I probably won't like the smoky casino floor atmosphere at Rio. Thought they would use a non smoking convention room. That blows. I'm sure it is significantly nicer at Wynn.

But I'm playing at Rio for a day anyway, because for me the upside outweighs the downside. I'm a relatively tight player on a short bankroll, so I'm slumming it at the $250 seniors. All you good aggressive players with big bankrolls, please play at the Wynn and stay out of my little passive game at Rio with the Alte Kakers!

I originally thought I wouldn't like re-entry tourneys, but after playing several events over the past few years, I actually like unlimited re-entry. It works for me because I never re-enter, but plenty of other players do, and I'm grateful for that.

One strategic benefit of unlimited re-entry is that players intending to re-enter often will call all-in light, so if you get lucky enough to have a big hand in an early round, you can get +EV action you wouldn't otherwise get without re-entry option, and build up a chip stack (if your hand holds).

The main benefit is that re-entries add money to the prize pool without costing me an additional penny. I rarely bust in early rounds, and those rare times when I do bust early, I would rather find a better gambling opportunity somewhere else than to pay full entry price to get back in relatively short stacked.

I wonder if the poker tournament cognoscenti agrees or disagrees with me about unlimited re-entries? Are unlimited re-entries good for players like me who won't re-enter? Or am I at an overall strategic disadvantage against players willing to re-enter liberally?

I feel like players who re-enter same day do so at some, perhaps substantial, disadvantage. You have a shorter stack (relative to averages, if not entirely) and often times you will be experiencing some sort of tilt. Both of these factors are -EV propositions. Re-entering on subsequent day starting flights is fine and you can treat it like a brand new tournament.

As far as how many re-entries should be allowed, my preference would be to limit it to no more than 1 re-entry per starting light. However, I understand why, business-wise, casinos would be averse to doing it that way.

do they have the structures anywhere? The Rio $365 events have pretty deep structures and a good value for the money. Especially the monster stack.

The Monster Stack starting stack is 20,00 with the 1st level BB at 50. That's starting with 400BBs. I've never seen a starting level so deep. That's even more than the 333.33 BB starting stack of the WSOP main event.

Can anyone give their opinion on the likelihood that Event #1 (https://www.pokeratlas.com/poker-tou...d=128364-11746) will go into the 3rd day? I've got a flight out of Vegas on Tuesday and it is effecting my decision to play this event.

Thanks in advance.

Last year, the consolidated Day 2 field played down to the final table. The final table played out on Day 3. I would imagine this year would be no different.

If it DID go to a third day and is like last year, that means final table which means you can afford the fee for changing the flight.

ok - thanks ProteusHero & michelle227

I have finally come of age and am looking forward to playing a couple seniors events this year.

After reviewing comparable structure sheets, and fees/rake of the WSOP-C $250 + 50 Seniors at Rio vs. the $360 + 40 (+4%) at Wynn on Tuesday 2/20, it looks like a significantly better deal to play at Wynn. I am now leaning this way.

Just to check my math: Rio cost of $50 is 25% of buy in (50/250). Wynn cost of $54.40 is 15.74% of buy in (40+(360)(.04) /(360(.96)).

An additional $4.40* to play a better structured tournament with lower relative cost in a much nicer room (non-smoking, I assume?), with a later 12:00 start seems like the smart decision over poorer structure tourney on the smoky Rio casino floor.

*Dinner and perhaps a Lyft ride will probably add to the cost to play at Wynn, so that adds a few bucks. I'm staying at Gold Coast.

Rio advantages: Convenience, lower overall cost, softer field (Seniors 50+).

Wynn advantages: Room/air quality, lower relative cost, better structure.

Seems well worth the additional overall cost, and the ride to play at Wynn.

The only factor that has me still considering playing at Rio is the comparably softer field typical at Seniors events. Not saying that old folks can't be excellent players (after all, I'm great at 54 LOL), but in my limited experience there are more weak players, less extremely strong players, and the Seniors game is overall less aggressive and more predictable than open events.

Question: Is the advantage of a softer field significant enough to overcome the extremely high relative cost, and make it a good decision to play at Rio instead of Wynn?

Thanks for your input, 2+2.

Thanks for doing a good analysis! Just want to point out that the Seniors event on 2/19 starts at 11 am, not noon. Also, it does include $6 in food comp which is automatically applied to your players cards...so there's that

In before the obligatory "$6 doesn't buy you anything". We know, but at least it helps right?

Hope to see you then!

I hit that stage last June...if you come out to play in June, there is a week's worth of them across different properties. I enjoyed the Aria event more than the WSOP seniors offering. I also played PH. Events actually have people at the tables who are sociable and it makes for a great change of pace...

Thank you, Wynn Poker Representative. You are doing a good job promoting the tourneys and providing info. Do players get the $6 credit for entering any Wynn Classic tourney? Is that enough to buy a cup of coffee and a muffin?

I'm not comparing the Seniors events directly, because I'll arrive too late to enter the 2/19 event. My choice is between 2 tournaments on 2/20, only the Rio being a Seniors event.

I'd love to get an objective opinion from somebody without a horse in the race about whether you think the advantage of playing in a softer Seniors field is significant enough to be worth paying so much more vig, comparably, vs. a stronger open field.

*oops. (obvious) typo in math above $50 = 50/200 (prize pool only) not 50/250 (prize pool + vig).

I believe your Wynn math is a bit off. The total buy-in is 400 so rake of 54.40/400 = 13.6%. Still lower than the WSOP at 20%.

Anyhow, If your planning on playing 10 tourneys, then yes, splitting hairs about vig and potential field strength will matter. But if you're just going to play 1, if it were me, I'd weigh others factor more heavily. First and foremost, If I had never played the Wynn before, I'd check that out, or vice-versa.

Secondly, I'd look at the structure and the Wynn is probably better there (though I haven't run it through any sort of calculator). However that tourney does introduce the concept of a BB ante, which I am, to this point, opposed to. So that could be something to take into consideration.

Lastly I'd consider the likely size of the field and prizepool. Last year the WSOPc got just over 400 entries for their Seniors event and a prizepool of about 80K. For a comparable event (to the $400 you are looking at), last year the Wynn got about 270 entries and a prizepool of about 93K. What's interesting is the guarantee was slightly higher last year and they nearly doubled it. I'm not sure why they lowered it a bit this year. Maybe there's more competition at the Venetian or something.

Anyhow, if it were me, I'd probably choose the Wynn (BB ante notwithstanding). Its just a nicer poker playing experience (at least it has been historically)

That all makes sense. Thanks.

This is probably the wrong thread to expand on this but I'm glad to see you say you are opposed to it. It seems like everyone is whole heartedly in favor of it, I haven't really seen a good reason why. The mild annoyance of a 1 second delay once every 5 hands when someone doesn't instantly post the ante is worth a drastic changing of strategy? It's just not something I understand.

I think the structure sheet for the 6 max/big blind ante is incorrect. It states that at 100/200, the bb ante is 200. Shouldn't it be # of players x 25 or 150 maximum. I haven't played this structure yet and am keeping an open mind.

On another note, all of the dinner breaks are 30 minutes. Why not 60 or at least 45. You can't even eat a meal at Smashburger in 30 minutes.

From what I've seen in this format, the big blind amount will almost always match the ante amount, except in maybe a real early level. Ex, 100/100/100, 100/200/100, 100/200/200, 100/300/300, 200/400/400, etc...

Different price point events have a comp amount attached to the buy-in. For example, an $1100 is $10 and a $1600 is $15. Have a nice visit!

We started a full 3 days earlier this year, on a Monday no less! The 271 was for the Saturday $50k last year and yes, there is a competing event somewhere nearby

When will you be in town to give the BB ante a try?!

I'll be in town next week, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it to the Wynn this trip. I will be back for 1 month+ over the summer, and I'm sure I'll play some Wynn events at that time and likely some BB ante event somewhere, just so I can say I have tried it.

As it stands my objections to the format are theoretical. However, unless I'm missing some important point (not out of the realm of possibility), I don't know that experiencing it is going to change my mind. The only thing that would change my mind is some clear empirical evidence of a significant benefit which will overcome the drawbacks. And to reiterate some other posts, my main complaint at this time is the format makes the "luck of the draw" when it comes to table breaks far more consequential, since the BB is essentially 2.5x bigger than in the usual format. And, of course, this necessary (at least at this point considering the technology and methods available to do table breaks) evil will be even greater when stacks start getting shallow.

So, time savings would have to be pretty large in order to justify introducing that drawback. Unless the baseline consists of dealers who are completely incompetent, then I don't see how eliminating the collection of antes will represent a significant time savings. It just doesn't take very long to collect antes, even for less experienced dealers. Of course there will be instances where someone totally screws the process up. But those instances are far rarer than other dealing screw-ups that cost much more time. And of course, time savings related to ante collection is dwarfed by the things that are the real drivers of hand time.

So then it comes down to... is the game better when there are far fewer players with any investment in the hand and one player with a much larger investment? I'm not really prepared to answer that question, but just in theory, it doesn't seem like the answer is a clear yes.

So I guess we'll see how this all shakes out.

You owe to yourself to give it a try. Feb 20 would be a good one!

Here's what I'll do. The upcoming Classic has two Seniors events. The event on 2/19 will use the BB ante, while the one on 2/28 will use the traditional structure with ante's (since this was previously advertised as our "monthly Seniors" event). I will count hands from 3 different levels on 2 tables per event.

Based on player feedback, I will set the over/under on 4.5 more hands per hour using the BB ante. This will give us a good start for empirical data.

If you like, start a new thread and we can keep the discussion rolling as the Wynn Classic starts without completely derailing this thread.

At this point I think i'd go significantly under. It all depends on how many hands/hr you guys are usually dealing. I typically use 24 as a general rule of thumb, though its obviously variable. Anyhow, at 24 hands per hour, this would mean you are saving 27 seconds per hands. That seems quite high for how long it takes to scoop in some chips, and, of course that is an average value.

Anyhow, I will eagerly await the results of your experiment.

I've never played with a BB ante, so I'm not sure if I would like it or not. But like it or not, there are some strategy adjustments to be made playing BB ante vs. standard everyone ante. Without knowing those strategy adjustments and having some experience with the dynamic, I would be at some disadvantage vs. players who have experience with BB ante and learned how to correctly adjust.

I would feel more comfortable with the BB ante if I could warm up first by playing some small online tournaments on Ignition, to get some cheap experience with the format, but as of now that isn't being offered.

It really doesn't change the strategy, because it doesn't change how much a player has to call to play. Once the cards are dealt, it is literally irrelevant if the 1000 in antes were posted by each individual player, or solely by the player in the BB.

Same with the "wow what a ripoff to get moved into the BB now" argument. Yes, that hand will be more expensive, but the subsequent hands are all cheaper. A shortstack benefits slightly more than normal if moved into any empty seat other than the BB since they will get more hands where their fold equity doesn't decrease. It really only has a disparate impact for someone with literally 0-4 or so big blinds, where moving into the BB devastates any remaining fold equity even more than normal. That's a pretty minuscule group of cases to avoid players constantly having to be reminded to post antes.

The only strategy difference I can think of is more BB defending since they are basically putting in a double BB every time it's the BB now and maybe people would make their pre-flop raise sizes larger if they want to make the BB give up his or her blind.