The structure of the sunday $20k gtd is very bad.

It starts out very good, with ample starting chips and blind increases. However, once you get into the mid/late stages of a tournament, the average stack gets VERY short

i've analyzed the structure and the main reason for this is that there are many levels that are being skipped deep in this tournament

before the 1k/2k level the increases in levels are fairly consistent (the 250/500 level is missing, but we start with 20k chips, so i'll let it slide, even though it should be there)...however, after 1k/2k let's look at the levels:

1000/2000
1500/3000
2000/4000
3000/6000
4000/8000
5k/10k
6k/12k
8k/16k
10k/20k
15k/30k
20k/40k
30k/60k
40k/80k
50k/100k
70k/140k
90k/180k

so, first off, the jump from 1/2k to 1500/3k is way too big. the reason it's too large is that the next level is 2/4k...the blinds double in only 1 level. for this mid/late stage of the tournament this is simply too much.

not only that, but 2 more levels and the blinds have doubled yet again!

after 3k/6k we have some normal jumps until we get to 10k/20k again, where we instnatly jump to 15k/30k again, and run through the same problem of quick increases.

now at this point, the tournament has reached the final table, where everyone is playing for a lot of money. no one wants this to turn into the turbo that it does.

after 50k/100k we have an interesting jump to the all new that comes out of nowhere 70k/140k, and then jump to 90k/180k

the big question is...WHY? why are the levels suddenly massively jumping like this? there are no dealers to pay or staff to run this tournament, so why are you rushing to get it over when at this point there are at MOST 3 players left. let the 3 players left battle it out for the big money.

below is a new structure that I think should be implemented immediately (antes will be 10% of the bb, and have clearly started by now):

(anything before 200/400 is fine, just leave it the way it is...i bolded new levels)

200/400
250/500
300/600
400/800
500/1000
600/1200
800/1600
1000/2000
1250/2500
1500/3000
2000/4000
2500/5000
3000/6000
4000/8000
5k/10k
6k/12k
8k/16k
10k/20k
12500/25k
15k/30k
20k/40k
25k/50k
30k/60k
40k/80k
50k/100k
60k/120k
70k/140k
90k/180k


so, i want to add 6 levels to this tournament, adding a potential 90 minutes of playing time to it. however, the thing is, such a large % of the field is eliminated by the time the blinds reach 2k/4k that these new levels will only extend the playing time for very few players.

also, the tournament ends by 50k/100k a lot of the time, so that last level isn't always even going to be seen

anyway, you've done a great job trying to grow this tournament, and having a structure that is more playable when the big money is on the line will encourage more people to play it.

please consider these changes

+1

this seems obvious to me. not sure why it wasnt like this from the beginning.

I think the event lasted 7 hours, how long should a 300 person event last to be a good structure?

the length of an event is not directly related to how good the structure is.

the reason that the tournament lasts so long is because of the very very large starting stack. having a stack this large allows people to essentially blind out and still be in at the 500/1k level, which is level 13, or over 3 hours into the tournament. this slows the rate of bust outs by a very large %

having more play early and less play deep is exactly what this tournament currently has, which the exact opposite of what you want in a tournament structure. (you want there to be more play when the big money is on the line when there are 2 tables left and at the final table, not during the first 2 or 3 levels when winning pots isnt' really important at all)

starting with fewer chips and adding the levels I suggested will result in a MUCH better overall structure.



another option is to still start with 20k, however eliminate some of the early levels. 25/50 is fairly useless as it stands...start at 50/100 instead, then go straight to 100/200 after that...you then quickly get into antes and meaningful pots.

to further elaborate: i think 6-7 hour is a fairly reasonable length for a tournament that has over 300 runners and a good structure. after all this is the biggest and best tournament UP offers on a weekly basis, so it should go a little longer than your average 300 daily person tournament.


the problem with this structure is that when this tourney was only getting ~90 runners we were still seeing that the tournament was lasting around 6 hours. so how did we add over 200 runners to this tournament yet not see a very big difference in time from start to finish?

easy: the majority of the beginning levels of the tournament are simply useless and people are not busting at a reasonable rate. the tournament is not really "starting" until level 10 or so, when people start to actually battle and play pots, creating bustouts.

but you may ask, shouldn't this still result in a shorter tournament when there are less people (as there are fewer chips in play)? well, it would, however there are many large jumps in levels deep in this tournament. the further into the structure we get, and the more we will experience these massive level jumps...which increases the bust out rate of players deeper in the tournament.

let me try to show what I mean.

with the structure as it stands, we're seeing a lot of players lasting a very long time. once the big jumps in levels begin, we see a very large increase in the rate players are busting...the problem is this rate of increase never slows, as the blind jumps continue throughout the late stages and final table, creating a bustout rate that looks something like this:

(please excuse the fairly crude drawings, it's just to get an idea)



now, if the structure was more ideal...we shoudn't see too many bustouts at the immediate start, but they should start very quickly. the rate players bust should start increasing almost immediately as blinds get larger and antes come into play and by the mid stages we should be seeing players bust fairly quickly...HOWEVER, once we start hitting the bubble and money, bustouts should actually begin to SLOW, as 1 player busting represents a much larger % of the field, therefore we should not be losing them less often. also, we want more play for the final couple of tables and especially at the ft, so we really don't want to be losing players as quickly as we were in the beginning and middle stages.

anyway, it should look something closer to this:





a lot of new pokerrooms (especially in the nj market) seem to think that more starting chips = better structure. this is simply not true, and these graphs represent this very well.

+1 to gags again. Does a better job than people being paid to do this.

Would you cut down on the amount of starting chips? Adding 6 levels will add roughly 90 minutes on to the event.

That's funny, I thought that Gags played hundreds of MTTs each week and would probably would be expected to have more insight into the slight nuances of tournament structures than anyone who did not. Is he actually a marine biologist and is just a tournament poker structure prodigy?

The support and reps here are pretty damn good imo

Yeah, maybe this would improve things slightly. But in the end these are just lol online donkaments

i think you have 2 options:

1. cut the starting stack to 10k or 15k and change the structure to include the levels I listed. Personally I would start with 15k and see how long the tourney lasts, I think 15k would be a good enough change to keep the time about the same with the addition of the extra levels. If too much time is added to the tournament, then cut starting stack to 10k

2. leave the starting stack at 20k...however, change the early structure to the following:

50/100
100/200
150/300/25
200/400/50
250/500/50
300/600/50
(continue with rest of edited structure that I created above)


so cutting out 2 early levels and adding 6 levels for a total of only 4 extra levels. also, keep in mind that because the tournament will be moving quicker in the beginning more players will bust early, so the total additional time will only really affect a very small % of the field...yet when players get deep in the tournament, they will enjoy it more because there will be actual play wehn the big money is on the line

Probably starting the tourney at the 50-100 stage would make sense given the chip stacks.

I'd add the levels that Gags suggested after 1k-2k and the 250-500 level if possible. Chip stacks could be reduced to 15k, but I wouldn't as your recreational player would greatly notice this and think the tourney has less play value and might not understand that with the new blind levels more play value is added to the tourney.

yeah unfortunately a lot of recreational players think that more starting chips means better structure.

i prefer leaving starting stacks at 20k and eliminating the 25/50 and 75/150 levels

I just want to chime in to support gags because his ideas are right. My friend came out to NJ for Sunday tourneys last week from NY and I just flat out told him "play this because of the no-verlay, but the structure sucks by the bubble - deep stacks are sitting on like 20bb. Starts out really deep and then goes to crap."

Now seeing this thread, it's like....... yep.

Gags why don't you just start your own poker website - you don't like any structures of any tournaments on any site.

as everyone on this useles site likes to say ----- EAD

I see that you guys have changed the structure of the Sunday 20k, and we've lost our break on the :55s.

Please fix?

So they made it half the starting stack but kept the levels the same

Thanks Gags?

lol

10,000 in chips was an error by my team. Next week will be 20K in chips unless we decide to make a change.

But what about the messed up breaks? When you put the breaks on the :55s, they never really lined up with any other sites. But at least the FIRST break usually was on the :55 and then the later ones would get more and more delayed. Today the first break was at 7 pm. Really frustrating.

Same problem in the $50.

Exactly... The problem is that each break starts once every table finishes the hand in progress at :55. Then the break starts at say :57... Ultimate is set to then run for 1 hour so it's off by 2 minutes. Other sites aren't set to have an hour between breaks, the breaks start at :55 no matter what. That is where the issue lies.

bummmmmmp. any word on new structure?

bump.

do you guys even care that your sunday major is terrible?

ever think more people would play it if it had an ok structure?

Played the $10k last night and agree with these guys.

Cut the early levels and add them back later.

Scotty, any word on this? With 40 people left it becomes nothing but shove or fold.

Working on changes

I'd like to suggest making it the same blind structure as the nightly $5k, but making the starting chip stack more than 5,000 but less than the current 20,000.... maybe 8,000-10,000.