Big Event Buy-Ins

Requiem4adream

Just my 2 cents and not a criticism of the EPT/PaddyPower/GJP/BigSlick or anyone else.

I think the trend towards higher buy-ins in large domestic events has to be reversed. The concept of higher buy-ins whilst maintaining or increasing field size may have been a good one a couple of years back at the height of the poker boom, but i think nowadays it's counter-productive.

Take the EPT last year as a prime example. Imo they'd have had a fantastic tournament making it a 4k buy-in, large field, more characters, better tv, more cash action etc.

This years I.O. has been brilliant, had a great day yesterday but the amount of people i talked to saying "it's an awful lot of money...." ... and the reason - IT IS an awful lot of money irrespective of your bankroll or net worth.

Imo tournament organisers would be better served by dropping their buy-ins by as much as 40%. The net result of that would be extremely healthy fields and probably more importantly for organisers a lot more numbers for cash action.

Suppose the tournament schedule for the past 12 months looked like this:

EPT - 4k entry
I.O. - 2.5k entry
GJP deep stacks - 850 entry.
IPC - 1250

We're still talking super money involved, good prize pools etc but it makes the big poker tournaments more accessible to people, to the ordinary people like me and most boardsies, as opposed to the likes of Dario Mineiri and Sorel Mizzi strolling into town where money is no object.


Most poker players worldwide have their bankroll in $, most europeans even still have their bankroll in $. Most of them will have seen a loss in value in their rolls over recent times. Even forgetting that fact for a second, in general the worldwide economy is in downturn. Everyone will eventually feel some sort of pinch, if they havent already.

This in turn just makes it so tempting to take the cash when you make a seat in a satellite - "hmmm do i take 8 grand or try go to war with class acts in a high variance EPT event!". This in effect renders satellites as tournaments in their own right, as the % of people using them for their true purpose is infinitely smaller than it would be were the buy-ins lower.

I imagine anyone making an EPT seat over the last 12 months would have been faced with a tough decision over whether to play or not, as it's simply a huge amount of money. I went and played in Dortmund and was glad i did in terms of experience, but even over there i felt the atmosphere was a bit flat, subdued even and the field would have been much bigger if the entry fee was more sensible.

CHD

Good point, if things do continue to go the way they are they will have no choice but to lower buy-ins or face the fact that tourny fields will grow smaller year by year.Something will have to be done!

tipp86

Didnt think the io buyin needed to increase this year i know it was only by a 1000 but think it made a difference.In reality for the price of a io buyin you could play 3 $1500 wsop events and pay for accomadation flights with it.

ditpoker

agree fully with you dan, sadly i think the only people who don;t agree are tourny organisers. everyone wants their piece of the pie.

with the IO going up by 1k, its changes the price of satalites or means less tickets for same price satalite, means less players...

IO should be 2800+200 or 3200+300, not more. that should be the signature event of the year. EPT have left, no dublin leg this year, replaced by ppp 1500 winter festival.

RoundTower

why not just play the tournaments that are in your price range? Accept you aren't going to be able to play them all but it's still nice to have a big range of prices.

FWIW I'm not playing the IO, partly because I thought it was a lot of money. But it's not as if there's a €3k event on every week and they are crowding out the €1k events.

Hectorjelly

the market is always right

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Hectorjelly wrote: »

the market is always right

the OP is part of the market

RoundTower

Roundtower2 wrote: »

the OP is part of the market

the whole idea of "the market is always right" is that even if the market is made up of complete idiots they will still get it right on average.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Milton Friedman "Essays in Positive Economics" FTW

I like the argument Friedman makes about the power of the market but there are times when the market is not correct. Especially in the stock market, where if enough idiots make a decision in a certain way then prices will be wrong because of the power of the marginal investor.

Ollieboy

in the case of the IO the market is right, it got nearly 700 runners, it didnt make the 3 million, but that was a big target in its own right. The will always be a need for big buy-in events, tv companies aren't interest in 1k events, they want to see the top pro's play big buy-in events and have a quality final table. This is the only big event in Ireland this year and I think the 4.5k buy-in is fine.

But as for the EPT, they've loss the run of themselves, 8k is madness and even the big pro's think that. The EPT was fine at 5k and 10 events spread over the year in different countries.

After that, most events should be the 1k with about 8 each year in Ireland. The best events in Ireland for numbers etc and buzz, use to be the old IPC events in Red Cow etc. But this was during the boom period. Dont think it could still get the numbers today.

luckylucky

What I'm surprised no one commented on was the jump in the fee in the Irish Open, the tourney this year is 4,200 + 300 as opposed to 3300 + 200 last year according to thehendonmob. That is the buy-in for the event rose by just over 27% i.e. 900/3300 but the fee rose by 50%.

Afaik a 300 fee for a €4200 is not bad but anyway just to keep people informed that it has increased substantially from last year. Paddypower I'm sure think us degen gamblers won't notice these things, have to keep them on their toes

Tribezz

Requiem4adream wrote: »

Just my 2 cents and not a criticism of the EPT/PaddyPower/GJP/BigSlick or anyone else.

I think the trend towards higher buy-ins in large domestic events has to be reversed. The concept of higher buy-ins whilst maintaining or increasing field size may have been a good one a couple of years back at the height of the poker boom, but i think nowadays it's counter-productive.

Take the EPT last year as a prime example. Imo they'd have had a fantastic tournament making it a 4k buy-in, large field, more characters, better tv, more cash action etc.

This years I.O. has been brilliant, had a great day yesterday but the amount of people i talked to saying "it's an awful lot of money...." ... and the reason - IT IS an awful lot of money irrespective of your bankroll or net worth.

Imo tournament organisers would be better served by dropping their buy-ins by as much as 40%. The net result of that would be extremely healthy fields and probably more importantly for organisers a lot more numbers for cash action.

Suppose the tournament schedule for the past 12 months looked like this:

EPT - 4k entry
I.O. - 2.5k entry
GJP deep stacks - 850 entry.
IPC - 1250

We're still talking super money involved, good prize pools etc but it makes the big poker tournaments more accessible to people, to the ordinary people like me and most boardsies, as opposed to the likes of Dario Mineiri and Sorel Mizzi strolling into town where money is no object.


Most poker players worldwide have their bankroll in $, most europeans even still have their bankroll in $. Most of them will have seen a loss in value in their rolls over recent times. Even forgetting that fact for a second, in general the worldwide economy is in downturn. Everyone will eventually feel some sort of pinch, if they havent already.

This in turn just makes it so tempting to take the cash when you make a seat in a satellite - "hmmm do i take 8 grand or try go to war with class acts in a high variance EPT event!". This in effect renders satellites as tournaments in their own right, as the % of people using them for their true purpose is infinitely smaller than it would be were the buy-ins lower.

I imagine anyone making an EPT seat over the last 12 months would have been faced with a tough decision over whether to play or not, as it's simply a huge amount of money. I went and played in Dortmund and was glad i did in terms of experience, but even over there i felt the atmosphere was a bit flat, subdued even and the field would have been much bigger if the entry fee was more sensible.

I agree with most of the above and do definately think entry fees have become a little silly. But would I rather play 20 tourneys at 1k with approx 500 runners or more or play 10 tourneys at 2k with approx 250 runners??? I know I'm just pulilng figures here but you get my drift.

Personally I don't buy-in to an event above 1k anyway, either sat in or don't play.

And it seems to me that more and more over the last few years organisers have increasingly enforced the" you must take the ticket/package" and no cash equivalant. Obviously with pressure from main organiser for numbers, prize pool guarantees ect. I think this will become more and more so.

I think with Party Poker going on board with the IPC that PPP will feel they have to substantially outdo their prizepool to keep the no1 Tournament in Ireland tag.

A lot depends on your individual situation, my own opinion is anything above 1k for a straight buyin with more than 100 runners is nuts!!:)

corkie123

Tribezz wrote: »

I agree with most of the above and do definately think entry fees have become a little silly. But would I rather play 20 tourneys at 1k with approx 500 runners or more or play 10 tourneys at 2k with approx 250 runners??? I know I'm just pulilng figures here but you get my drift.

Personally I don't buy-in to an event above 1k anyway, either sat in or don't play.

And it seems to me that more and more over the last few years organisers have increasingly enforced the" you must take the ticket/package" and no cash equivalant. Obviously with pressure from main organiser for numbers, prize pool guarantees ect. I think this will become more and more so.

I think with Party Poker going on board with the IPC that PPP will feel they have to substantially outdo their prizepool to keep the no1 Tournament in Ireland tag.

A lot depends on your individual situation, my own opinion is anything above 1k for a straight buyin with more than 100 runners is nuts!!:)

when the ept first started it was 1500euros for there main event and 10k for the last one which was ok . now with the rise of poker playing online and live every year .they in there wisdom increase it every year were its now 8k main event and still 10k for there final event . and now that the world is going in to a recession at the moment and the dollar which is ****e .i think that these tourie people will have to reconsider there buy in levels to survive . the wsop people have seen this and kept there buy in at same levels for many years . just adding a few more 10k events but still keeping events for the smaller events the same .and instead of 2k in main event they get 6k to 8k coming to play . hopefully the irish guys and the ept people will see this and bring down the tourie prices to the same level and just make them bigger in player wise which would work like the one last year that mermaid poker tried .

58o

I wouldnt be surprised to see a big drop in numbers at the WSOP this year. 2007 was down on 2006 and with the U.S current economic woes we are sure to see another drop this year. No to mention the fact that the online sites are paying sat winners in cash, the temptation to keep the loot instead of playing the tourney (for me at least) is pretty big.

DeVore

There are pressures on the tournie sponsors to drive the entry's north.

1. It attracts the attention of the mainstream press.

2. It drives most people to have to try and qualify online, so in effect the first part of the tournament happens online these days (ala WSOP until recently). This has obvious advantages.

3. The number of dealers required is less. This is a big big cost reduction.

4. The size of the venue is less. Again, a cost reduction.

5. The logistics are easier, you don't have to register so many people.

There are some people still targetting the 500-1500 range though, and I dont think its a problem if we have a couple of huge events per year. I don't play them nor play satelites for them for various reasons but I don't object to having them there!

DeV.

Ollieboy

58o wrote: »

I wouldnt be surprised to see a big drop in numbers at the WSOP this year. 2007 was down on 2006 and with the U.S current economic woes we are sure to see another drop this year. No to mention the fact that the online sites are paying sat winners in cash, the temptation to keep the loot instead of playing the tourney (for me at least) is pretty big.

it actually could go the other way, ie people in financial trouble trying to use poker to get out of it... this as happen before and will happen again. I would nearly expect poker to grow during recession as much as good times due to peoples greed and hopes for the dream....etc.

Tribezz

58o wrote: »

I wouldnt be surprised to see a big drop in numbers at the WSOP this year. 2007 was down on 2006 and with the U.S current economic woes we are sure to see another drop this year. No to mention the fact that the online sites are paying sat winners in cash, the temptation to keep the loot instead of playing the tourney (for me at least) is pretty big.

It will be interesting to see come July how many numbers they get for the main event. I actually think the field will be bigger than last year, if not I think a very close number to last year. Online sites gave cash last year aswell and it definately had a big effect on numbers. This year will probably see more sats than ever before and surely the exchange rate makes the main event the best value it has ever been for Euro players?

Tribezz

corkie123 wrote: »

when the ept first started it was 1500euros for there main event and 10k for the last one which was ok . now with the rise of poker playing online and live every year .they in there wisdom increase it every year were its now 8k main event and still 10k for there final event . and now that the world is going in to a recession at the moment and the dollar which is ****e .i think that these tourie people will have to reconsider there buy in levels to survive . the wsop people have seen this and kept there buy in at same levels for many years . just adding a few more 10k events but still keeping events for the smaller events the same .and instead of 2k in main event they get 6k to 8k coming to play . hopefully the irish guys and the ept people will see this and bring down the tourie prices to the same level and just make them bigger in player wise which would work like the one last year that mermaid poker tried .

Yeah the WSOP seem to have a good mix, and sure every poker player wants to be able to say they played the main event at least once in their life. IT is the pinnacle for a large majority of casual poker players

The EPT buyins were crazy this year and people voted with their feet in Dublin. I would personally still like to see the buyin up around 4-5k, keeping the prizepool vey high(life changing amount for top few) and also keeping numbers under the thousand players.
If they drop the buyin to less and get more numbers then they fall into just becoming another regular tourney and not the exclusive tour it is now.

ArmaniJeanss

I think the IO might have suffered because of the early Easter this year. The last couple of years I've donated to a few Sunday night online satts from the start of March onwards (Jan/Feb paycheques are paying off Christmas etc).

So last year that would have been 5/6 satt buy-ins flowing up through the money system, this year it was only the one.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who this affected.

RoundTower

Ollieboy wrote: »

it actually could go the other way, ie people in financial trouble trying to use poker to get out of it... this as happen before and will happen again. I would nearly expect poker to grow during recession as much as good times due to peoples greed and hopes for the dream....etc.

I don't think I'd expect poker to grow during a recession. Pubs, yes. Scratchcards, maybe. When you say it happened before have you a good example?

58o

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

I think the IO might have suffered because of the early Easter this year. The last couple of years I've donated to a few Sunday night online satts from the start of March onwards (Jan/Feb paycheques are paying off Christmas etc).

So last year that would have been 5/6 satt buy-ins flowing up through the money system, this year it was only the one.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who this affected.

Yeah same for me pretty much. Did not play a single sat for it this year, i'm sure i would have got round to it if there was an extra month to qualify.

Tribezz

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

I think the IO might have suffered because of the early Easter this year. The last couple of years I've donated to a few Sunday night online satts from the start of March onwards (Jan/Feb paycheques are paying off Christmas etc).

So last year that would have been 5/6 satt buy-ins flowing up through the money system, this year it was only the one.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who this affected.

Good Point, I only played 2 of the Sunday sats his year.