Preparing to go to Borgata this Sunday during their Spring Poker Open series. I've cashed in a few of their events and love the room and the way they run their tournaments. Sunday at 10 a.m. is the Seniors event. Also on Sunday is a "deep stack" event that starts at 11 a.m. and has the same structure with 30-minute levels. The Seniors event starts with 20,000 chips, while the deep stack event starts an hour later with 35,000 chips.

So, here's the question: If you bust out in the Seniors event, but still have the option to re-enter, what is the equilibrium point beyond which you would rather buy into the later tournament where you have more BB to work with, rather than re-entering the Seniors event where there are fewer runners and likely a higher probability of cashing?

I assume that the deep stack event will have more runners with a slightly lower buy-in ($300 vs. $340 for the Seniors) and no age restriction. You can re-buy into the Seniors up to the point where you would have 20BB (20,000 chips with blinds at 500/1000 + 100). At that same clock time, in the deep stack tournament, you could buy in with 44BB (35,000 chips, with blinds at 400/800 + 75).

The buy-in/Re-entry ratios go like this:

1:00 p.m. -- Seniors = 50BB; Deepstack = 110BB
1:30 p.m. -- Seniors = 33BB; Deepstack = 88BB
2:00 p.m. -- Seniors = 25BB; Deepstack = 58BB
2:30 p.m. -- Seniors = 20BB; Deepstack = 44BB

At what point do you think moving to the deep stack event is the more +EV move?

I want to have a plan in mind based on some math/thought, rather than leaving it up to how frustrated I am with my table or how bad a beat I just took.

Very interesting issue, with possible applications beyond your specific case.

I think number of big blinds is very useful, but other data points would be helpful in determining a calculation as well. All of these might not be helpful, and some are very closely correlated, but I think some of them will be helpful in coming up with a calculation:

Busted - total number or percentage of field no longer in the tournament.

Average Stack - regardless of big blinds, how close to average will you be buying in for?

Equity - amount your chip stack is worth in real money if after you bought in the prize pool was split based on stack size.

Busts To Money - how many people or what percent needs to bust to get to the money.

Again, all are very closely correlated, but would be helpful I think.

With 30 minute levels, I would not be inclined to buy into any tourney with less than 80bb, unless the buyin is really not much money in the grand scheme of things, especially if I am entering shortly after busting out and will have to deal with potential tilt situations. Everyone is different in what stack sizes they prefer to play, of course, but I would choose the deep stack up to 2:00 pm.

Just reenter the seniors, the field will be so much softer, it will make up for any disadvantages in terms of stack size to blind ratio.

Cheers, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Certainly true that the potential prize pool size and the number of remaining players are factors. I like the 80BB line as a standard, although they also run whole tournaments that where everybody starts with 40BB, and that works pretty well, so I wonder if 40-50BB is a better floor.

Let's say that the Seniors event has 350 runners with 225 still playing and I can buy back in with 33BB, can at that time the deep stack has 400 runners with 350 still alive (and another two hours left for buy-ins) with 88BB.

Still re-enter Seniors?

Don't lose your initial buy in in the seniors event and you wont have to worry about any of this lol

Don't see the thread for the spring open so I figured I'd just ad this here.

They have seriously need to fix the atrocity of registering. They have 2 people currently getting people in.
I've been waiting for 20 min just to enter this morning. And if anyone busts, esp the 7pm flight, you'll wait over an hour or more to get back in. It's a joke. Why can't they dedicate more staff to registering people. Unreal. It's every head this happens, 4x a year. You know you're gonna have 2k people, try to get more help.

With 30 minute levels, 40-50 BB can become a really difficult stack to play in a relatively short amount of time, particularly since pre-flop raises will be large and you will likely be joining a table which has some combination of big and short stacks at it. Variance will be high. I like to start tourneys with enough of a stack to absorb some of that variance. To me 40-50 is not big enough.