Doesn't seem like it's generally good for business, to have tournaments run for more than 12 hours straight. As a player, do you really want to spend 15 to 16 hours even to make first or would you want tournaments to end within 12 hours?

In general that seems bad for everyone (players, dealers, tournament director, the casino itself). That being said, the question is why did it take that long? Too many players? Bad structure (too many chips and blinds rising too slowly)? Or just extremely nitty players playing extremely slowly?

It's a fine line for poker rooms on how long a tournament should last. Too short and players will complain that it's too quick and isn't playable at the end (which is the issue with my local casino that runs a 50 player max, $225 tournament that is usually done in 5-6 hours). You usually don't hear players complain that a tournament lasted too long, but 15-16 hours of play is a lot.

Not to derail, but isn't too many chips and slowly rising blinds considered good structure?

What does your player pool look like?

If it’s mostly younger players for a Saturday tournament, I don’t think ending it at 1 or 2AM is too bad. If it’s mostly older players, I would try to make sure the tournament doesn’t last longer than 12 hours. The deciding factors in a one day tournament should be skill and luck, not stamina.

Besides that, every extra hour of play costs the poker room money and I highly doubt you get much support if you ask players if they are willing to pay 20% extra rake for a tournament lasting 15 hours instead of 12.

Depends if you're the casino or the player.

I doubt players would call the WSOP ME ‘good structure’ if it was a $10 instead of $10k event with a $20 mincash and $8k for first.

On its face, it doesn't seem like a 12 hour tournament is a good thing for anyone involved. Sure, some players will be able to take advantage of it but at that point it's counterproductive to the entire field and the staff. Maybe a little more background would be helpful. Is this a regular tournament that somehow lasted 4 hours longer than normal? Is it a new structure? Yeah more chips and slower blinds are normally better structure but not if it's to that extreme a point. A structure that is so slow is better to be used in a multi-day tournament.

It sounds like he's talking about the WSOP Daily Deep Stacks. They have a slow structure and often take 16 hours or more to finish. As it is, people complain about the structure being too fast.

I doubt the WSOP planned on it taking that long, they just wanted to have an attractive structure with lots of starting chips. Well, lots of people want to play something like that and they get 1000 or more players for it almost every day. If it had a hundred it would probably finish a lot quicker.

The thing about players is they want a slow structure .... That doesn't take long.

Also when it comes to payouts they want more players to get paid but they don't want the amount at the top to decrease....

In other words they want to have their cake and eat it too.

I would think many tournaments would get chopped before lasting that long. Guess it depends on the structure , what ever it was.

Depends upon what you're looking for. If everyone starts with a million in chips and blinds start at 5/10, you're going to be there for hours and hours and hours. Sure, leads to a very playable tournament....but if it's billed as a one day tournament and it's never going to end in 10-12 (or even 14-16) hours, it's a bad structure

Yep. Binions has made a niche of this for their $365s. Happy memories of busting out 8th in an LO8 and wandering around Fremont Street in a daze at 4am. Good times.

Fremont Street at 4 AM....yeah, that's exactly what I want to be doing on a regular basis

The Fremont Experience portion is well lit and safe at all hours.

My bigger single day tournaments typically run anywhere from 12 to 15 hours at most and I have yet to have one person complain that it takes too long.

I often say, "If I'm going to play a tournament, I prefer our cheap tourneys with the fast structure. I don't want to be stuck here 'til dawn."

The players look at me as if I were saying, "I don't like blankets! Especially the soft, thick kind, that you can snuggle up to!"

Most of the OMCs are busted before that point

A tourny starting at 7pm going to 3am is 8 hours, not 12, and that seems kind of normal. If you want to wrap it up by midnight you need to start at 3 and based on your pool may not work. A 12+ hour tourney seems long, but ending at 3am does not.

I was talking about a tournament that started at noon and went to 3AM or 4AM the next morning (and the tournament being called a "Single day" tournament).

It makes no economic sense for the casino to bag and tag a deepstack tournament. If you are still playing at 1am fior a 1pm tournament, you are well into the money and the extra 3-4 hours of play should make no difference when you are playing for tens of thousands of dollars. Players demanded more chips, you gotta live with the reality you are gonna be playing a little longer to the end.