That might be because he uses 18 levels, and the Deepstacks definitely feel like they are very fast late in the tournament. The nice thing is that doesn't happen until you get into the money. But in the first 8 to 10 levels the structure felt great. By contrast, the Colossal last year felt fast from the get-go and I felt pressured to make moves by the fourth level.

The "unbeatable" $135's have the same level length and starting stack as the Colossal. Maybe I shouldn't play that either. Granted, the rake is higher but rake only matters if you cash. I didn't come anywhere near cashing the Colossal last year.

So based on the analysis , which tournaments under $1k has the best value ?

I know many people have gripes about the DDS but given that they have to finish in 1 day, they are a great experience IMO and if you do happen to run deep then there are some big pay days to be had for a small buy in.

They are also great for getting into the mood for playing an MTT at the WSOP venue; plus the $135s are good for post-bustout-tilt-steam from the bracelet events. Much cheaper than tilting at the cash tables even if the rake is essentially 100%

I think some of your color-coding might be off. For example, the Venetian 1100turbo (event 63 in your list) shows a lower rake this year but is red. I'm guessing from the casino executive's viewpoint, this is worse

Rake always matters if you are among the minority of winning players that will keep using as many factors to keep your head above the rising tide, e.g., Patience Factor, S-Points, ICM, Nash Equilibrium, 30% tax for foreigners, etc, etc, etc.

If you are among the majority of players that mainly do it for the entertainment without expecting poker to be your career, you can ignore all of the above and play what you enjoy.

Plog, I have always used Arnolds Synder's formula to judge the speed of a tournament. It starts at level 1 and used every level until blind off is complete, but does not go deeper than that.

Your method picks several levels only and skips the early ones. I think this is a big oversight. There is no way the 2016 structures for the 1k/1.5k WSOP events are better than last year.

I would suggest you come up with a new method that uses EVERY blind level to the conclusion of the tournament. This would fill the gap in Synder's formula and fill the gap in yours as well.

Once that 75-150/25 level hits on level 3 of the 1k wsop events people will not like how fast it goes from then on. The average M will only be 11.1 vs. 22.2 at that same level last year. (was 75-150/0)

I was hoping to play 3 events this year and happy to see the 15% of field being paid, but now with these new blind structures I won't play any.
(had planned to play : $1k Seniors, $1.5k (90 min levels), & $1.5 Monster)

I'm not sure why you are bringing this point up again like you did several times earlier in this thread. Plog explained his methodology in this post:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...4&postcount=19

If you prefer Snyder's formula for structure that's fine. But I don't think the inclusion of early levels is a must and Plog does a good job of explaining why he doesn't.

I read that post but his logic is wrong.....


"dimeat put it well with:

Quote:
Patient factor formula is not really a good way to determine how good a structure is since it just calculates how long until you would blind out. You should care how good the structure is when you get deep which is fine and is the same as 2015
I agree and think S-Points takes both those ideas into consideration. It essentially divides relative value of chips you get to the rate of increase in the antes/blinds at the later levels. "

Of course the early levels matter. Level one is 25-50 in a 5,000 chip starting $1k event. Level 12 is 800-1600/200. Sminutes for 2016 is 720 and rating is 101.

Now imagine level 1 thru 36 are all 800-1600/259.90. Then Level 37 is 200k-400k/50k. Then Sminutes would be 3600, and S rating would be 1200. Yet clearly, this 2nd event is a total crapshoot compared to the 1st.

Even making 1st 20 levels 800-1600/200 then level 20 be 1k-2k/300 would have s minutes be 1200 and S rating 400. yet this would be a crapshoot too.

I'm not following your logic here. Plog's method takes relative blind/ante escalation into account. Your examples have no ante/blind escalation.

And, of course, if you start with a lower amount of chips (5000 vs 10000), the early levels will be more meaningful.

But, for example, in Plog's sample tourney structure, in one orbit per level.. a player will lose 10.75% of their stack in the first 5 levels. They will lose 51.25% of their starting stack in the next 5 levels. Obviously the second 5 levels are more consequential than the first 5.... by a factor of almost five.

Even in Snyder's formula, there is a curve which depicts the reduction in starting stack over time. That curve is quite flat in the early levels, with little reduction compared to the change in rate of the blinds. All plog is doing is ignoring this portion of the curve since it is relatively flat. That's what models do... ignore inconsequential aspects of the system.

But again, if you prefer Snyder's model, that fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But it doesn't mean his model is any better than plog's.

Added Aria tournaments and fixed my color coding on the comparison page.

RedOak, I think you found a way to technically exploit S-Points, but I don't think you've succesfully demonstrated that Levels 1-5 are equally important to later levels.

In your 259.9/800/1600 through 36 Levels tournament you changed all levels, making the thing a crapshoot from the beginning. Which, I guess, makes Level 1 super important since you barely have 3 big blinds to start. But other than that you haven't shown why Levels 1-5 are equally important.

To demonstrate that Levels 1-5 truly are important you need to take a tournament, tweak just those levels and show how it demonstrably effects it. So maybe change levels 1-5 in your tournament to 0/25/50. That gives everyone 100 big blinds through 5 levels, delaying the crapshoot to Level 6. I agree that would be a nominally better tournament, but not signficantly. The crapshoot is happening at Level 6 and even if you tripled up in the first 5 levels you still have less than 10 big blinds.

Again, to support your assertion, you need to change the first 5 levels of a tournament and show those changes signficantly effect (good or bad) the tournament's structure as a whole.

That's one discussion. The next is that yes, S-Points can technically be exploited. However, I don't think it can be in practice. Neither of the examples above would ever fly for a real tournament. Poker players are observant, mathematical, adverse to change and vocal. Check out the discussion on Planet Hollywood's Quantum Tournament to see all of those characteristics in action. Your tournament would create a chorus of 'WTFs' and have people crapping on it as soon as it was released. Something so deviant from expectations will be met with skepticism--which is the whole point of S-Points. I want people to question tournament structures.

When I was testing my formula I made tournaments that exploited S-Points in various ways, but they all turned out super weird looking and it's blantaly obvious something's up. I encourage trying to break the thing--The formula is up at my site (http://www.rainbowspuppiessunshine.c...about.php#Math) so you can find out where to exploit it. Here let me help, here's how to attack its weak points:

1. Change level lengths to 1 minute after blinds equal starting stack

2. Have Level 6 Blinds be enormous compared to Level 10.

3. Don't change the blinds from Levels 6 -18

But I don't think S-Points can be manipulated in a practical way without raising suspicion on first glance at the structure sheet.

Thanks for putting all of this together plog much appreciated. I was looking through the tournaments I am playing and their S-Points and you have a minor error:

These 2 are Limit Events, not Pot Limit as you have noted below:
Vegas 2016 Venetian Pot Limit Omaha Mon 6/13/2016 5:00 PM 600 - 28-A
Vegas 2016 Venetian Pot Limit Omaha Tue 6/14/2016 5:00 PM 600 - 28-B

Thanks Again!

+1

Really useful, plog.

Thank you.

Nice additions of value comparison, plog.

I tell ya, I hope players don't sleep on that GN 565 tourney. I know its downtown, but man, it looks like a tremendous event at that price-point.

Analysis-schmalysis ... any feedback on how the 1k/1.5k NLHE tourneys are actually playing? Anyone playing/played Event #17 have anything to share? Are the early levels as tortuous as the analysis would imply?

1.5k NL holdem in 2015 was rated 41.66 this year down to 27.8. A 33.27% decrease. The Millionaire Maker played 21 levels 1st 2 days and had 143/7275 or 1.97% advance to day 3. For 2016 they played 20 levels thru 2 days, but I looked at clock after level 21 on day 3, and 99/7190 left or 1.38%. So there are 30% fewer players left in 2016 vs 2015 after same number of levels corresponding to the 33% decrease in the skill rating.

Also, event #17 1k NL holdem in 2016 had 195/2242 left after 11 levels (8.70%). But in 2015, 235/2151 or 10.93% left after 11 levels. A 20.40% decrease from last year. Skill rating in 1k event fell from 30.5 to 19.7 or -35.4%. Yet Plogs rating says rating for both years show 2016 is actually slightly better!!? Not true. Play is MUCH faster this year due to 3 changes in 1st 6 levels of play that Plogs ratings do not take into account. Plog did a good job on his ratings, but I feel he should find a way to use ALL levels not just a selected few deep into the tournament. Over 50% of the field can be gone by level 6.

I rather suspect that'll be my fate on Friday ... maybe I'll chicken out of coming!

Plod - this is a great resource.

Are you planning on updating it for WSOP 2018?

Would be greatly appreciated

Yes as soon as structures are released. Only WSOP is out so far. I'll probably make a new thread on here when I do.

Awesome! Love your work!!!

Hello Plog,
First, sorry for my bad english, I would like to improve it but I'm not often enough in Vegas.
I use your "s-pts" for 2 years including to make and publish a full schedule of summer series on a French forum. Thank you so much for this contribution, it's very useful to evaluate the quality of a tournament structure. However since this year I have slightly improved the formula so that there is not too much threshold effect. Thus, when there is time left on the "100% minutes" (for example for a tournament with 10k starting stack if the threshold orbit costs 9k and the next is 16k I add 1/7 of the length of the next level so that a tournament with 10k starting does not have the same s-pts as a tournament with 15k starting stack for which I add 6/7 of the lenght of the next level to the "100% minutes" in the previous example). Scores change marginally but it allows to refine a little the formula a little too subject to the thresholds in my opinion.
What do you think about this ?
Thanks for all.

I completely understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, I think you are right, but I don't know if it is worth it.

First, it makes sense. Not every tournament's starting chip stack would be exactly consumed by its 100% minutes level. So you should reward tournaments with a remainder. Your method will produce more accurate results to compare very similar tournaments.

However, while an accurate score is my main aim, simplicity is also a concern. I don't want my formula/calculator to require people to input more pieces of data than necessary. Right now, after using my calculator once, a user should be able to look at a structure sheet and use just 5 pieces of data from it to calculate S-Points. I don't think the increase in accuracy of your method is worth the increase in complexity.

Thanks you for the answer.
I understand your arguments and I agree 100%. However for my schedule I calculate myself the "s-pts" with an automatic formula so it is easy to reproduce the calculation, but ok to say that the basic formula must be simple.

Plog I really appreciate all you’ve done with this. Do you plan (or maybe I’m missing it) to make the list that shows the summer Vegas tournament calendar with the s-pts included for 2018? Thanks.

Yes I do, and your not missing it. As soon as casinos realease structures my site will have 2018 data.

Help me out and pester them. Only WSOP is out so far.

Been on your site Plog, Good stuff man. Thanks.