This argument about mystery bounty tournaments not favoring bad players, or conversely still allowing good players to win more long term is so irrelevant. Good poker players will win virtually any poker variant more long term vs bad players. That how it is in poker. And life.

My argument has nothing to do with the format “favoring” one player vs another. It has to do with assigning a large portion of the prizepool based on something which has a lot more to do with luck than otherwise.

In a regular bounty tournament, results are affected more by luck in that “knocking people out” has a lot more to do with things out of a player’s control than things in their control. And then you take it to an extreme with mystery bounties in that a big chunk of the prizepool is awarded to the person who opened the right envelope. If people think this is poker, then why do we even grind out these tournaments? They might as well just play down to 15% and split up the prizepool through random drawing. It would save us all time and money. On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be giving TDs any bright ideas.

Anyhow, these events have gained popularity because the poker community is filled with players who are degenerate gamblers and also those who, rightly so, need more luck in order to have any success whatsoever. So buying even more lottery tickets seems like a good idea. And I’m fine with it… as a variant. I just wouldn’t want to see it become universal.

I also hear people making arguments about how this flattens the payout structure and I wonder why they can’t argue for flatter payout structures without introducing a luck-based mechanism. I mean, you could have a flip tournament where half the field chops the prizepool evenly. That would be a pretty flat payout structure too. And the best players would win more over the long term. But would it be poker?

What a sick bubble this would be!

And flatter payouts are generally beneficial, but players complain vociferously whenever someone tries to do a flatter payout (what? only $x for first??; though when it's steep the complaints are what? I got 5th/13th/35th and only got $xx that's ridiculous). The complaints are especially bad in lower buyin huge field events, because it results in "omg rake was more than 1st lololol" which is to be expected unless you think casinos are gonna rake under 10% on a $400 or 1st should be 20%+ in a 20,000 person event, which is going to eviscerate other payouts for people who went really deep.

The people who complain about first place being too low are often the same ones who love the idea of entering a poker tournament and winning a lottery. It’s odd because these people, most people, will never ever sniff first place in a large field tournament. Flatter structures benefit anyone who plays a lot of tournaments. And not so much people looking to just win a lottery.

But I return to my main point. TDs can think of all sorts of creative ways to turn poker into bingo. But why would we want to make that the norm?

I'd be playing the **** out of bingo tournaments if I could leverage my skill edge to get more tickets than my competitors.

Mystery bounties aren't bingo. More like loaded dice.

No, there’s no skill in dice, loaded or not. That’s why dice is not poker.

Anyhow, if what you say is true, then you believe you have a skill advantage over 85% of the field, but not the remaining 15%. Otherwise, why would you be eager to rely on your skill to get through the 85% and then leave things up to chance for the remaining 15%? That would seem to be a -EV strategy.

Fair enough. I don’t know how accurate your estimation of your own skill is, but regardless, I understand why the vast majority of players would want their results to be based more on luck in poker tournaments than they already are. There’s maybe a couple dozen players in the entire world who have a real skill advantage over everybody else. And everyone else should want luck to be more of a factor.

But I think the time commitment should be reduced if we’re just going to make luck a larger factor. I was half joking about the tournament just ending when the money is reached, but on further consideration, this would actually be preferable. Think of how large a percentage of the total time of a tournament is taken up by eliminating only 10 or 15% of the field. It can be way more than half the tournament. Other than satisfying egos, this is bad time usage, for both players and venues when the payout structure is flattened. I would actually be on board with a new variant which ended the event at 15% of the field remaining. It would be like a survivor but with a big pay day possible. I could play more events. I could turn whatever realistic skill advantage I have into better results by opening up a significantly larger percentage of the prizepool to me on a consistent basis. This is no joke.

Tournaments are too long as it is in series like the WSOP, and really in any event with blinds > 40 min and large field sizes. I say, have a good structure to play down to 15%, and then let’s roll the dice. It would be far better than rolling the dice and then having to grind for days more for a reduced payoff in order to satisfy my ego like it is with mystery bounties as they are currently structured. Maybe the bracelet thing would have to go away, but so what? Those have been watered down a great deal in recent years anyhow, and again, they are strictly an ego thing, and not really a true indication of overall success.

Less than 5% of the tournaments in all of the summer series are mystery bounties. If you don't like them, don't play. There are plenty of other options.

Maybe create other topic for mystery bounty tournaments if you have the urge to discuss about the format in depth.

Looking forward to Orleans and MGM Grand releasing their schedules. Hoping for razz mystery bounty 😅

I didn’t bring up the topic. Others did. If no one wants to talk about it then I won’t either. I’m just responding to people who are talking about it.

And as long as mystery bounties remain a variant and don’t become the norm, I certainly don’t have any issue with their existence. There are other oddball events out there which aren’t really poker and look more like lotteries.

Apologies, my post was not directed to anyone in particular. I am just uninterested in whole mystery bounty discussion in this thread. Which is only thread I actively follow.

MGM is going to be running another series this year? Would be nice if they took over the $400 price point on a lot of their events with Aria having increased there's.

I don't think it's been announced. They announced a single tournament for around beginning of July and then rescheduled it for 3ish weeks sooner. There twitter page has a pinned tweet looking for dealers. I'm guessing they are holding out to figure out what they can staff.

Orleans is a little more concerning as I haven't seen anything from them. Last year they had a full schedule by 4/9.

MGM summer serie !

https://twitter.com/MGMGrandPoker/st...996365825?s=20

Glad they didn't tap out after last year's chaos. This looks like it will fill a useful niche between the budget options and the premium tier.

Uh oh, there are some mystery bounties. Get your bingo cards ready.

Golden Nugget has a Super Seniors (60+) tourney on 6/28. I am 59, turning 60 in December 2023. I'm wondering if turning 60 this calendar year would qualify me to enter, or if my 60th birthday has to be strictly on or before the tourney date. I've heard of such a thing before, but could not find such details regarding the age requirement.

I had a similar situation last year. You need to have achieved the qualifying age by the time you sit down to play in the tournament. So, unless they change the rules this year (unlikely), I’m afraid you are going to miss out.

This is great. That opening event is just what I'm looking for as far as price point goes and having multiple starting flights. Bravo MGM!

Now we just need Orleans and South Pointe schedules for us mixed game players. Nice schedule from MGM and $500 is a good price point for me.

not only for mixed game players, for small bankroll NLH players as well ! And for old school mood lovers too !

re: Golden Nugget Super Seniors: I'll have to wait until next year to be one of the youngest old people in a tournament! No problem. My 1st morning in Vegas isn't the best time for me to rush downtown for a 10am start. I've played Seniors events, enjoyed, but I also like playing open fields with people of all ages.

I'm staying at Horseshoe and planning to play the WSOP $250 Daily Deepstack at 1pm that day. I know that the structure becomes a shove fest as tourney progresses, but I like the large field and possibility for a big prize proportionate to the buy in. It also gives me an opportunity to warm up and get used to the environment, as I intend to play the Colossus on Friday 6/30.

I also anticipate The Orleans schedule, if they do a series. Hoping for an Omaha 8 and other small tournaments in the $150-300 range. Whether they do a series or not, I'll go there to play limit cash games. The casino is old, smelly and unsexy, as are many of the customers, but the poker room is excellent, with some decent inexpensive food choices nearby.

Orleans IS having a series this year. I reached out through facebook the other day and this was their response.


Thank you for reaching out to our social media team. Our summer event schedule is being finalized currently and will be released soon. Be sure to stay tuned to our website for updates.

With 8+ series going on this Summer in Las Vegas, it almost feels like the tournament market is teetering on being over-saturated. I can totally understand why some rooms choose to wait until most of the other series are finalized so they can get a better feel for planning out their schedules, especially larger guaranteed events. The number of dealers available for 8+ series going on at the same time will also be a major problem. I think the only saving grace is more people will be looking for 2nd jobs to supplement their incomes with the inflation going on.

It's coming together

It's ALL coming together

Bwahahaha

Are there more tournaments now than last year? Or in recent years?

Seems like there have been a lot of options for quite some time now. It isn’t always the same venues, but when one reduces or eliminated its offerings, another one fills the void.

I think as long as the WSOP continues to bring in the crowds it does, we will see this volume of satellite series.

I reached out to the South Point poker team and they said they will be using their regular daily schedule for all summer, no special schedule. Except that they are tweaking it and its due for release April 24. Comment about it on their twitter page as well.
https://twitter.com/sppokr?lang=en

I can give a little insight into this because I keep all past data. Here's some caveats about my data below--it only includes Hold'em and Omaha, it only counts tournaments that start before 5 pm, and it counts each day 1 as its own tournament (Day 1-A , 1-B, 1-C would be counted 3 times).

I only have 2023 data for Venetian and WSOP (because I only include those series with structures) and using the criteria above, the Venetian has 30 less tournaments than last year but the WSOP has 6 more.

Going earlier than that you hit covid, so I don't know how meaningful the results will be, but here's what I got:

It's coming, just a full staff reboot so it's taking a bit longer this year - I've been told within 10-14 days, beginning of May type of thing