increases and usually ranges between 10 and 15 minutes.

3. Antes: When the antes start and the amount of the ante is also a factor in determining how quickly your chips will disappear.

I have only included 7 sites in this analysis that I feel have favorable blind structures: Pokershare, UB, Party, Bodog, FullTilt, Stars, Paradise and Absolute. There are two additional sites that are not ranked: Pokerroom has a decent blind structure but I could not find the specifics for the structure so could not include it (in general, PR has a fairly fast blind structure, but it never adds antes so the overall structure is favorable) and Bugsy's Club which has a great starting structure 10,000 chips and 50 bb to start, however, the problem with the site is the lack of players. Despite being around for several years, there are rarely more than 50 players in a tournament -- so really what is the point.

Below I rank the sites and provide detail behind my madness, but first let me tell you several sites that have horrible tournament blind structures. I highlight these not to bash the sites, but rather to prevent you from losing needless buyins in these tournaments. I hope the tournament directors at these sites see this blog and make a change to their structures because they are merely lotteries at this point.

Bad Tourney Structures:
Prima Poker network (Prima, Royal Vegas, etc.)
Cardroom.com
Action Poker network (SuperiorPoker, Tigergaming, etc)
Pacific Poker network (Pacific, 888, etc)
Tribeca Poker network (Doyle's Room, mvppoker, etc.

Best Tourney Structures (in order of preference):
1. Pokershare - At virtually every stage of a tourney, this site has the lowest round cost. This would be the best site to play, except for one glaring problem -- too few players. Right now they rarely get over 100 players in a tourney. Hopefully, this will change over time maybe as a result of this article.

2. Ultimatebet - UB has had it right for a long time and they were the dominant site for active tourney players until their latest software upgrade. As a result of that debacle they lost a lot of top players, but slowly these players will return because the structure is just so favorable throughout a tourney. The beginning ratio of over 150 big blinds in a stack is one of the most favorable on the web.

3. PartyPoker - Party changed their structure a few months ago and started everyone with 3,000 chips. Unfortunately it is no longer as favorable a structure as it used to be, but it still is the 3rd best in my opinion. The antes are low for quite awhile which helps their structure. The biggest problem with Party is trying to find a tourney with less than 600 entrants. They have started offering 2 or 3 of the same buyin tourneys at the same time and capping the number of entrants in some. I have had success at their smaller tourneys and hope they increasing the number of capped entry tourneys.

4. Bodog - Bodog's blind increases are exactly the same as UB's, which is great. However, their antes go up much more dramatically, late in a tourney, than UB's or Party and they is why they have landed in 4th position. However, this site really is on par with UB for the first 2.5-3.0 hours of a tourney and then it is more aggressive thereafter. For tournaments with less than 300 entrants, I would rank it 2nd in a tie with UB. For larger tournament fields it would drop to fourth.

5. Full Tilt Poker -- Full Tilt also has a slow blind structure that is somewhat undermined by higher antes, particularly in the 4th hour. However, not many of their tourneys go that long so this is a very good site to play. One other very cool feature at FTP is the final table, it is an entirely different set that is made to look like a WPT TV set. Its a nice change of pace after grinding it out in a tourney for several hour -- great idea guys!

6. Pokerstars -- Unfortunately, Stars is a victim of their own success. Because they have so many entrants in every tourney, their blind structures have to be a bit faster than everyone elses. They are not terrible but definitely increase faster than the Top 5. The advent of the 180 $20 SNGs and the 90 $50 SNGS was a great idea. Hopefully they can add something similar for a rebuy tourney.

7. Paradise -- Paradise uses a structure very similar to Stars except that the antes go up much faster in the 4th hour. Most of their tourneys make it to the 4th hour so this is a significant difference. You need to accumulate chips at Paradise or you will quickly be devoured by the antes.

8. Absolute Poker - Absolute is the 8th best site rated because its blinds and antes increase fairly fast quickly and they only have 10 minute intervals between increases.

A couple of points on methodology and the above list. I took the blinds and antes per level and figured out the round cost at each stage of the tourney, big blind plus small blind plus 10x ante. I further divided each hour so that sites with faster intervals were getting additional blind increases each hour. So, Pokershare with its 10 minute increases has 6 intervals per hour whereas Stars with 15 minute increases has 4 intervals per hours. This allows us to compare each successive timeframe (e.g., start of hour 3) on a "apples to apples" comparison.

To make Party's structure (which starts with 3,000 chips) comparable to the other sites, I divided the starting chips and blinds by 2 throughout the intervals.

Below is a chart with the round cost per interval and by hour. I have a full spreadsheet that supports these calculations with all the blinds and antes per interval. If you are interested in receiving it just email me that you would like it and I will send you a copy.

NOTE: For presentation purposes Pokerstars, Paradise and Absolute follow in another table underneath this one.

Round Cost	Pokershare	UB	Party / 2*	Bodog	FullTilt
Time	10 min	12min	15min	12min	10min
StartChip	1500	1500	1500 (/2*)	1500	1500
Hour 1	30	15	30	15	45
	45	30	45	30	60
	60	45	75	45	75
	75	60	150	60	90
	90	90		90	120
	150				150
Start-Hr 2	225	150	225	150	180
	300	225	300	225	240
	375	300	450	300	300
	450	450	725	450	610
	600	700		700	700
	750				1100
Start-Hr 3	900	1100	1150	1100	1250
	1200	1650	1450	1650	1650
	1500	2200	1875	2200	2200
	1800	3050	2625	3050	2750
	2100	3900		3900	3300
	2400				4400
Start-Hr 4	2700	5000	3500	5000	5500
	3000	5600	5000	7500	6600
	3750	7500	7000	10000	8500
	4500	10000	10000	15000	11000
	6000	12500		20000	12500
	7500				16500
Start-Hr 5	9000	15000	14000	30000	22000
	12000	20000	20000	40000	25000
	15000	25000	26000	50000	33000
	22500	30000	35000	75000	44000
	30000	40000		100000	55000
	45000				66000
Start-Hr 6	90000	50000	52500	150000	86000
	150000	56000	70000	200000	110000
	300000	75000	87500	300000	135000
	600000	100000	105000	390000	165000
		125000		500000	220000

Round Cost	Stars	Dise	Absolute
Time	15min	15min	10min
StartChip	1500	1500	1500
Hour 1	30	30	30
	60	60	45
	75	75	60
	90	90	90
			120
			150
Start-Hr 2	225	225	180
	300	300	225
	550	550	550
	850	850	700
			1100
			1250
Start-Hr 3	1400	1400	1400
	1700	1700	1950
	2550	2550	2250
	4000	4000	2800
			3400
			4500
Start-Hr 4	6000	6000	5100
	8000	8000	6500
	12000	12000	8000
	16000	16000	10000
			12000
			16000
Start-Hr 5	24000	24000	20000
	32000	40000	24000
	40000	60000	32000
	60000	80000	40000
			46000
			60000
Start-Hr 6	80000	100000	80000
	100000	120000	100000
	120000	145000	120000
		170000	160000
			200000