I'll take the over at 4000

of course what you overlook is the fact that at a majority of tables in the room very few meaningful pots will be contested at the 25/25 level. so if your at a table with no play you have just wasted alot of time in meaningless pots.

there are benefits to low starting chips. you can play meaningful pots at the 25/25 level in almost every tournament and if you bust quickly you will be ready for an event the next day.

with the 60 minute level there is tons of bubble play. compare that to a borgata 500 deep stack with 30 levels where the bubble literally takes one hand.

people like more chips so i think the wsop should do something about it. either give more chips and make the early levels shorter. or simply give the 1ks 4500 in chips or whatever. its kind of simple.

i guess the argument for not having more chips in the lower buy in events is that keeping them dollar for dollar with the buy in gives people no incentive to smuggle them from a smaller event to a larger one.

Good points.

However, I don't know if you've played in the WSOP Main Event (I've played 6 or 7, 1 decent deep cash) and I can tell you that plenty of big, juicy pots were played in the early levels when stacks were 300 bb deep. There will be plenty of donks who don't have a clue about how they should be playing pre-ante with deepstacks in this event. Event #51 may even be a softer field than the typical Main Event field. Don't be surprised when someone in level 1 reshoves 300bb with AK and says "well, I finally got my AK". I've seen it.

Also, I don't see the logic that the WSOP is using that smaller buyin tourns should be relatively thin-stacked (3k or 4.5K), whereas bigger buyin tourns are deepstacked. I understand they are simply using, for the most part, 3x buyin=starting stack. However, I think the size of the buyin should be irrelevant, and I wish more "low buyin" events were deepstacked like Event #51 will be. Just my opinion, my 2c, and that's probably all its worth.

Wonder how they will avoid the chip-smuggling issue. Different chips just for this event?

You mean from this tourney to a bigger buy-in one?

The field is going to be massive. I played a small tourney in Daytona Friday night and 5 people at my table were leaving for Vegas on Wednesday and planned to play Event 51. Most had specifically made their plans around this event. Some were even wondering if it would sell out before they get there on Wednesday

Has anyone registered in the last day or so that is already in vegas to know how many they have so far?

I am going to reg Monday when i get to town. I will try to find out and post.

agree, my main point is that i hope they don't go this structure for every 1k and 1500 if this gets a massive turnout. i enjoy tournaments but think the structure is simply way too deep to play 10 of these in a summer.

some suggestions for the 1ks are double the chips again but start 25/50 or adjust the level lengths and add more chips (30 min levels early - 60 minute levels late or even 75 minute levels)

Skipping 250-500 kills the 1ks and 1500s

I called yesterday and they had 878 registered

agree with that. tournaments would be way better with 250 -500 25 and they could sacrifice one of the early levels with no antes.

in this event the 25/25 level is the equivalent of the 25/50 level with 30k and many of the good players don't bother to show up for this level because they feel it is a waste of time. just saying.

Just called the Rio. They already have 1,004 people signed up for the Monster Stack.

I asked if I should be worried about it being sold out, because I don't arrive until the night before. They said there was no cap and it couldn't sell out. They would just keep opening up tables.

I arrive Wednesday evening and will register night before like I always do anyway to avoid the long lines in the morning before start of tourney. I would recommend registering as early as possible so you don't get stuck in some bullchit table out by Buzios next to the slot machines. I believe that is the overflow of the overflow lol!

From what I can tell, there hasn't been much of a drop off in attendance in the 1000's and 1500's so far this year and in some cases they have set records. So it would seem there are plenty of folks who aren't so concerned abut the missing level. I doubt very much that this is killing anything.

i know the milly maker crushed last year, not sure on the other 1ks and 1500s.

ask anyone who played the millionaire maker its a great structure despite 4500 chips.

its sort of a losing battle about the concept of more chips is always better for a structure (in the case of this event its fine because of the 60 min. levels.)

but in fairness people should ask themselves how much does playing 25/25 and 25/50 with 15k starting stacks add to their hourly. it probably hurts your hourly win rate if you could be doing something else during that time. (i know just come two hours late - on the other hand i could come to a tournament with 25/50 4500 starting stack tourney hour levels and play meaningful pots from the beginning and then have a great structure throughout - just something to think about)

Actually a better structure for this type of tournament is 30k chips and start 100/200 25 and play that level until it would have been reached normally. about 5 levels of 100/200 25.

No, the overflow of the overflow is by the Rio poker room.

Heh, you'd burn half a level just table-breaking from there and making it back to Pavillion/Amazon/Brasilia lol.

My reply to doublejoker was simply pointing out that, once again, he said something that is demonstrably untrue.

As for your comments, I tend to agree that the 25/25 level isn't particularly useful. However, I do know from personal and anecdotal experience that there are lots of people who look at this as a good thing and are more excited about it than they probably should be. There's just something psychologically satisfying for some people to know that they are starting the tournament with 600 BB. I think it may be a residual effect of the popularity of the Harrington book series where M and BB count are so important to strategy.

In any case, I continue to be curious to see what this tourney will be like. Most pros and every wannabe pro I have talked to has marked this tournament as must-play, for obvious reasons. And I suspect a lot of amateurs and recreational players will also find it very appealing given the increased chips. It will be interesting to see if those things make up for the Thursday start and lead to a record crowd. I suspect they might.

If it is a big success, I hope the WSOP folks don't go overboard and start having lots of these (like every week, or whatever). There seems to be this inclination on the part of TDs that if something is a success, then more of it is always good. I don't necessarily think that's true.

Right, I mean I only played one tourney this summer, the 1500 stud, and we were nowhere close to the money. Just my personal opinion, that in the 1500s and 1ks getting to the money is not a bad thing.

I don't mind them offering a tremendous structured tournament, which this obviously is, however, i'm just pointing out the impracticality of playing an event like this every day of the summer.

the current structures are actually very good. about where they should be for the buy-ins. still allow tons of play, but, reasonable so that you can play another event the next day. im just pointing out in case the tds would think offering this structure every day is a good thing, they should maybe just make some minor tweaks to the current structure because there is some perception that low starting stacks = bad structure which is not true.

I doubt they could offer it every day for obvious logistical reasons. However, I can see them trying to offer it every week... say every Thu or every Wed/Thu if they go to two stating flights. I can't say that would be horrible, but I wouldn't prefer it. Its nice when the event is something special. If they held it a couple times during the series, that would be ideal, IMO.

As for the existing lower buy-in structures, I don't typically play them because the stack sizes don't complement my preferred style of play. That being said, they are all technically some of, if not the, best structures in the world. And people who play them are not making a bad decision if structure and value are their primary concerns.

half a level... if you stopped for lunch.

Oh, there'll be meaningful pots in the first level. At least 2 people at your table will be aggros from LA, who'll be raising to 10 big blinds with their 'scary' JJ hands -- punish them!

Anyone else expecting 1st place to pay > $1m?

Im guessing the number of meaningful pots the first two levels will be less than people think (just sit out the first two levels - not a bad response obv. - but there will be meaningful pots played somewhere - even if not that many - thats why its a disadvantage to sit out...)

i should be done with the topic. just one of those things. i think in a few years more people will be that matt savage is right about deep stack tournaments not being the greatest. this one is a bad example - because when you put many chips in a structure with long levels its a good thing. the problem is if you did something like this with 30 minute levels you waste all the play at the less meaningful 25/50 levels and get less play at the bubble and FT.

but blah, blah, just pointing this out so people realize this eventually.

i honestly think the future of structures is what the WPT championship and one drop tournaments did. start you very deep but play with antes from the beginning.

From Jack Effel's twitter:
"...Brasilia room is already full"

This is in regards to early registration. So Brasilia holds 1500-2000 people? Jack also indicated there will be no cap, but obviously if you show up last minute to reg the line is gonna be ginormous, or if you're an alternate you'll be waiting for awhile.

Man so excited for this. People are treating this like their mini-Main event, so much buzz about planning their WSOP trips specifically around this tourney. I'm getting in Wed night to register, which I think is ideal cause it's gonna be a sh*tshow on Thurs morning.

In terms of numbers I think this will be the 3rd largest tourney this summer (behind the Main and Milly Maker). So yes, I think 1st pays > $1m.