{"id":1500,"date":"2017-10-18T12:31:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T16:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.advancedpokertraining.com\/poker\/blog\/?p=1500"},"modified":"2021-06-06T14:54:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-06T18:54:47","slug":"tournament-size-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pokertraining.com\/poker\/blog\/tournament-size-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Tournament Size Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday I was faced with a dilemma: I was unable to play my usual 1pm $90 tournament. This tournament has a great structure for such a small buy-in: 30,000 chips, 30 minutes blinds, a nice gradual level and ante progression, and most importantly, it gets between 70 and 120 players. Unfortunately, this week other responsibilities restricted my from playing the $90.\u00a0 My only available option was\u00a0a late afternoon $70 tournament.\u00a0This one also has 30-minute blinds for the first 9 levels (20 minutes thereafter) and a decent blind structure, but only 15,000 chips,\u00a0and most critically it only gets 30-40 players on average. Was this really going to be worth my time?<\/p>\n

In the $90, the whole final table generally gets paid one way or another (bubbles are paid when\u00a0there are less than 95 players). Often there is a final 4-5 way chop\u00a0for near $1,000 each, and sometimes you can make more if you take a top 2 spot. In the$70 tournament if you end up with a $300-$400 take, you’re doing\u00a0 well.<\/p>\n

[bctt tweet=”Tournament Fields: How small is too small?” username=”PokerTraining”]<\/p>\n

But then again, grinding for 11 hours to get past 80+ players, who are generally higher caliber on average than those in the $70, seems more of a task than having to outlast 30 players over 6 hours. While the payout ratio is the same, there is a lot to account for in the bigger fields.\u00a0The previous week I got moved to 5\u00a0different tables over 10 hours to finish 7th and get $300.\u00a0 In the $70,\u00a0only 3-4 players are getting paid, maybe a 5th gets their money back and there is no chance of a big payout.<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0logic seemed to dictate\u00a0that the $70 might not be worth it, the “I want to play” side of my brain won out, as it usually does.\u00a0 When I arrived 20 minutes into the first level and was only the 12th registrant, I knew I was indeed an irredeemable idiot.\u00a0 The tournament swelled to a whopping 26 players in the end, and I made the final table fairly quickly (woohoo!)\u00a0then to encounter\u00a0the tightest group of players I had ever seen.\u00a0This worked great when I was short stacked and able to rob myself back to an above average stack.\u00a0 We played on. Feeling tired near midnight, I proposed an even 6 way chop just to be done with the water torture and walked away with $238\u00a0 (after tip I netted $150 over buy-in).<\/p>\n

I’m not sure this experience furthered\u00a0my insight into ideal tournament size. For one,\u00a0my limited window for tournament play\u00a0will always drive the “I want to play” toddler in me, even in the face of fiscal logic. Second, in perusing Jonathan Little’s new book, Mastering Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’Em<\/em><\/a>, I came across an interesting template for managing your tournament stake.<\/p>\n

Little’s\u00a0premise is that the bigger the field you play, the greater the variability, thus the deeper your stake needs to be.\u00a0 For example, assuming a 30% ROI overall, if you play in single table Sit-N-Go you would need 24 buy-ins in order to comfortably play, whereas\u00a0for a field of 45 players you would need 69 buy-ins, and\u00a0at 90 players and you would need 103.\u00a0 Oh my kingdom for 103 buy-ins!\u00a0 For an average field of 1,200 players\u00a0Little says you need 289 buy-ins.\u00a0He calculates that downswings of 125 buy-ins over 1,000 events are not uncommon.<\/p>\n

So Little’s advice is to stay in small tournaments where you have good results while you build your bankroll.\u00a0 Now the delta between 40 players and 90 may not be as substantial as the jump to 500+ runners, but it still bears some consideration.\u00a0 Still the lure of bigger payouts is awfully tempting.<\/p>\n

What about you?\u00a0 Do you have a sweet spot for tournament size?\u00a0 Or some guidelines for your\u00a0lower and upper limits?\u00a0 I am interested to see how others approach this question.<\/p>\n

Like this post? Head on over to the sidebar and subscribe. You will be alerted whenever a new APT blog post goes live!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter!\u00a0[twitter-follow username=”pokertraining” scheme=”dark”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Saturday I was faced with a dilemma: I was unable to play my usual 1pm $90 tournament. This tournament has a great structure for such a small buy-in: 30,000 chips, 30 minutes blinds, a nice gradual level and ante progression, and most importantly, it gets between 70 and 120 players. Unfortunately, this week other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,179,180,177,178],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jonathan-little","tag-payouts","tag-poker-field","tag-poker-tournament","tag-tournament-size"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes Tournament Size Matter? - Advanced Poker Training Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pokertraining.com\/poker\/blog\/tournament-size-matter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does Tournament Size Matter? - Advanced Poker Training Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last Saturday I was faced with a dilemma: I was unable to play my usual 1pm $90 tournament. 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