blonde poker forum

So last week in Dublin for the WPT National, I'm hanging around the tournament room as day 1A is ending and the TD announces that anyone finishing under starting stack can choose to forfeit the chips and re enter the next day for 1B

Announcement was made after final hands were played so I don't think the players were aware of it as the day was ending
€1320 euro buyin, can only re enter 1B if you bust 1A, no same day re entries
Starting stack was 25k, 1st level of day 2 is 600/1200/100
Around 20 players made it through from 1A but 100+ runners expected 1B

Think I have given all relevant details so the question is, at which point should players forfeit their stack and it not be considered burning money?  How much should the buyin affect our decision? Should we do it with more BBs at smaller buyin and less BBs at a bigger buyin? If the tournament has more than 2 day 1s, how does this affect things?

Never heard that one before, is this common and did you not know this beforehand?

Not that I could afford to renter at that buy in, but if it was a smaller one I'd just gamboooool the last couple of rounds if I was low. That assumes you know this is an option in advance.

As far as I know it wasn't known until the last hands were finished, I busted at dinner break so they might have announced it afterwards but I don't think they did.
It's the first time I've heard of this but Genting Poker Series is the only live event I've played that allowed a re entry and they didn't have this so maybe it's common in WPTs and GUKPTs

Leaving aside the question about whether or not we should do this at 10BB or whatever

How can they change the rules half way through the tournament?

Plus - now they've done it once won't that make a change to the way that the latter stages of Day 1a plays out in future?

It just feels wrong.


I think I'd forfeit 24,750 if I was rolled to do it - and from the individual's viewpoint, forfeiting a shortstack is better than donking them off to the competition so that you can re-enter.

But it still feels wrong

So you would forfeit a 20bb day 2 stack for another crack at it?

I think that if your edge is 20% you can probably justify it if you have less than 5k chips.  

You should clearly just shove blind last hand/last few hands rather than forfeit.

It is clearly very unethical if you did either of these actions with any amount of chips if you have an edge of 20% and sold at a premium.

I'm assuming that the average stack is going to be around 5 times that? Swap a 20BB stack for a 100BB stack? If I were rolled for it, yes, I think so.

I'm a long way short of rolled for it so my fundamental response to the concept is to think it's wrong because it gives the wealthier players a second chance that I don't have and it removes the 'double up or bust' plays from their game.

Presumably it's a question of calculating the (forecasted) equity of the chips you are forfeiting, and then weighing this up against your perceived/forecasted ROI of another shot on day 1B?

Would think this would have to be pretty f high to make forfeiting the chips the right play.

QFT, and for future reference on a staking thread coming soon.....

I think there are probably a few other issues with staking and re-entry tournaments.  Some people who are 1.2 at the start is unlikely to be still worth 1.2 if they re-enter in level 8 for instance.  Though this can depend where there strengths lie.  I am probably at my strongest early on, where as others have great stealing/restealing games when the antes come in.

But back to the question. 

Say somebody sold at 1.2 in a £1k tournament with 25k chips and their EV was £1.2K in this tournment. 

Assuming I didn't realise I was just buying variance, and I had bought 50% of the action at 1.2.

At the end of day 1a, my horse is sat there with 5k chips.  As a staker, I may still think I have roughly £120 worth of value in the tournament (5k/25k x1.2). My horse has 50% of himself too, and has £120 worth of value.

But my horse can re-enter tomorrow selling 50% of action at 1.2.  If he is a genuine 1.2 chance, he can buy in tomorrow for £1K again (he pays £400 and I pay £600).  As a backer, my £600 is worth £600 tomorrow, so buying in for 1B is +£0 before variance for the backer.  In isolation, buying in to 1B is worth £200 of EV to my horse (his £400 gets him £600 of EV). 

So if my horse threw his 5k chips away at the end of day 1a, he would be £80 better off in EV terms (£200-£120). 
If I only backed him for the first bullet, I lose £120 worth of EV.  If I back him at 1.2 for the second one, I still lose £120 worth of EV.  It is only if I back him at 1.0 for the second bullet that I do not lose out by his decision to throw away his 5k in chips.

In fact, ignoring tournament variance, our horse can happily throw his chips away and gain right up until he has 8333 chips. 

It isn't just re-entry tournaments with this option that have this issue.  A horse that can sell at a premium has a financial incentive to throw away chips in any re-entry tournament when he gets short.  Because of this, his 10 BB shove range should probably be much larger late in the day from any position.

You can probably throw in the natural inclination for most poker players to dislike playing a short stack.  Most poker player's are going to be happier going for the win with a big stack, rather than grinding a short stack in to day 2.

I play a lot of rebuys and if you can rebuy on 2k chips, and double rebuy on 0, and I find myself sat on 2500 coming up to the end of the rebuy period, I try and engineer situations that mean I can get down to 2k or up to 4k.  This is partly because I believe that my move in isolation is -EV, my extra chips are +EV, but there is also a part of this due to the fact I simply prefer playing with 4k chips rather than 2.5k. 

I played day 1 of a re-entry on a french site the day before yesterday, and my stack was quite a bit below starting for a significant period.  Throughout most of that period I was sat there thinking if I don't get motoring soon, I can just re-enter tomorrow.   This is pretty much the same thinking I have in rebuys.

So if I can start thinking like this where my financial incentive to do this stuff really isn't that high, then I think it is safe to assume a lot of horses will be thinking the same way even before you bung a financial incentive for them to act in their own self interest on top.

These things together make it a pretty unpleasant state of affairs for a backer.  This is why I tend to baulk when I see staking proposals for re-entry tournaments.  This is particularly the case where there is no mention of what levels the horse will re-enter, or even if they are planning to re-enter.
 

Great post Doobs :)up

You would forfeit a starting stack in order to pay for another starting stack the next day?

my initial response was based on being very over-rolled for the tournament. Having read the more intelligent and thoughtful responses, probably not

The concept of being able to do this still feels wrong anyway

why would you forfeit and not just go all in blind every hand trying to get 50+bbs rather than just letting stack die and then rebuying day after?

That is exactly what players would do, presumably, but the OP said it was not made known until AFTER play finished.

So you can keep your less than 25k stack and join day 2 with a handful of big blinds or you can forfeit the chips and start again at the first big blind.

surely if you were prepared to pay for re entry then with 5-10 hands to go you would be shoving your small stack anyway to try and double/triple up or bust so you can re enter the next day 1.

It does seem a strange option to have offered players.

Yes - but the players never knew this option was available until after play had ended on Day 1a, according to the OP.

Maybe - & I'm not being rude or cynical here, just thinking out loud - they had less runners than anticipated or hoped for?

Re-entries are fine, if you like that sort of thing, but this was a different thing entirely, assuming it is being reported correctly, & I don't think Boba has any reason not to.

Gotta love when TD's make things up as they go along.

I remember reading an excellent piece by Galfond (what's new) regards how your equity fluctuates with stack size. Essentially his point was that it's hugely inelastic on day 1 of large field, deepstack comps, which is I guess kind of obvious ("you can't win it today son") but is something I often remember if things don't go my way early.

20bb???!

I'd drawn the line at 5/6bb probably

I would say never.

It might be +EV to forfeit a short stack and start Day 1B with another starting stack, but doesn't mean we should.

Even if forfeiting a 2bb stack so we can play Day 1B is +EV, we need to factor in that Day 1B could be better spent playing something else which could be +EV. I would argue that going home and grinding online the next day if that's a possibility, or playing live cash during Day 1B, then playing Day 2 with whatever stack you finished Day 1A with is going to be more +EV than forfeiting our stack and getting a new starting stack on Day 1B.

The only situation where I might consider it would be a WSOP bracelet event and I want to give myself a better shot at winning a bracelet instead of taking a 5bb stack through to Day 2.

blahblahblah - my major point was the query about whether this should even be allowed to happen.

I reconsidered later in the thread

Why shouldn't it be allowed to happen? You are telling me people can voluntarily bust themselves out of a tournament and we want to discourage this, why?

It feels wrong.

I may have the wrong feeling about it, it's likely I do, but which would you prefer - Phil Ivey/Greg Merson/Jason Mercier making Day2 with <5BB or having him sat to your left on Day1b with a full stack?

Also - this seems to have been an ad hoc decision by the organisers and announced at the end of the day's play. It's a major change to the way in which the tournament is structured and run, is that OK?

I disagree, it was always advertised as a re-entry for day 1b, anyone who would forefit a stack at the end of day 1 is also the kinda person who would have just punter a stack at the end of day 1 if it was short. The only situation i see is the poor guy who loses a pot on the last hand of the night and has 2bb left and now has to wait 36hrs to come back, why not give them a chance?

Phil Ivey/Jason Mericier would have busted/doubled 10 minutes prior

To my mind there is a difference between re-entry when you've bust and being allowed to simply surrender your chips because you don't fancy grinding a short stack on Day 2.

As for 'the poor guy who lost the last pot of the night' isn't that just poker? Unlucky.

So we shouldn't have re-entry at all then. That's a perfectly fine stance to take, one i probably agree with. If we allow re-entry though then i'm not going to stand in the way of someone who wants to just bust out of the tournament and leave their money in the prize pool.

It was advertised as re entry James but it looks like the surrendering your chips was a last minute decision by the TD. Obv I could be wrong about that and most of the field could have known that surrendering your chips was an option.
I have never heard of surrendering chips. Do you know of any other comps that this has been allowed in?

Yeah i played WPT Jacksonville in April and it was an option. As it was 18 people made it to day 2 from day 1a and i doubt any of them took the option, however if they did it would have been good for everyone else surely?

yes I think so too as its increasing the prize pool.  As long as everyone is aware of the situation then its all cool