That's true. We're talking about the potential for cheating in "best stack plays" tournaments. The issue wouldn't be counterfeit chips as it is at Borgata, it would be the smuggling of real chips from day 1a to day 1b or to day 2 and so forth. That's still cheating isn't it? And IMO, cheating of any kind should be top of mind these days in light of what happened at that place.

This. I might add "If you can't manage and secure it, it shouldn't be offered.

Agree with matt. This whole thread applies to reentry events with best stack advancing. Standard reentry tournaments have nothing to do with this.

I got that, and Im just mentioning the "best stack advancing" concept came up as a sidebar in another thread that was talking about the seating of players in re-entry tournaments.

At the time Matt said he didn't understand why anyone with a 75K stack for example would want to play an additional day one. The reason would be to attempt to build up a monster stack while essentially freerolling because you're assured your 75k stack is the worst you could do.

The cheating aspect for this type of tournament is now being addressed (by players anyway) and I think that's a good conversation to have. I'd invite Matt to join us in discussing that.

OP makes a very good point here and the arguments that Mike offers are very valid. It seems as though these types of tournaments are ripe for cheating and/or collusion.

There needs to be a way to verify that chip counts are accurate. If you are going to allow people to buy into multiple day 1s and carry a stack forward there needs to be a surefire way to prevent people from adding/removing chips from their stacks.

The harder part is going to be with collusion. If Player X already has a stack going into day 2 is known to be friends with another player at the table any hand that involves the two would bring about a ton of questions and speculation. Were they playing a legitimate hand or was one just chip dumping to the other? In any case it would almost be impossible to prove what was really happening.

These are some big issues that need to be addressed as these types of tournaments are becoming the norm. I can see many people refusing to even bother playing in these tournaments if they are under the impression that they are at a large disadvantage due to the amount of collusion and cheating going on.

Alan makes valid points as he sometimes does about many issues in his "watchdog" role but leaves out a few key issues.

When it comes to reentry with multiple heats and days there is no perfect system. I wrote an OpED on the subject and explained why I have made a 180 on the entire reentry "phenomenon."

Unless there is some sort of bonus for advancing with multiple stacks, which I think is most often not the case, then this system really disadvantages dumb poker players who have no idea of $EV. I guarantee you it's more $EV to go forward with a 6BB stack on Day 2 then to spend money for another bullet, and if anyone challenges this, I can run the numbers to prove it.

I also understand what you are saying about "cheating." I will admit I hate that word and even the discussion of "how to" but to be fair to the reentry concept If you have a short stack at the end of the day and you are going to play the next day and have to forfeit your stack what would stop you from doing the same thing you are mentioning above?

Nor do I. I'm with the guy who said this sounds quite advantageous to people who just play once. Entering again isn't a freeroll, it's almost the opposite. Your second buyin is gone unless you run that up to 10x your starting stack or whatever you managed on day 1.

Some of the hypotheticals (not all) that people are putting forward here are only decreasing the disadvantage players would immediately have by entering again after running up a big stack on a previous day.

Matt---Were you responding to my post? It's wasn't clear.

The point I was making is separate to the cheating point.

POINT #1 ADDRESSED BY ALLEN AND OTHERS - These tourneys can be very easily manipulated for the basic reason that someone so eloquently summarized as follows - there is a huge discrepancy between ceV and $eV.

POINT #2 - Why do the casinos even promote this form of gambling in the first instance? The ROI is so negative for people who do this without any bad intentions. It's like offering roulette where the house and the other people at the table get like 80% rake or something absurd like that. If the heavily one-sided money-stealing nature of this format was fully explained to regulators, I'm sure they would ban it.

The best way to stop these tournaments is to stop playing in them...

Putting my evil poker shark hat on, it's unquestionably a good thing for poker pros that people think another bullet with a big stack on another day is a "free roll." Thank you for adding to the prize pool while not adding as much to the chip pool. My chips now have higher EV. Matasow's complaint of likely taking chips from one day and adding to another actually just reduces the EV they gave up by firing another bullet without busting out before.

In response to how -EV it is to do this and how the regulators should shut it down, I'm not sure I see the argument for that since other players benefit rather than the casino. The casino itself does offer many games that are extremely profitable, especially BJ where 90+% of players play so terrible.

The house makes more money from poker tournaments as the average player logs in less hours and thus requires less dealer-hours, floor staff hours and floor space for the same rake. The house may make slightly more money per entrant since the format may make people play with higher variance and therefore become more likely to bust out sooner. A player with a 5 BB stack and 150 BB stack costs the same to the house and therefore higher variance, even with same cEV, decreases the average time playing. With increasing blinds, the length of play at the higher end of the distribution does not offset the reduced length of play at the lower end of the distribution. This is generally conjecture on my part, but it makes since to me that higher variance on chips means less average time sitting down and thus less cost. They may also make more profit on the rake when people who would not have bust and fired another bullet in a regular tournament fire another bullet on another day one. In the case of somebody with big stack trying to "free roll" for a monster stack, they are guaranteed to sacrifice chips and thus playing time and thus the house has more profit.

I'm not sure how common chip dumping is because how does have any decent chance of being at the same table as the other colluder? There would need to be many colluders to have a decent chance of two being seated at the same table. FAR more common, I would guess, is people exchanging chips after hours.

One question I have tried to figure out, both with tourneys and cash, is how exactly collusion is profitable only in the sense of chip dumping. From an ICM perspective, giving all the chips to the colluder with the highest stack is -$ev if the $ev of all of the colluders are considered. It's only +$ev for the collusion group if chips have greater value adding to the big stack than they would as the remaining chips of the short stack. I know ICM doesn't value the way people tighten up to a big stack's raises enough, but I still don't see how the math bears that out. And of course, as a zero-sum game, chip dumping is actually better for the remaining entrants if it is truly -$ev.

Wasn't responding to you but will now

1. I disagree that they can be "easily" manipulated but agree there is a chance and an appearance that they can be and if you read my article I am leading the charge to have reentry limited or phased out of my tournaments.

2. I hate to keep pointing it out but did you read the OpEd I wrote? There are many reasons for casinos to run reentry tournaments and "rake" was not my motive in starting them. I still think picking best stack vs making player forfeit or go busted is maybe only slightly worse. My tournaments whenever it's my decision going forward will be no reentry, no same heat reentry, or a single reentry. I still think large guarantee small buy-in tournaments can be good value for players an of course reentries of some sort are necessary.

Yes, I like your Op-Ed and I agree that re-entries are necessary for big guarantee events. Not sure I understand the bolded part in your post.

My point pertains specifically to the "best stack advance option". I think people are fooled that there is great value in buying in again if they advance with a 10 or 15 BB stack and they decide to give it another shot. This is very irrational and is probably one of the worst bets that person could make in the casino which ends up benefitting mostly the other players but also the house. So we eliminate that option to essentially protect them against their bad judgment (in addition to all of the other reasons stated here). Once you advance to Day 2, you are prohibited from entering again.

If bonuses are too big for advancing 2 stacks this would happen even more. If I built an 800k stack. I could take 20 5k chips off and use them for the next few day 1s. If the bonus isnt big enough for advancing two stacks then less people would be willing to cheat. I personally dont think the bonuses are ever big enough to warrant firing another bullet.

Best thing probably to do is to buy up the 5k chips at the end of the day with 10k and 25k chips. Youd be able to keep track of the # of 5k chips perfectly. Dont bag chips either. Hustler writes done your chip stack and seems to work fine. You sign off after they count your chips. Its not like 1000 players make day 2. Its under 300 in these events. Which equates to under 20 per flight.

Not going to speak for Matt, but I think the "best stack plays" format came to pass because many players feel it isn't worth it to come back to the casino if you're just going to have to launch all your chips in the first ten minutes.

Many players don't live that close to the cardroom running this type of event, so making an hour long drive...possibly getting knocked out in ten minutes...and then driving another hour home makes little sense to them. They would prefer to come back the next day and play another day one trying to build a better stack.

That said, the issue for this thread is whether this format is vulnerable to chip smuggling...a.k.a. cheating. For many, that's a moral issue, not a math issue.

what ive always enjoyed about reentry tournaments is that if i have to drive a long way to play an event it eliminates the possibility that i will be out within an hour and have to drive home pretty defeated without even getting a chance to play.

i don't really see the harm in them.

i guess the best stack concept is sort of different. i guess it just brings up the issue of not knowing how many chips should be in play and the possibility someone could cheat by taking chips out of play.

Easy fix - modify the tournament so that you can carry forward all your chips from all the day ones. Encourages more multi entries and eliminates that aspect of cheating. Offer a vig discount if you register for multiple day ones at the start of the tournament.

Changes strategy so the first day one does not become a shove fest.

Your definition of freerolling is different than mine.

+1 this is the strongest way possible.

more importantly you correctly distinguished between OP and general re-entry. where many others in this thread have not and seem to be mixing up those two topics/issues which makes thread hard to follow. The thread here that that Dr. Chainsaw started is about a unique variant of Rentry's where players can carry forward their best stack or somehow combine various day one stacks.

Anyone that want to discuss Matts well written Op Ed on topic of Re-Entry as a whole being good or bad maybe should go to this thread

http://http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/good-write-up-matt-savage-reentry-tournaments-1392162/

Anyone that wants to talk about "best stack forward" maybe post ITT.

here's my two cents on that.

Though its sort of fun as a player. the possible angles and cheating with best stack forward format FAR outweigh the advantage IMO so these formats are are probably the most difficult to secure and prevent all sorts of scams.

I think the most important question is:

Are the re-entry tournaments increasing the profits for the casinos that run them more so than when they were not re-entry.

The quick (and I submit wrong answer) is sure because of the added tournament rake. I believe this is a fallacy because what you gain in tournament rake you lose in cash game rake or pit/slot revenue lost, and that amount of loss is greater than the amount of tournament rake brought in.

Look at your average tournament field what percentage goes to the casino to take 1 shot and go home, what percentage bust out and go play table games or slots, what percentage go play cash games and increase the number of tables. If people re-enter it decreases their chances of playing slots or craps or cash.

Since players cards are required for all tournament entries and most people use their players cards for non poker activities it should be pretty straight forward to run the numbers and see if the re-entries are affecting other more profitable opportunities at the casino.

Additionally there is a certain amount of fatigue that comes from playing deeper into the day on tournaments. Increasing the chances of late bust outs calling it a day, where if they had busted out earlier they may have sought a cash game.

Corporate casino culture does not allow for big picture thinking among it department heads that you are looking for. It only allows for performance based tracking of their own department.

That's why poker rooms get closed by casino bosses that only look at the $$ per sq ft that slots can bring in and not the big picture of the other gambling a poker player may do and gaming produced by spouses while you are playing poker.

It is also why they like multi-entry tournament. Better for their department's bottom line.

Department bosses will do what is best for them but if the overall boss isn't capable of looking at the big picture they should be sacked as that is their job.

The idea of conducting a hybrid tournament has actually been around for at least 10 yrs. It's only regarding the B&M casinos where it might be an innovation.

Obv Brag alert
I played in the first hybrid back when Paradise Poker began it's Paradise Masters series to respond to Poker Stars WCOOP. The innovation for the Paradise event was that it would be conducted on-line until the final table. Then the event was stopped .... and all the FT players were flown to Costa Rica or some other exotic location where a TV set was created on a beach, seriously, and the FT was played out. I did FT the first event and my wife and I were flown to CR for a week on Paradise's dime.

Amusing aside to this. Before going down there a couple of other players said that I had to be really concerned about this guy named 'durrrr' who was killing it over on Party. OK I'm no dummy I'll pay attention to the warnings.

When we all got together it was husbands/wives, guys/mistresses, two guys that were partners ( so dumb at the time ) and a father and his son. When we got to know who was who I found out that the killer (?) 'durrrr' was this older quiet guy named Tom Dwan from NJ who mostly played stud at the Taj. This was the guy I had to worry about? He's the one who brought along his teenage son ( nice gesture I thought, helloooo).

The concept of hybrid events now I think is very likely to take off as Nevada and NJ and Delaware are able to conduct mega-multiple Day1's, Day2's on line then bring the final 100 or 200 players into the B&M room to finish off the events. However as MM noted with multi-Day1 events there still will be the problems he mentioned unless strict controls are put into place against chip-dumping and collusion.

It will solve the problem of cheaters being able to pilfer chips from a short stack one day and then physically carry then to the larger stack on another day.

Can someone mathematically prove that the overall gain to the tournament of someone playing two day 1's (1a and 1b), ending with a larger stack in 1a than 1b so player takes some chips from 1b and adds them to 1a is less than if they just played day 1a?