Ridiculously Structured Tournaments

[Jon MW]

I played in the £50 freezeout at the Vic today, it wasn"t too bad in most ways. Starting chips - ok, starting blinds - ok, blind structure - ok.

BUT the blinds went up every 20 minutes! That just made it impossible for it to stay sensible for very long, within an hour the average stack was about 10 big blinds.

I played a tournament at the Vic just over a year ago and I"m sure I don"t remember it being that silly - so have they changed them? However, that was only a short time after I"d started playing so I may well have just been too inexperienced to realise that the structure I was playing was so bad.

Of course my problem now might be that I"ve just been spoilt by the number of well structured tournaments I"ve been playing elsewhere.

[swordfish]

If you want ridiculous try the rebuy tournaments at Gala Maybury in Edinburgh.  Starting stacks are 500, blinds 25/50!!

[Jon MW]

It"s strengthened my will to only play in decent tournaments and not any old rubbish - this probably means mainly playing online and APAT events I expect

[Donkbox]

Hey John,

I played in a tournament with a similar structure at the Vic (not my local so only played it the once). Most casinos up and down the country don"t have well structured daily or weekly tournaments - although I believe Luton Grosvenor is one expception, I"m sure Tightend can confirm - but I guess there"s only so much any live venue can do for a one night comp.

But, after my experience in not only this comp but other local comps I got to thinking that perhaps players, like myself, who have learnt via the internet have been spoiled structure wise by this learning ground. In stt"s and mtt"s on a site like stars you (mostly) get the same number of chips to start with regardless of buy-in and you normally have around 150 BBs in your starting stack (e.g Stars 18k gtd 3000 chips, blinds 10/20) and in the fact that a 15 minute level online equates to about 30 minutes live and also that most casino comps are self-dealt and it"s no wonder that online is so popular (lob in multi tabling too).
I had a conversation along these lines with Richard, Tikay and Des in Caridff at the APAT and, lets be honest the APAT is a godsend for players who want to play a good structured live comp with an affordable buy-in.
Yet, and I don"t know what it"s like in your local casino but in Bristol, until recently, the most popular comps were the £10 re-buys, which got considerably more runners than a £20-£50 freezeout competition. Luckily we have a popular meetup poker group in Bristol that organises and runs well structured, friendly home games where you can play poker.

Casinos, for the most part do need to up their game comp wise, because whilst they will always attract new customers and those who detest online, or prefer live over online, once new players become advance newcomers and become more structure savvy then IMO there"s only one winner. Hopf when the new laws kick in we"ll see some improvements such as being able to double re-buy at the beginning of a re-buy, late registration in comps and others which I know Grosvenor are considering implementing (they can"t at the moment due to the laws).

Wow, that turned into a bit of a rant, wasn"t meant to be!

[hi_am_chris]

Wud rather play that tourny than the cash game at my local, blinds 1 and 2 pound, with a maximum buy in of 20 pound, raise to 7 pound reraise ermmm well may as well go all in... lots of play...

[kinboshi]

Thought this was going to be about the 150/300 missing level in the APAT tournaments?

[Swinebag]

If you want ridiculous try the rebuy tournaments at Gala Maybury in Edinburgh.  Starting stacks are 500, blinds 25/50!!

I obviously like ridiculous too. Last night PLHE (rebuy for 2 hours), starting stack 1000, blinds 50/100 for 1 hour then 100/200 for 1 hour, then 20 min levels.

General Strategy - limp with any 2 then bet pot if you hit ( by hitting I mean nearly missing as well). In 2 hours I got dealt AK twice (suited once) pocket Pocket Jacks and Pocket Aces. 5 top ten hands in 2 hours. So I was obviously chip leader at the break?

wrong! All were called by at least 2 players. All were rivered.

The only hands I won were with 23suited in the BB which flopped 2 pair and Q10s on the button that made a flush.

The AA was laughable. UTG Pot raise called by 7 players (It was the last hand of the rebuy period). After the flop I was the third person allin (there were another 4 after me) The dealer spent ages working out Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, etc....I eventually lost to 24o which made trips on the river.

Thought for a few seconds about rebuying and adding on for a total of 2000 chips, but given the blinds were 200/400 next level (most good tourneys have 150/300 ) and that I had probably had my card rush decided to get an early night and a compus mentus day at work the next day.

I"ve played rebuys before but never one this frantic.

Roll on the next live APAT

[PoWdA]

In Colorado the only tournament in the state that has blinds longer than 20 minutes is a $300 buy-in on sunday with 30 minute blinds. Every other tourney is 20 minutes and it is horrible. I feel your pain.

[PocketLady]

I agree that tournaments at the Vic have very fast levels.  I recently played a the £30 f/o there, and with a starting stack of 1500 and 20 mins blinds it is a crapshoot.  But to their credit the blind increases are small and include nearly every level (75/150 etc) and it does start with 25/25 which does help out a little.