WSOP at its worst

Agreed, the advantage for deferring reg for 2 hours is not as much as 6 hours, but the advantage exists (depending on attrition rate of the event).

I disagree. Assuming people are still late registering, there is going to be an ongoing flow of new players that will take up the seats vacated by busted players as well as creating new tables.

WSOP Live makes this job of filling seats/tables much easier than in the past. Also, a table with a bust out going from 8 to 7 is far better than a table with a bust out going from 5 to 4.

Additionally, in the first 2 hours there are far fewer bust outs than later in the event when blinds/antes go up, and stacks get relatively small.

Another item that has not been discussed: with close to full tables early in the event, the dynamics of tables change compared to thin tables. For example, with close to full tables more players will typically be in the pot, the pots will tend to be larger, and volatility will increase . Although not perfectly correlated, thie additional volatility will cause more bust outs early in the event.

We can argue about what is better, but if the event allows re-entries, early bust outs will likely get a higher rate of re-entries than later bust outs when blinds/antes force all-in/fold strategies. I suspect most players would prefer more re-entries, as it results in a larger prize pool.

OP here.

I have no problem with late registration. It's good for the game. Multiple rebuys gives the professional or deep pocket an unfair advantange.

However, my main complaint is that WSOP changes its mind all the time.

1. The Gladiator doesn't mention anything about starting short handed. I know it doesn't say it won't, but assumption is that it's a regular tournament. Not some 6 max crazy fast paced game. I propose they start 7 handed, not 4 handed. I think 7 handed for an hour is ok, then 8 handed for another hour. Just not 6 handed still at level 4. In the meantime, all the rebuys will form a new table so they will unlikely have collusion. I think WSOP just doesn't want a whole bunch of late registration all get to sit at the same table to collude. Late registration can sprinkle across all the open seats in the existing tables to decrease the chance of that.

2. They change their mind and use a shot clock in the main event when recreational players weren't expecting it.

3. A few years ago, I played an WSOP and in late stage they banned electronic device and listening to music thru my headset when there was no rule against it.

They do run fantastically given the large field. Just wish they don't change their mind in the middle of the game when players weren't expecting it.

OP, are you sure the App had 4 people at your table at start I sort of don't believe that, there may have been 6 or 7 and 2-3 hadn't shown up yet.

I didn't play the Gladiator and perhaps due to timing it got way less than projected. That would cause it to be lower than something like 1K plo bounty which did I play. That had 7 registered but when I showed up ten minutes late there was only 3 waiting to play.

The pros or deep pockets don't have an unfair advantage. It's like saying someone unfairly has a mansion. The guy or gal paid the money to get the big house. Anyone and everyone can buy into a poker tournament as many times as they choose.

Which group on average would you expect to win more money

A) 400 players with an average stack of $62,500 (stacks range from something like 5K to 200K)

Or

B) 500 players all with 50K

If it matters specify a blind level

(All equally skilled of course, someone commented on this but when analyzing an issue you have to control variables)

I'm going A with top heavy pay structure and people with chips are able to accumulate more especially on bubble and pay jumps.

Oddly the Gladiator started with a minimum of 3 people at the table. All other WSOP tournaments to that point had required 4 people at the table. There were very few people before 10:00am at the start of the Gladiator on Day 1B (I missed day 1A). We had 2 at our table with 2 stacks out but the people not present. I thought we might miss the start. But like all other events just before 10am the other two people showed up. I think the reason they did show up was so that their stack wouldn't be used for blinds if they didn't.

This was true of just about every event I played (which was 23 different Day 1's at just before the start time). Only once did a player not show up quickly. That was the Colossus I think, and when the player showed up at Level 2 he was stunned that his stack had been out on the table since 10:00am.

The Gladiator day 1B was short handed a bit but I think that was because they didn't estimate the turnout correctly and had set up too many tables. It was unlike the prior tournaments I had played in.

I rarely sat early this year, mostly rolling in an hour or two after the start. But as of now I am making a goal for next year..

Study short handed play and be on time.

Seems a big advantage for those willing to do the work.

You don't want them to create new tables with all of those players being ones who just registered. That is how colluders could angle to be at the same table, even in a large field event. That is why a new table typically only has a couple of recent entries, and the rest are players pulled from other tables.

This is NOT the case, not at all. It is well known that players bust out faster at short-handed tables. When short-handed, you can't just wait for premium hands if you want to grow your stack. So there is a lot more butting heads with less-than-premium hands, more bluffing, and so on.

I would much rather play a little short-handed poker than get moved all the time. That's what would happen if every table was full at the start. The WSOP is huge and it's like a quarter mile hike if you get moved from Horseshoe to Paris.

Also I agree that combatting collusion is important. You don't want the system to allow people to be seated together just by tapping register at the same time.

As for late registering, they allow late registration for far too long which gives too much of an ICM advantage, as explained in the post above. Late registration itself is not the problem though. It would be a non-issue if they cut off late registration when more than half the field was still remaining.

After all most people are playing multiple events and can't be expected to show up for hand 1 in every event they play. For many players, they bust in one event then jump into another event, which often means late registering.

Very True; but won't change because of their GREED.

My understanding of very late registration is that the players will make more money per hour, but won't make more money than those who register on time. This is what Doug Polk has claimed.

Yes, they will land in the money more frequently but in all likelihood they will almost always min cash (or slightly more). Though in fairness to reality, once I did win a tournament I registered at the final break at Foxwoods...

Recently (this year) at the Borgota I was at a table that right after the final break before registration there were 4 new players who had just bought in and had 7 blinds. Which I think is ridiculous to allow. But they did all bounce out fairly quickly...

Its all about making money for the host. And for the players its sometimes about making money but sometimes about addiction.

One time when I was in Prague playing at Rebuy Stars Luka (which shut down 2 weeks after I left) I was playing late in a relatively high priced tournament (6000 Crowns which was like $275) and this guy started buying in at the last level it was allowed. I was told he had won $2,900,000 in a tournament, which must have been a Triton tournament, though at that time I was unaware of Triton. He bought in 6 or 7 times with under 15 blinds each time, if I remember correctly. Twice he landed on my table and I didn't play a hand against him. He never made it into the money but I get why he did it. He just didn't want to waste time. And of course the money didn't matter to him, except for the fact that the tournament had a guarantee and we were under it at the time (they ended up just reaching their guarantee).

Doug is wrong. Again, it has been proven with ICM calculators that if you can register when a big chunk of the field has been eliminated already, your stack is worth more than you paid for it. If half the field is gone, this ICM advantage is fairly small, a few percentage points. But if you can buy-in when 20% of the field remains, and 15% is getting paid, your stack is worth at least 120% of what you paid (ignoring the rake). It might be even more than that, I forget the exact numbers. But Kenny Hallaert published a paper on this, and he worked with a mathematician who wrote software to do ICM calculations with a few hundred people still in.

IMO, no tournament should allow people to buy-in past the point where they expect at least half the field to be gone. Personally, I try to avoid any such tournaments, as I don't like having my equity diluted/stolen by those who buy-in last minute.