Evidently, people think that they can improve on 6bb/100hands at 50/100 by making over 150bb/100hands at 2/4?

Well this is what I think - that the $ ROI comes from playing hands, so if you play more hands you should have a higher ROI.

In the second example it assumes we are rolled for more than in the first example though.

It's actually more like - would we prefer two sessions of 50 hands each with $1000 stacks and $25/$50 blinds, or one session of 100 hands with $1000 stacks and $15/$30 blinds. Splitting the hands into two sessions shouldn't be important to the answer IMHO.

It matters a great deal where our edge on the players comes from and without that information it's a hard question to answer as different stacksizes enable us to win money in different ways. I voted for 5/10 but after thinking about it a bit longer, it's probably 10/20 since 10/20 at 50bb will almost certainly net you > 50% the bb/h you would have at 5/10 at 100bb, this is without factoring in stack depth increasing as players get stacked and rebuy which happens at a much higher rate at 50bb than 100bb. I think 2/4 at 250bb would always have the highest bb/h but lowest $/h return so its somewhat surprising to see it as the most popular answer.

Assuming only 100 hands and variability in stacks, meaning not a $1K cap vs most opposition:

10/20 or 25/50
50/100
5/10
2/4

If the number of hands played was increased to at least 200 I would say the correct order is:

50/100
25/50
10/20
5/10
2/4

Assuming bankroll is no issue and you can always rebuy, then I'd guess the higher the better, but I could be wrong. Either way, the largest edge certainly wouldn't come from lower blinds.

Lower (edge divided by variance,) sure, but a lower edge overall. I voted 50/100, but 25/50 might be better.

It's totally dependent on how your opponents are bad. If their mistakes are preflop/flop then yea bigger is better. But in general, the more decisions that bad players have to make the more we can use our edge which means deeper stacks relative to the blinds is better because more streets we play the more decisions we can force bad players to make.

But not in the same way as cash. They get some more equity in that single tournament by surviving, but their overall ROI and success isn't based on the number of hands they play.

Think of it this way: if I win 10 tournaments in 100 hands a piece and win 10 tournaments in 25 hands apiece does it matter for my ROI?

Also if I play more hands in a single tournament my per hand edge is more likely to disappear since escalating blinds will negate a lot of my per hand edge at some point, but that may not as drastically affect my $EV edge at the same time.

I'm not trying to argue that you can play bad poker on a per hand basis in a tournament and win, I'm arguing that a tournament player's ROI as nothing to do with the absolute number of hands they play, just the number of tournaments.

If the opponents are typical fish types, my guess would be that the optimal stack size for the OP's scenario would be 50-70bb (just guessing based on my own win rates at different stack sizes from back when games were still good online)

If the opponents were competent players and we are some kind of super bad ass, then maybe it's a much deeper stack size since preflop play alone won't be much of an edge.

Whatever amounts to 200 BB minimum.

We want to play optimum $/100 hand, not BB/100. I would choose 25/50 tho.

It depends on whether they rebuy or not. If I don't expect rebuys I would go lower the bigger my edge is. Something like .50/1 is ok against absolutely terrible players. They will lose 1000BBs in 100, almost for sure.

If they do rebuy something like 100BBs seems fine, maybe lower. This one depends on aggression as well. It's very hard to win big against aggressive fish in shallow games.

First of all OP, how EXACTLY do you HAVE an edge, how do you think you will EXPLOIT others by having this edge?

If it's deep, that would definitely help you with time to get a read and start to profile players and exploit critical gaps in their game (keep in mind this also allows your opponents to do the same).

However if the structure is ridiculously short stacked like a PS Hyper or Spin'n'go's, could make for a very brutal and PUSH/FOLD heavy game... which honestly would be heaps of fun and playing this format, people probably wouldn't invite you back anyways :P

What are your strengths and how do you feel that the difference in structure will help/hinder YOUR performance? I guess that will give you the better answer.

You can only apply your "edge" the deeper the stacks are. The shallower the stacks, the more you're gambling.

Starting at 200 BB is what's considered deep.

So if my edge at 100BB deep is 10BB per 100 hands, I should have a greater than 20BB per 100 hands edge at playing 200 deep?

The point is we might have a higher winrate playing deep, but are we making more money?

Say we play 2/4 and we're 250bb deep and crush it at 10bb/100h for a winrate of $40/100h

Take the same situation, 25/50 and 20bb deep and win at 1bb/100h for a winrate of $50/100h. In this case 25/50 is more profitable despite having an entire order of magnitude lower winrate.

No I doubt the scale proportionately.

Also no matter how you measure it there will be a total cap to your winrate and the total earnings you'll be able to realize in a finite number of hands at this one table, and it will be nowhere near the 8k on the table.

^ Sorry I was replying to Hardball 47.

My own guess is around 20BBs. Which is roughly about where the 10 minute level tournaments on Stars stabilize once they get going.

No, it doesn't scale like that, because the stakes are still the same. You should have an increase, but it's not going to be anywhere near double.

Variance, yo.

You're going to experiencing a **** ton more swings playing 20 BB.

people voting 2 4 or 5 10 are completely clueless to wr in poker

I voted 25/50 - It all comes down to the day and how you apply the edge.
If this is a once off then how does win rate really factor? It's one occasion currently without any standards to measure against.

^ It's not really one time only, just that we don't need to worry about being re-invited. If you read the explanation on page 2, it's really a disguised question about turbo tournaments vs reg speed tournaments (for the same tournament buy in do we want to play big blinds or small blinds).

Variance will increase, but if our true winrate is x or y it shouldn't matter too much, it would still be the most profitable I would think.

So having said that is there really a direct correlation between stack depth and variance?

Say you're deep though, wouldn't this also allow others to play a wider range of hands and take a low ball approach?
I thought deep stack tournaments were good because it provides that freedom but almost promotes that style of play.

Do you think this could also affect what sort of ranges you may be up against, even against more opponents in any given hand?

What do you see as your disadvantage for playing deep or late reg to playing deep?

Yes, there is a correlation with variance and stack depth. At very very low stack depths its high (<20bb) and very high it could also be high >300bb.

But it also depends on how wide of a range you're playing, how much 3b/4b/5b is going on etc.

50/100 is for sure maximizing our hourly.

+1