2024 WSOP!

In the WSOP Senior event over the years sometimes you are in the money at the end of Day 1 and sometimes you are not and its early Day 2. I was always grateful to cash in day 1 though. One time I had like 13 blinds towards the end of day 1 (we were playing the last 5 hands of the day) and we weren't going to cash until Day 2. A woman who had played tight raised UTG and I was UTG+1 with JJ so I shoved figuring I would likely lose but at least wouldn't be short stacked out of the money on Day 2 where I could probably delay going all in in time to cash but cashing wouldn't even have doubled the buy in. So she tanked and open folded QQ and said she wanted to make it to day 2 (in fact she had over 36 blinds so that wasn't actually the reason she folded...)

I appreciate events that don't make you come into Day 2 not yet in the money and the Venetian has changed their payout structure to do that (previously I had failed to cash on some day 2's).

But I do think that the WSOP should go back to paying 12% of the field and improve the min cashes.

what do you mean by that? is that a special crunch time for wsop given tables and logistics, or do you mean the likely crowd size?

I don't understand why a solid payout structure which minimizes ICM as much as possible should be sacrificed for player convenience.

Everybody knows going in that the payouts may not hit first day. This was no issue at all when min cashes started at 12%, and frankly everybody expected to come back next day to make the money. Of course the min payouts were significantly higher then so that helped a lot.

Of course the issue is that all players want different things from tourney blind and payout structures, and everyone thinks their preference is what everyone wants ha.

Lots of serious players/pros have the akashenk approach, which is let's get to the money fast and then see. But the problem is, the huge majority of weekend warriors are playing one or two tournaments and want to "get their money's worth" and get several hours worth of playing time for their buyin. No one likes to book a vacation around a tournament and you're eliminated before noon on the first day.

Go ask a 1/2 or 1/3 NL table what they want in a tourney structure and they will say "lots of chips" and "slow blinds going up". And a lot of people really ignore skipped levels which are by far the biggest impact on a structure. I can make a tourney with 20k start stack and 20 min levels way deeper late than one with 50k start stack and 60 min levels.

Of course, you have to evaluate all 3 things, Starting chips, blind levels, blind times. I have always used the formula I read about many years ago in the the book The Tournament Formula (pretty sure that's it) I made a spreadsheet for calculations a long time ago I use.

It's the same as buying a car, Price, trade in value and interest rate are all in play, the salesman can give you what you want on 2 of them and screw you on the other and still get what they want.

Also important is calculating how many hands of 30bb+ you would have if you blinded off.

I agree, but many don't! I stood in a reg line and heard multiple recs talking about how the $250 deepstack was a better structure than the $1000 bracelet event b/c it had more chips. Zero thought on level length or skipped levels, just MOAR CHIPZ.

Would you be willing and able to share your spreadsheet after you crunch the numbers for the events this year?

The week of June 24 is low buy in week. Tuesday is the 600 Deep stack championship, Wednesday is another Deep stack event like the daily but at 600, Thursday is the 500 Salute to Warriors which actually has one of the better structures, and Friday, Sat, and Sunday is 400 Colossus.
Huge fields every day.
Long rebuy lines because of the low buy in point.

Logistics and crowd size are issues.

When the structures are released, I will probably run some of the popular ones and post results.

Someone questioned adding a third flight will bring 8k in MS to 12-15k.

If they allow reentry (1x per flight) like looks written then absolutely. There will be people firing 6 bullets into this thing when originally was 2 max

Normally I would want to play that weekend but the thought of having to wait in line if you need to fire a 2nd bullet is gross. I wish wsop would make it easier to sign up online where you could pay with a credit card after you busted and you could go to a table and sign up for your 2nd bullet in a quick manner and not wait in line.

I wonder how many people actually wait in line? I busted colussus last year early and just went lol no way I’m waiting in that line for a $400 tourny.

Anyone wanna comment on the $1500 shootout? Im considering playing it bc I find the beat your table factor cool and just a sit n go. Idk I find those format cool and wish shootouts were more commonplace in festival series nowadays. Just wondering if the structure is good? It looks solid with 40 min levels based on last year structure. Great structure? No but it’s solid for a sit n go.

Making a couple assumptions on the above seems that 54 players at a $200 buy in (17.5% rake) would give roughly give you the $8900 prize pool.

You are suggesting that the 5th place would get their entry fee back ? and first gets 56% of the pool and second 25% and that is a Reasonable payout model ? Even reducing the payouts to 5 players ( call it 10% of the field ) again assuming a "winner" has to get at LEAST his buyin back (something else I have never seen in practice )

Possibly I am taking your example entirely to literally and I have not tried to expand it to a typical (if there is such a thing ) WSOP event and therefore maybe guilty of gross oversimplification for your intent.

The online entry works just as well as Diamond, with zero risk of the VIP line being longer than you want. Still can’t fade the line for seat card. I got lucky in Colossus and was back in less than 15 minutes. Didn’t re-enter the DeepStack Championship bc line was gross for seat, despite being Diamond and set up for online purchase.

This is a benefit, but it is not nearly the benefit it once was. In any case, re entry still requires standing in a line to get your stack after you stand in line to register(or do so online).

They have the WSOP+ app now that I think you can use to register with. In theory, anyway.

Does anyone know if a founders club membership is still offering the diamond club perk?

I asked as my membership is up for renewal next month and this is what they sent back.

"The Caesars Rewards benefit providing Diamond status is currently not available for new upgrades. We do not have a definitive timeline for anyone that currently has the upgrade or should have the upgrade by now, but we hope to share those details soon. "

Yeah those were numbers only for purposes of illustration and easy calcs. They would not resemble any tournament payout I can think of.

With your example of 54 players, 200 fee of which $150 goes to prize pool (8100 total), I would go with 500 for 5th, which would yield the following payout:

1st: 3,390
2nd: 2,101
3rd: 1,302
4th: 806
5th: 500

You could also force 1st to be a fixed % of the prize pool. If we use 30% payout for first, the following payout results:

1st: 2,430
2nd: 1,933
3rd: 1,538
4th: 1,224
5th: 974

Each payout step up is geometrically constant. In the first payout 806/500 = 1.612, 1302/806 = 1.615, 2101/1302 = 1.614, and 3390/2101 = 1.614. Except for small rounding errors the growth for each place is constant. Same for the other payout example.

There’s a really large thread on all things Diamond status in the Las Vegas Lifestyle section of the forum.

I can’t speak about founders card and that system but I have Diamond through my Wyndham business credit card and I’ve been trying to match it to Caesars for about a month. Talked to support and they said they are updating their system and it should be operational again in early March.

As akashenk mentioned, the constant growth payout model will not work for large field events because the min cash basically gets very close to zero.

To get around that, I used the following rules:

-A player finishing in position n is awarded 1/(n+1) more than the amount awarded to player in position n+1;
-a constant multiplier applied to each payout so that the aggregate projected payouts equal the prize pool;
-the min payout is known.

For example: I used the 2023 Seniors event, 8140 entries, $1,000 fee, $7,280,200 total prize pool. I set the min payout position to be 11% of the field (rounded to 9), which is 900th. I also set the min payout to $2,000.

This results in the following payout structure:
[code]
Place Proposed 2023 Actual Payout
1 $519,168 $765,731
2 $346,324 $473,212
3 $259,902 $356,166
4 $208,049 $269,841
5 $173,481 $205,799
6 $148,789 $158,006
7 $130,270 $122,130
8 $115,867 $95,040
9 $104,344 $74,464
10 $94,917 $58,744
20 $50,024 $30,067
30 $34,096 $24,390
40 $25,938 $19,927
50 $20,981 $16,396
100 $10,924 $5,931
200 $5,836 $5,138
300 $4,144 $3,946
400 $3,307 $3,498
500 $2,814 $2,813
600 $2,495 $2,553
700 $2,274 $2,153
800 $2,116 $2,001
900 $2,000 $1,751
[/code]

As one can see 1st place paid 50% more than 2nd place, which paid 33% more than 3rd place, which paid 25% more than 4th place, etc.

The structure is less top-heavy, that is the final table represents 27.6% of the prize pool, compared with 34.6% for the 2023 event.

Payouts are roughly the same until about 300, then they get much juicier from there until the final table (or 7th).

Of course 327 fewer places are awarded. The min cash for 2023 event was place 1227, $1,601.

I got an email from Caesars a few weeks ago promoting Diamond and I could have sworn it said that tier match is now only available on new Caesars Rewards accounts. I had previously thought about getting the Wyndham card, but this poured cold water on that idea.

What does "Payouts every flight" mean? It's in the schedule under Gladiators of Poker.

It means you’re in the money if you make day 2.

I’m not 100% sure if you get paid at the end of day 1 or when you bust. I would assume the latter, since they typically calculate the min-cash based on the total prizepool. Of course it would be fairly easy to just pick a number and make those min-cash payouts logistically easier. But that’s a topic for another day.

Got this from them this morning. I show as Diamond so I guess i'm good.

Based on our records, your Caesars Rewards account should be reflecting as Diamond online already. You were on the initial list we submitted for upgrade for this year. If you logged in and you see Diamond status on your Caesars Rewards app, then that's good. Though, we don't have a definitive timeline if that would last the whole calendar year as originally intended. If you don't see your Diamond status now, though, we're still waiting updates for that.

All WSOP events pay the top 15%. But this event plays fast enough that they are down to 5% or less of the field on day 1. If you make the money on day 1, and then bust before bagging, you get paid right away. If you make day 2 or beyond, you don't get paid until after you bust.

Also, there is often a big pay jump between days. Meaning, if you get the max payout of somebody who busts on day 1, that is often quite a bit less money than a person who was the first to bust on day 2. I saw this the first time I played one of these. We were bagging, and they announced that if you bag, you can't reenter later flights. But if you surrender your stack, you will get the current highest payout of that night, and you can then reenter. Somebody at my table chose to do this as they had a very short stack. When we got to day 2, the lowest payout was close to double what that person got when they surrendered. However, the payouts on day 1 are calculated for each flight separately. There may have been other day 1 flights where the last payout of the night was much closer to the first payout from day 2.