John, congrats on the Borgata event! I played one there last year with like 280 entrants and min cashed (so only like $250 profita), but yeah it was a good feeling to know if I got a run in the final few hours that could have been more of a 5 figure score.

Yeah, it is mostly about what your bank roll, or account for us recreational players, can absorb. With 2 children about to go to college I can’t afford to have the variability that could happen if I played a lot of $500 events so I stick to my $100 events. But when I go to Vegas, or the Borgata or Foxwoods, or the occasional higher buy-in local event, I’ll take a shot a few times a year. So far, my wife and I, have actually been more profitable at the larger events over the past few years, but again we’re cautious so we keep a balance.

As you say, tournament poker is about embracing variability and a couple major scores in your career can account for the large part of your profitability. You have to be good enough to put yourself in that position frequently, but then there is some luck involved to get into a large chop or even a run to winning one of the top 2-3 spots outright. I read an article a couple years ago where they followed a bunch a pros across all the WSOP events that year. Their win rate was only like 12%, just about chance basically, and most were not profitable. Of the ones that were, it was almost always because of one big score. Take those away and basically all those pros would have been in the negative.

Some of Little’s data on number of buy-ins needed struck me as well, maybe a bit conservative. But I get his basic point. But as you say, your one Borgata payoff was worth lots of deep runs in small tournaments, maybe more than you would get in years of play. But if you go into a bad run, you can also lose a lot playing $300 to $600 each time without a cash for months.

Hmmm. I’ll have to pay attention to this more when I play but I believe that my weekly $90 tournament is more like 25-30 times most weeks. When the buy-in goes to $150 and the tournament size likewise increases I think we are more around 40x. Mostly we are held down by a rake that is way higher than advised by anyone, but that’s unfortunately pretty much true of all the tournaments within striking distance for at least once weekly play.

Hard to resist that kind of total pool (with a good structure) for such a small buy-in! That is kind of the ideal for smaller stakes players like myself.

Another interesting tidbit from Jonathan Little’s new book is that he basically advocates never chopping in low stakes events because he feels the money risked is never life changing so it would be better to get the experience of playing down on a final table to the final few players rather than taking a certain payout. At my preferred card room, not sure I can withstand the social expectations of saying no to too many chops though….never mind that after playing for over 10 hours I’m starting to wane a bit most nights.

If the first place money is less than 40 then the game is just good for practice.

Tom Mcveoy advises first place be 60x buy in

I’ve seen very few of those, thus my 40x.,

Yeah, the small AND fast structure tournaments are the worst of all worlds. Definitely 26 players felt way too small. 40-50 as a bottom feels right and I’ve really enjoyed 80-120 as a nice typical weekly tournament size. Once a month my standard tournament goes from a $90 ot $150 buy-on and from about 80-100 players to 150-170. Does not change things subjectively for me much – except that the basement level poker room gets hot and stuffy!