Those Big WPT Events
I’m doing pretty well in them. Including a 420 K third place. Just finished in the money in the Bellagio 15K event. But their structure sure makes it hard to ignore all that EV in a blind quest for first. The stacks are large, the blinds go up very slowly, and some of the tournaments pay 20% of the field. After two days of play you are not out of it if you have only your original buy in in front of you! If your stack happens to be of that size though, bubble play gets pretty silly if you are playing right. Here is a simplified illustration:
Say there are 500 entrants for 10K. 100 players get into the money which is 15K. To make the calculation simpler we will say that the only other prize is $3,515,000 for first.
If you sneak into the money with your original buy in you make 15 K guaranteed plus have a one in 500 chance of 3.5 million more. So your EV is 22K.
Say there are several tiny stacks out with 101 or 102 players left. That 22K is essentially yours if you don’t play a hand. Now someone moves in on you. Or you have a hand where you would normally move in while expecting to be called.
If you lose that hand you go down to zero. If you win you double up and have about a one in 250 chance of winning the tournament. Which is an EV of 15K plus 14K more= 29K. So the move in risks 22K to win 7K. Anything short of aces is debatable.
The math above is not the exact situation in a real tournament but it is close enough. And most people pretty much ignore it. No wonder I like those tournaments.