Monday, October 24, 2005
I've been thinking about the structure of these internet tournaments. It's horrible. Everyone talks about Pokerstars and the great tournament structure they have. In my opinion it's no different from Party. The blinds escalate too quickly. You don't start with enough chips either.
I was surprised to see a starting chipstack of 2,000 yesterday instead of the normal 1,500. That helped a little bit, but after the 2nd break, it's pretty much a dice shoot unless you have a humongous chipstack already. 1 bad beat and you're to the felt. It's a shame really. However, it's in the best interest of the sites to get these tournaments over with ASAP.
So, I'm logged into Poker Stars this morning just checking out the tournaments they are having this weekend and I see something that catches my eye. It's a $30+3 tournament called "Deep Stacks". I start looking into it further and notice that you get a starting chipstack of $5,000 and the blinds increase every 30 minutes. That's what I'm talking about.
So at 6:15 this evening, I'm gonna give this one a shot. I'm not sure how many entries there will be. If there are a bunch of entries, this thing could go a long time.
The slower structure gives me a chance to actually play. I don't have to sit on my ass and push with the first Ace that comes along. Also, if I get that big chipstack and some asshole wants to put all his money in the pot with KJ offsuit (see yesterday's post) and he cracks my Queens, I still have an opportunity to rebuild without having to go into push mode.
Some may disagree with me and I'm not basing this on first hand experience, but the WSOP main event has a kick ass structure. Watch the episode where Negreanu and Farha are at the same table. Danny busts out, but he took some beats in that tournament that were hideous. However, I noticed that he never busted out and in fact had enough chips left to play around. I know it's edited and he probably won some hands we didn't see, but the good structure allowed for the better player to stick around longer.
I hope these deep stack tournaments catch on with the other sites as well. I'm willing to pay just a little extra in tourney fees to have that structure. I would think a $30+4 Deep Stack tournament would be +EV over a $30+3 regular tournament.