Hi,
playing lots of tourneys at GGPoker, especially Sundays.

What I am struggling with, what is the general advice for regging? Of course go in before the tourney starts is best. But as GGPoker offers unlimited reentries (until ~10 bbs), I wonder what is the best strategy if we reg pre but bust before late reg ends. How long do we reenter? I guess there is also a difference to PKOs? Where is the max +EV line (bbs?)?

Also some strategy how often do you rebuy? For me I am struggling because I am reentering 5-8 times, which drastically increases my total buyins...

Hope I get some input

Thanks in advance!

In terms of pure equity for your buyin, registering late as possible is best for standard MTTs. However, this also will make it difficult to exercise a skill edge if you think you have one, although short stacks are at least easy to play. You will bust out quickly a lot, so this strategy is better for grinding if you have a ton of tournaments you can potentially play. I usually enter toward the end of the registration period unless I think I have a significant skill edge (or I just want to get some more practice playing deeper). But if I decide to play a tournament, and it's within my bankroll, there's no limit to the number of times I'm willing to enter.

In terms of PKOs, you want to register as early as possible, because once people start busting out that takes money out of the prize pool. On top of that, if you register later, you come in shorter and don't have the ability to win bounties. The flipside of that is that you will tend to get called lighter for your bounty if you register late, so you have a better chance of doubling early. But so much of the prize pool is in the bounties that you want to be able to get your share of it.

Carlos Welch mentioned a reason to register late, but not too late. If you bust you want a chance to reenter.

I know fair amount of regs will max late reg vanilla MTTs for the aforementioned reasons but start from the beginning in PKOs. More a matter of how to most efficiently use the monitor space you have.

As previously mentioned, the max raw EV is in max late regging vanillas since a large part of the field has already busted and their % of prizepool share gets redistributed to the remaining/late reg players (in theory).

I would base my time of entry on a few things. How soft is the field in the early and early-mid stages you are playing? If soft then I want to get in early and win the free stacks which will become less so mid-late game. If tough, then you'll have a hard time outperforming the EV of max late regging. I also would base it around my bb/100 at certain stack depths. Like let's say my bb/100 at 100bbs is low or losing but I'm crushing at 60bbs, then I'll wait until blind levels are such that I am playing 60bb poker.

If you late register a medium or big field PKO, do so on a break so that you get put at a table with others who just late reg’d as well. That way you’ll have at least have a chance to win bounties rather than being covered by everyone.

Curious if people think late registering on a break is better in non-PKOs.

Never thought about this. Makes sense for PKOs. In vanilla games, I think it's better if stacks are asymmetric since you have the EV from rejamming vs larger/mid stacks RFIs to gain. I also think BB still overfolds vs min opens from short stacks and vs their cbets.

Yeah, especially with some of the ACR structures and how they'll drop the level lengths after late registration ends (that 15/8 thing is ridiculous, IMO), I might register at the start of the last level to give myself time to double up and chances to re-enter if I bust.

I don't agree with the theory that registering late has more value than registering before the start.

I do agree that you will make more per hour if you register late.

For me the worst players register early. I once arrived late at FW and the way they created the new table was mostly based on the people who had registered late (now they pull one person from a few other tables but still a few of the late regs will be at the table). That table was more difficult than most final tables I have ever played.

The people who arrive late at tables are almost always better than average. But they arrive sometimes after a really bad player has lost all their chips or lost a lot of them.

I played in a "big" tournament in Prague earlier this year. It was 6000 crowns (about $270 which is like a $600 or $800 US field). There was a guarantee and about one level before registration ended a Czech player who rarely plays at the Tuesday 6pm tournaments (OK all Prague Tournies start in the evening and the biggest tournies are at Luka Rebuy Stars on Tuesday nights except when the EPT hits Rosvadov King's Casino and some tournies spill into the King's casino in Prague) decided to come and enter. He entered about 6 times and bounced all 6 times. What it did was push us up to the guarantee. Which is what happened at the Venetian a lot in Las Vegas. The call went out that the Guarantee hadn't been hit and then it was hit. The Czech player who entered 6 times had won a $2,900,000 first place prize so he was likely maximizing his hourly rate while at the same time potentially getting the casino to have to meet the Guarantee. And he was scary good.

I once won a tournament (chopped it 3 ways) when I entered in the final break before entry closed. But I also won that 6000 Crown Prague tournament which I got to early.

The other thing I would say is that the absolute best players always have huge stacks early on. The reason is that they are super aggressive and bounce out if they don't hit their hands, rebuy again and again until they double or triple up. And its not that they are going all in, its that they are raising so much. All of their pots in position are big. They are 3-betting a lot in position. In fact I have to say that I consider Prague to be like a graduate school of Poker. And my teachers were a lot of young GTO solvers, the guy who finished 3rd in the WSOP main event, 2 crushers who always go deep, one Prague solver GTO who speaks English, a gorgeous Gal Gadot look alike who has won at least one trophy and gets men to succumb early to her medusa-esque charm (though I lost big hands to her the first time I played KK vs AA and QQ vs KK when she was short stacked and could have had anything so it wasn't that I was completely distracted that did me in), a French expert who thankfully likes PLO better than NLHE, an Englishman who is a total scrapper, and men older than me who toy with their opponents on a regular basis.

So I get there early wherever there is. The exceptions I would make would be the WPT (which I haven't played the main event but even the $1,200 to $1,600 ones had very few bad players and probably the Aria $25,000 to $100,000 tournies that have only experts who are backed so they don't care if they get knocked out).

The last thing I will say is if you play live and reads are part of your skill set then getting there early allows you to find out how each of the players at the table plays. Now sometimes it doesn't matter because they are breaking tables often enough that well it doesn't matter. But other days it makes all the difference in the world.

And the very last thing I will say is that if you arrived late to the WSOP this year you got screwed at some of the larger tournaments (like the Mini Main and the Colossus). And if you bought in early and arrived late your stack was blinded off. So at least make sure there are no penalties for showing up late (like being blinded off or having to be an alternate and one time here in Prague at King's Casino I got 5,000 extra chips for registering before the start of the tournament for no extra money).

The chances of having the size of edge you can at live tournaments in online tournaments is basically nonexistent. The late registration seating online often doesn't work that way, either. (And obviously, live tells are not a factor.)