A week away from the Colossus II and I'm looking at the structure and wondering how the short stacks will affect play. By level 3 the blinds are 75/150 with 25 ante, meaning that there is 475 in the pot before the cards are dealt, and starting stacks are 5000. One hour into the event, there should be short stacks at every table, so a standard pre-flop raise to 400 and a few calls will put ~1600 in the pot when your stack may be only 5000-6000.

How does this structure and stack size affect your play in the early levels? Is this a shove-or-fold kind of situation that early?

Depends on table dynamics but I don't intend to be in a shove or fold situation that early. Maybe by level 5. It's definitely going to be played fast early on.

Harrington's "M" value, while somewhat outdated, is something I still use.

"M" being the cost of one orbit, the number of "M's" determine when you should be shoving. At 20 "M's", I play normally. At 10 "M's" I consider myself as becoming short.

At 8 "M's" I'm looking to shove any decent hand as 1st to act and at <5 "M's" I'm looking to shove any two cards as 1st to act.

In your scenario, 10 "M's" would be 4500, 8 "M's" 3600, 5 "M's" 2250.

Shoving 'any decent hand' with 3600 at 75/150/25 and 'any two cards' with 2250 at 75/150/25 seems overly desperate IMO. We really ripping QTs UTG with 3600 at 75/150/25? Or 84o in MP when folded to us with 2250?

I guess that's what makes poker such a great game. There are people like me that would shove in both those scenarios and people like you who would not.

You may want to re-read Harrington's books, this is not the strategy he recommends. M below 5 means you are shoving or folding, but not shoving any two cards.

Yeah i think the structure this year will surprise a lot of people. It's interesting that the patience factor of the Colossus is actually worse than the 2pm Daily Deepstacks ($235 BI). The patience factor of the Colossus is 9.0, meaning if you sit and don't play a single hand you will blind out in 3 hours (assuming 30 hands/hr which might be too generous). The 2pm deepstacks have a patience factor of around 16.0, so you blind out after four hours of play. Seems kinda ridiculous!

My guess is there's gonna be a lot of nitty play for the first hour and then there's going to be this huge wave of bustouts that start to happen level 3/4/5 as people realize they are super short. Hopefully stacks will consolidate pretty well and we will have some room to play again by level 6 or 7, but gonna have to get lucky for sure.

The other observation is it is just WAY harder to make day 2 this year than it was last year. Last year I think I coasted into day 2 with like 60k which felt like an above avg stack (I think we came back into 800/1600 first level of day 2). This year you'd be coming back into level 19, which is 4000/8000, and you're going to need like 150k minimum to feel like you have a playable stack. That's nuts! Need to 30x your starting stack to make it through.

So yeah, shovament...

Any preliminary numbers on entrants so far?

I think Effel set the line at 30,000 total runners. I'll take the under since I think Thurs flights will be small.

Hey all. Been lurking for years, finally joined. Not sure why. Anyway, I'm entering the Colossus II, Flight D, as my first WSOP event (well, my first bracelet event, anyway). I'm a Vegas local and I thought about #1, the employee event, but decided I couldn't really justify leaving work at 11AM on a Wednesday. (I envy you guys who make a whole trip for the Series.--They rarely schedule accessible events on the weekends.) So, instead I'm gonna go play in this big top show. Hope it's fun.

[ So, there's 1 post. Maybe in another few years I'll be able to edit my profile after I post again. ]

Is he fading bets?

I don't think that it will hit 30,000. I'm guessing 27,000.

Given that the WSOP asset (Caesars Interactive) is very much in play right now... I would say yes. They will be trying to maximize value everywhere they can this year.

Anyone want to take bets on MGM ultimately buying this thing?

**Steve Wynn - nah
**Sheldon Adelson (LVS) - possible but he'd destroy a lot of value as poker community hates him
**MGM - hmm, looks like WSOP moving to Mandalay Bay next year...
**Any others I'm missing?

Has anyone seen a Structure Sheet for the $75 Megas?

Yeah, can't see Steve Wynn wanting a bunch of The Great Unwashed in hoodies playing $65 satellites in his showcase place.

I doubt it would bother "the community" that much. They haven't been fond of CET either considering how much CET makes off of them, but they keep coming back every year. Wonder if Adelson would want WSOP.com anyway.

Can MGM afford it? I'd like to see one of the smaller players buy it, like Boyd or South Point or even TI. Although TI has ruined their own poker room, as if they hate poker.

I just don't see it being 30k. If it is 30k then I would imagine the other events like milly maker will see a smaller turnout.

Neither do I. Lets see how that could even happen...

Assuming the capacities remain unchanged, CIE has announced 4,600 seats for flights A, C, and E, and 4,000 seats for flights B, D, and F, for a total of 25,800 entrants.

The only source of additional entrants will be the "late wave." In order to get to 30K, the late wave will have to average 700 players for each flight. By my reading of the rules, these will be latecomers who were unable to buy in to the main wave because either (a) it sold out, or (b) they got to the front of the registration line after registration closed, three hours and twenty minutes after the flight started, and in either case chose to enter the late wave, rather than a later flight.

Plus, the late wave players, at least by my reading of the rules, have to be new players. I.e., you can't bust out of a flight and re-enter as a late-waver.

Also, at least for flights A, C, and E, it seems like enough players will have to have busted for the room to be able to seat everyone in the late wave. (The later flights will benefit from the capacity cleared by both flights.)

The rules are a little vague on the late wave, so I don't know how late that wave will be, if it will be incremental as seats open, or if the whole late wave will come in at once, or somewhere in between.

Either way, though, I don't see 700 people entering late for each flight. Probably closer to 100-200. Coupled with the doubtfulness of all flights selling out, my prediction is...

Poker is dead everyone is solid. Especially Harrington MTTers.

Last year they had 22,000 or so right. And this year they added two extra flights. And increased the guarantee. You really think there's going to be an only 3k increase? I'm betting more around 27k people. But these things - you never really know now do you haha

Your analysis is not very deep, or well thought. This patience factor is a joke, and doesn't really address how much play we will have. I invite you to study the average stack in the Collosus throughout the tournament versus the average stack at each level in the Daily "Deepstack". Although you start off with 15k in chips (and unlimited reentry early) the average stack QUICKLY dwindles post level 8.

I'm betting the average stack at the Collosus final table will be at least 35 big blinds, whereas at a Daily Deepstack FT it's around 10 bbs usually.

My guess in under 25k.

Are you saying that the Harrington MTTers are dead or solid?

Pretty sure he was being sarcastic about Harrington MTTers thinking they're solid. I think.

I STILL think Harrington's strategy is very good against today's loose aggressive players. Isn't his TAG style optimal against today's aggressive players?

Harrington's strategy would put you ahead of 95%+ of the collosus field. But not if you are misunderstanding it like the person who said shove any 2 with M<5.