When you bust someone out you get the ticket but the actual draw is electronically done. The result is displayed on a screen in the middle of the room. It shows your name then a key unlocking a treasure chest. You either got a 1000, 2500, 5000, or a gold image of some sort. If you got the gold image you were escorted to a stage at the center of the room where got to draw for one of the big prizes. There were 50 big prizes in total. 38 were for 25000. The other 12 were 50k and up. 6 were 50k, 3 were 100k, and then a 250k, 500k, and the 1 million.

Here is a description of what is was like on day 2 from an article.
The bounty-awarding line was so long during Day 2’s first levels that action was stopped briefly on two occasions to allow the animated draws to catch up to the event. The draws were also, notably, distracting, with action all but halting during the occasional on-stage bounty draws, and tourney directors repeatedly chastising players for leaving their seats and wandering around the player area amid all the other activity. Despite the hiccups, the event probably did exactly what the WSOP hoped, generating plenty of buzz during the early-days stretch of the Main Event when not a whole lot, in terms of poker results, is actually happening.

Thx for detailed information. I understand it started after 4PM on day 2 for knock out Bounty collected since start of the day 2.

Heading out to Vegas for the first time in my life this summer. Wondering what would be the online equivalent to the $300-1000 entry events in terms of softness?

Much tougher.
At least the play is more aggressive. Larger raises, more bluffing.
You also get moved around to different tables a lot more often. A least thats what I have noticed.

Are you saying those events are tougher than the same stakes online?

That's surprising. I thought they'd be a lot of recreationals playing in those fields.

I think he's saying the opposite (which makes sense)

Tournaments at this level of buyin will be very soft. It isn't worth the time of a lot of "good" pros to play tournament buyins that are so small. You might get a few better players in $1,000 buyin tournaments, but you will see a lot of players do things that are bad (misplaying short stacks), calling large 3 bets in spots that are really bad, etc.

If you can point to an objective measurement of the "softness" of online events, then perhaps someone can come up with a way of measuring the same for live WSOP events. But without that, the only thing one can say is, in general, the live WSOP will have lesser-skilled players.

I don't really understand the usefulness of that knowledge, especially since people rarely make any playing decisions based on it. And even if they do, the specific circumstances they face in the tournament when it comes to opponent skill will vary a great deal. So what is the benefit of going into an event believing "Yeah, this thing is going to be 10% softer or 10% less soft than the tourneys I'm used to."?

I wouldn't say it isn't worth their time since the length of event and prizepool for many of the smaller buy in events is not significantly different than some of the larger buy-in events. I just think the lower buy-in events typically have worse structure and much larger fields. These two factors alone could make someone choose to avoid them, regardless of the overall skill of the field.

It's not uncommon to see a number of the real pros enter the smaller buy-in tournaments very late. They'll build their WSOP schedule around the higher buy-in events, but if they bust in the middle of the day of one of them, they may register late to a $1K event with a plan to be super aggressive and either bust out or spin up a big enough stack to make it worth them continuing in that event the next day.

As for the rest of the fields for these smaller buyin events, it's definitely a crazy mix that runs the entire gamut. I wouldn't make any assumptions about the level of play, because you'll see it all, and when you're moved to another table there's a good chance the mix will be completely different.

For the $300 Gladiators of Poker………..

(a) Looked at the Structure Sheet and can’t determine if you can cash in multiple day 1’s. They say payout begin in day 1.

(b) If you can cash on multiple day 1’s, does on the biggest stack go forward to day 2?

a. Yes you can cash on multiples days 1.
b. No , if you cash on that means you are out of the tournament.

There are a lot of bracelet hunters regardless of the buy-in. Last time I made a Day 2, it was a sub-$500 buy-in. Of my 8 opponents on the redraw for the next day, 6 of them had won either a bracelet or a Circuit ring.

Usefulness for me is feeling more confident if I know that a particular field is soft.

Also, if on average I can expect to see 5 recreationals at my table in the $300-1000 buy in tournaments, I'd be more likely to play several events. If the fields are pretty tough then I'll just play one for the experience.

The fields at the WSOP $3k and below events are soft. Really soft. As you go from $3,000 down to $300 and the field sizes subsequently grow, they get even softer from soft. In other words, the larger the field the softer starting from a baseline of soft.

I have been playing since 2009 and can say not once I worried about who was a pro or not at my tables. Play your game, make good decisions with the spots you are given, study ahead of time a little if you can, and you are +EV. Above all else have fun! Good luck!

I always chuckle when we Rec players talk about soft fields. I basically agree that the lower the buyin the lower % of "Pro's" compared to Rec players and in playing your own game regardless. Personally I intellectually understand GTO reasonably well but I have a hell of a time implementing it in practice. You are going to run into 20 something "bullet proof" mentality players in open fields and run of the mill ABC runners. The trick is understanding their approach and making the appropriate modifications to your starting hands and post flop play. Some tables are BRUTAL with no pro in sight just damn good REC players and early level table draw is pretty critical if you want to build your stack to have a shot at going deep.

I will say it is easier to make/let a rec player make a mistake than a decent pro who is concentrating. That is the one "pro" caveat to observe. Even named pro's may lack focus specially in the lower buy ins and then they are nothing special.

It also seem like such a pointless thing to talk about in real-world decision-making situations. Who actually makes any decision based on this topic? Has anyone ever thought to themselves, yeah I really want to play a 2-day $1600 at the Wynn, but the field will be a bit softer in the 4-day $1500 at the WSOP. Let’s go with that.

I think that he was also asking whether or not you could play another day 1 if you were to advance to day 2 on a particular day 1. My understanding is that the answer to this question is no.

A few related questions:

I suppose that if you register for multiple day 1s of an event and you end up advancing in one, you will be automatically unregistered for later flights?

If you get verified earlier in the series and bust a flight, do you only need to open up the Bravo app and re-buy for the flight, allowing you to pick up your new seat from a kiosk and avoid the line?

What are the chances that a flight for the $300 Gladiator (or any event) sells out online? If I am playing on Friday I should at least consider the possibility that I might advance to day 2, but I might contemplate registering for both days if there is a risk that I may not be able to register for Saturday if I bust on Friday.

Appreciate everyone's insight on this!

Where I'd really consider field softness is if I was thinking about taking a shot at the high end of my budget. You cannot simply look at the price point and assume equal difficulty. I've played probably 60+ live MTTs in Vegas over the last few years ranging from $110 on the low end up to $1500 on the high end, and I've never seen a worse overall standard than in the $400 WSOP Colossus. People jamming 200BB+ in the first level with top pair, third kicker on the flop. People calling off even lighter in the same spot. Just horrendous stuff. The first few hours of play are full of people making massive mistakes. If you compare it to an August $400 multi-day at the Wynn, the difference is night and day even though the stakes are the same. There you may be up against 3-4 big name players within the first few hours. Lots of serious players grind those events even though the stakes are modest. Not all fields are created equally, even at the same stakes.

So firing $10k in the WSOP Main is very different from firing a $10k Aria high roller where 15/20 players have 10M+ in career winnings. A big event that attracts more punters will tend to have a more diluted and easier field, which is an argument for looking beyond price point alone when considering what to play. It may sometimes be worth it to play outside your usual price bracket if the value looks juicy. Another small variable is schedule conflicts. I was thinking about firing the Wynn $1600 Day 1B on 6/26. Should be a tough field, but there's also a $3k WSOP NLHE on the same date, which is likely to siphon a lot of the super crushers. So if you're going to play the Wynn event, you might target that particular flight instead of Day 1A or Day 1C. It's probably slightly more optimal.

Some people will say is, "It doesn't really matter what day or event you play. It's just about your starting table, and that's random." Sure, but that's like saying, "It doesn't really matter which cards you start with in hold 'em. It's all about the flop, and that's random." We know that you can play a $400 WSOP event and still end up with two end bosses at your starting table. From a probability standpoint though, the average table is going to be relatively soft. You can make reasonable assumptions about the general expected difficulty of a given event, even if sometimes you will roll a significantly better/worse table than you expect.

I wouldn't let the idea of softness pull me extremely far out of my comfort zone in terms of, say, playing a $10k when normally I top out at the $1k level, but it seems prudent to consider these variables when deciding what to play and when. If you have two choices and certain variables suggest that one option is shaping up to be softer, it might make sense to lean that way. One thing I will say is that tournaments function as player filters. The longer you play, the tougher the field gets. The bad players who are most likely to miss spots and make egregious mistakes gradually get weeded out, leaving you to battle with the survivors. That's why even a soft event like the WSOP Colossus or $600 Deep Stack Championship still isn't going to be "easy" past a certain point, and it's often in those deeper portions of tournaments where the real $$$ is determined. Cruising through an easy day 1 won't do you a lot of good when you're massively outclassed by monsters on day two, and still hundreds of slots away from the FT. But we can still think about expected field softness as a legitimate variable to consider when building a schedule.

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Most non-WSOP multiple Day 1 tournaments I’ve played in allow you to “make it to Day 2” in multiple flights but only bring the biggest stack to day 2.

The structure sheet doesn’t make it clear if this is true for the Gladiators of Poker.

The scenario I’m thinking of is if I end Day 1A with just a few chips. I want to know if I can then play Day 1B to try for a bigger stack to move to Day 2 with.

thanks for this post definitely insightful. Colossus seems like a great tourney, with a decent structure.

After playing Day 1A ,in order to play day 1B you need to forfeit/ surrender your chips at the end of the day 1A .

If you register for multiple day 1s of an event online and you end up advancing in one, will you will be automatically unregistered for later flights? I can see that this might be tough to track for WSOP and would likely be the player's responsibility.

WSOP wouldn’t allow you to register for multiple Day 1’s

Hey y'all - just scanned the last several pages and didn't see my issue covered - please link me if it has.

Looking to register for the $3K NL event 44 on Monday, 6/19 through Bravo but it isn't listed - it appears that few of the standard Monday events are available for online reg. I'll be flying in on that day and really want to avoid the lines. Anyone know why or if this will change?

TIA.

Events have been trickling in to the Bravo registration page since it went live. I was waiting a while before the $500 Freezeout on 6/20 finally showed up. I'd say check back every couple of days and don't worry for another week or two.