I am trying to estimate how long a poker stars tourney could last. yea I know the number of entries is not known, I m taking a guess say 400 players. Its a satellite to a casino tournment. 1 in 10 players win a ticket

T1500 to start with 15 minutes blinds
level 1 10/20
level 5 75/150
level 9 200/400 ante 50
level 13 600/1200 ante 125
level 14 800/1600 ante 150
level 15 1k/2k ante 200
level 16 1250/2500 ante 250
level 17 1.5K 3K ante 300

400 players means T600,000 chips in play. last 40 players make it so the average chip stack at the end would be T15,000. I would pick around level 14 when the tourney would end.

Any thoughts

The 5% rule could also be called the "10 big blinds rule," since it effectively says that the tourney will end when the average stack is about 10bb. Your average stack at the end will be 15k, so by that logic you should end around level 14 (as you've already guessed).

With 41 people being on the bubble, the game dynamic will be very different from heads up play, of course. It might go a little longer, since a lot of the short stacks will be auto-folding every hand in hopes that somebody shorter busts out first or somebody bigger does something stupid. But it's probably the most reasonable guess you can make for this type of unusual tourney situation.

supersattelites, played well, can be absurdly tight on the bubble. People will be blinding down to <2 bb. On the other hand, there might be some rather large stacks, so the average might still approach 10bb at the end.

I also did some research on when some wsop tournaments ended, to see if the 1/20th rule (10bb rule, I like that) held in larger tournies. I don't have my notes, but do remember it was a little off. I think my theory was that with a large tournament, the chip distribution gets more widely varied (<10bb in the smallest stacks is very different from 10bb average stacks), so they tend to end sooner. Besides, the play gets more aggressive when you get down to the best players in a large field.

So between all those considerations, my best guess is that 10bb, give or take a factor of 2 (a couple levels), is about right.

OK, thanks guys, I have a good ball park idea. I was planning to try this one, but of course it starts at 8AST. If they get a thousand players, i'm out. If they are down to 400-500-600 I would play. Maybe i should just take the next morning off and play regardless.

Its a $109 buyin, and for every $1100 in the pool, they give away a ticket for a$1100 tournment taking place later this summer at a casino. You don t have a option to take cash, your awarded the ticket

Based on the blind schedule you gave, even if the tourney gets 800 instead of 400, it should only last about an hour longer. Go for it!

And just one last question. You both mention 5% or 1/20th rule. Would that not mean the tourney would end at level 17 with a big blind of 3K. 5% or 1/20th of the total chips in play would be 3K. I know its just a estimate, but for the future I was just curious. Its easier to do the claculations your way then what I did

You dropped a zero: 600k / 20 = 30k, not 3k. And if this were a normal tournament that ended with a single winner, then by the 5% rule the big blind would be about 30k at the end of the tourney. However, you can't apply the 5% rule directly, because the tourney ends with 40 winners.

So another way of looking at this rule is average bb/player. If the big blind is 5% of total chips, then when heads up that means you've got 20bb on the table and average stack size is 10bb. Unlike 5% of total chips, average bb/player extends well to satellites that end with multiple winners.

600k / 40 players = 15k average stack size. If the rule holds for a multi-winner satellite, then the tourney should end when the big blind is about 1500.

Perfect, thanks for clearing that up.

I would assume that the few rounds before the bubble round would be the true bubble, since there's nothing to play for EXCEPT the tickets.

I'd estimate that at least 1-2 rounds extra, beyond the normal estimate, would be needed.

There can be two bubbles, depends on the number of players. 80 players = 8 tickets
79 players= 7 tickets + 9 prizes of $109 ( rounding off of last prize for the rake). The buyin is $109. I would prefer to play with the extra 9 places, gives a little more wiggle room.

I would suggest less rounds of longer duration. Live plays slower so you're looking at about one orbit per level and trying to get 25+ tables in tune every 15 minutes isn't neccesary and just sounds like a headache.

Its a pokerstars satellite game

Whoops, missed that, sorry. Carry on.