Clocks, structures and missing blind levels

[Sheriff Fatman]

During the recent Vic festival there was a big debate about the merits/disadvantages of taking out the early 75/150 and 150/300 blind levels.  I subsequently played a couple of festival events at Luton the following week where the same structure was in operation and found that it didn't particularly detract from the quality of these events.

However, I went to Luton last night to play a £30 super-sat to the Triple Bill and was surprised to find that the same structure was in operation for this event.  The structure was therefore 1,000 starting chips and 2 45-minute levels for rebuys.  After the break and add-on, the clock then moves to 20 minute levels.  Consequently, once the rebuys were over blinds had escalated to 200/400 within 20 minutes of the re-start.

Average chips by this point were probably around the 5,000 mark so this was a fairly significant jump in blinds.  Given that the 20 minute clock allows for about 1.5 orbits per level the escalation in blinds is simply too great for the amount of chips in play.

My point is that making these adjustments to the structure and removing the early levels is justifiable in a festival event where there are a decent amount of starting chips and a clock of a least 45 minutes.  However, I can't see how it benefits a game with a structure like last night as it just accelerates the speed at which 'crapshoot poker' kicks in again (the rebuy phase is always crapshoot poker by its very nature, but that's to be expected).

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Sheriff

[londonpokergirl]

I always feel that a 45min x 2  levels needs to then be
2 x 30min levels , and then reduce down to 20mins, otherwise it can become a
crap shoot too soon , I suppose it doesn't really matter if you are well chipped up but
this would be easier to handle

[Sheriff Fatman]

I always feel that a 45min x 2  levels needs to then be
2 x 30min levels , and then reduce down to 20mins, otherwise it can become a
crap shoot too soon , I suppose it doesn't really matter if you are well chipped up but
this would be easier to handle

The clock has always been 20 minutes as far as I'm aware, so this aspect wasn't a surprise.  If you have the 75/150 and 150/300 levels (which I'm sure were there the last time I played one of these at Luton, which admittedly was months ago) the escalation isn't too bad but, without them, its just too quick.

Sheriff

[M3boy]

Sherrif

I am with you on this one - 30 min levels all the way through would be much better. Specially as there were only 40 odd runners.

Having said that, we were down to last 10 which was when the blinds really started to hurt. With the average stack having around 10xBB. I made a move with A5, playing the people and not the cards (using the final table bubble to my advantage) only to walk into A10. This was my choice though, wanting to be chipped up for the F/T as there were only 3 tickets on offer.

[tikay]

You have to have some sympathy with the Casinos in this matter - whatever way you slice it, a 1 day comp is always gonna end in a crapshoot - unless it starts much earlier......

[M3boy]

Agreed...