Casino at The Empire, Leicester Square, November 6th. I spotted a tournament advertised on the casino website. I called in today and got hold of a printout of the rules. (There's also a roulette tournament tomorrow, October 23rd, which I also got the rules for.) There are a few ambiguities and unknowns in the rules, but the main details are as follows - Hybrid format. £100 entry, multiple rebuys for £100 each. Prizes - 1st: £6000 2nd: £1000 3rd: £500 First round: Play 7 hands at a table of 7 players. £500 in chips. £500 max bet. £25 min bet. After completing the 7 hands, your total goes on the leaderboard if you are in the top 7. Up to a specified cut-off time, you can rebuy and have another go at reaching the leaderboard. After the first round reaches its scheduled end, the top 7 progress to the final table. Final round: Players get to choose their seats, based on where they finished. i.e. the leader gets to choose first. Again, it's 7 hands, with the same betting limits. I'm not sure how attractive this is. I suppose a lot depends on the number of entrants. My first thought, as far as a strategy is concerned, is to enter late enough to be able to select a target BR, based on the leaderboard, but early enough to be able to rebuy after busting out.
When to walk away Given that the EV of reaching the final table is roughly £1000, and the buy-in is £100, I suppose one should not enter if the probability of reaching the target BR is less than 1/10. So with 7 hands, £500 starting BR and £500 max bet, how low a seventh-place score on the current leaderboard do you think would make it still worthwhile to play? My gut feeling is £2500, on the basis that this could be achieved with two single-bet wins and one double down.
nice tourney Colin London, This tournament offers not only good value but also a few interesting theoretical subjects worth pondering. Let’s start with the goal score, and then have some “mini tuning”. Based on prizes I am assuming that they will have somewhere between 50 to 80 entries and reentries. Number of participants will effect the cutout score, but even more important will be the prevailing style of playing – hopefully they will play “meekly”. I strongly suspect that the score needed to advance will be lower than £2500, you mentioned. Perhaps £2000, though I would not be a surprised if anything over £1500 would be sufficient. Turning £500 into £2000 playing basic strategy, with unlimited number of rounds, for usual rules, has slightly more than 24.5% chance of success. Playing only seven rounds using basic strategy will take you there 21% of the times. There is a room for a small improvement by doubling/splitting more aggressively and playing push as bad as loss in the later rounds, though the first round should be played almost by the book. Of course you double anything on the last hand if your bankroll is only £1000. There are interesting and drastic strategy deviations on sixth round (and fifth) with bankroll of £1000, and betting from the beginning necessary, continuos max bet. You will need to weight the chances of winning both last rounds versus doubling the hand you have and betting minimum on the last round. There is a good chance that a few players will end up around 2000 (or 1500), plus or minus one minimum bet. That may happen as result of players betting and winning max bets and then switching to minimum bets (or betting minimum/pushing and then winning last three max bets, or maxing all the hands and winning exactly two or three). If you figure out that that little extra bet can make a difference then after you reach the big goal you should mini tune it by using a progression trying to win at least £50 and then switching to minimum bet of £25 and surrendering anything but bj and 20ies - if surrender is available. So, after winning three bets in first two rounds you could bet 50, 100, 225, 425, 500 dd – that’s 93% chance of improvement. If you get to the goal in three rounds you could try to increase your bankroll by playing 150, 275, 500, 500 dd. This tournament offers value, so if the entry fee is not a problem you should play in as many trials as needed to make the final, so don't wait until one or two chances only. Playing in the final is worth £1000 for the average player. You should be about 30% to 50% better than the average in regular play, in one round. This format however will put in the final players favoring aggressive play, which is the right strategy for such a short round with top heavy prizes, which effectively halves your edge. If I would make the final table with a low score I would try to explain to the other players value of seat number six, then seat five, and so on, to be left with supposedly the worst seat number seven. I believe that at least one player will bust out before she/he gets a chance to have button, giving seventh seat last betting position in the end. Also, it may be important to keep the strategies to yourself because out of ten “in the know” players three of them should have a good chance to push the goal above the £2000. Good luck, and let us know how it went, S. Yama
Thanks for the response I'm hoping that the required score will be less that £2500; but £2500 was my guess at a figure which, if it is already on the leaderboard, is not worth shooting for. I'm not sure how reasonable that guess is, though. I suspect there may be rather fewer than 50 entries. I played in their previous roulette tournament which only had about 20 entries. The organisation was a bit of a shambles. I discovered in conversation that they only planned to pay out the total amount of entry fees, rather than the quoted prize pool. After a few complaints, they relented and guaranteed to pay the advertised amount. This, and a few other issues, gave me a rather poor impression of the place. Hopefully the same will be done this time, but that's top of my list of things to check, if I decide to go! I'd given some thought to the idea of a progression after winning some number of max bets. It occurred to me that there could be a choice between, say, three steps to overhaul 7th place, versus two steps to overhaul 6th (and thus be protected against one later player getting onto the leaderboard). Objectively, the entry fee is not a problem, but it is rather higher than I'm comfortable with when most of the value is concentrated in first place, like this. As it happens, the finalists in the roulette tournament agreed a different, less top-heavy distribution, meaning they all earned something for making the final. Again, that's not something I can rely on happening this time, but I think I would go for it, if offered. That's incredibly sneaky! I must admit, I would have gone for seat six, given a free choice. Going for seat seven seems like a high-risk strategy, though - while seven could go from worst to best, six would only fall one or two rungs down the ladder of preference, whereas seven could of course stay worst! I'd also have to clarify the exact rules; it says seven hands are played, but at the Gala tournament they reduce the number of hands played if people bust out before the button reaches them, meaning seat seven always acts first on the final hand. I'd have to check the same isn't true here. Thanks. I'm not 100% sure I will be playing, but I will certainly report back, if I do.
I couldn't stay away The format was completely different from what I described. In fairness, the details I had were not exactly official; someone printed them out for me a couple of weeks ago, after I called in to enquire. That being said, they hadn't really settled on a format at all, prior to the start. Based on the number of entrants, 30, they decided on an elimination format - 6 tables of 5, 15 rounds, one advances from each table (to the semi-final), 1000 BR, 500 max bet, 2:1 BJ (mentioned almost as an afterthought). I came 2nd at my table. Thanks to my poor chip-counting skills, I was tied with the player on my left for BR1 on the last hand. I bet the minimum, as we were both clear of the field. I was quite surprised to see him match me; he was a poker player who had come to the BJ tournament on a whim, got quite low in chips at one stage, but then recovered thanks to a couple of big 2:1 BJ wins. I was dealt an 11, him a stiff, with the dealer having a 4 or 5, I think. I ought to have checked what the rules were, in the event of a tie, but I didn't think to do that; I doubled down and lost. A single rebuy was offered. They decided they wanted an additional 3 qualifiers, making a semi-final of 3 tables of 3, with one advancing from each. The final table would then be of 3 players, all of them already in the money. There were 11 rebuys, which meant two tables of 4, and one of 3. I was lucky enough to draw the table of 3, but that is were my luck ended; once again I came 2nd. I stuck around to watch the semis and the final. Having eschewed alcohol while playing, I was able to use a couple of the free-drink vouchers they had been handing out during the play. I actually have 3 left, but I'm not sure if they are valid for future visits. Although I was a bit annoyed by the fluid nature of the rules, I have to say that it was well run, once underway, and the staff all did a great job. It's not clear how often they'll be running these, but I'll give it another go if I get the chance.
