Are WSOP Events really Speed Tourneys?
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008Are WSOP Events Speed Tourneys?
WSOP Tourney
If we take a standard $1500 NLHE Event as a comparison.
Starting Chips = 3000, Blind Levels = 60 mins
1 $0 Ante $25-$50 Blinds
2 $0 Ante $50-$100 Blinds
3 $0 Ante $100-$200 Blinds
4 $25 Ante $100-$200 Blinds
5 $25 Ante $150-$300 Blinds
6 $50 Ante $200-$400 Blinds
7 $75 Ante $300-$600 Blinds
8 $100 Ante $400-$800 Blinds
Standard Online Tourney Structure
3000 Chips, 15 min levels (eg $11 NLHE $20K Guaranteed at 19:00 ET on PokerStars)
1. $0 Ante 10/20 Blinds
2. $0 Ante 15/30 Blinds
3. $0 Ante 25/50 Blinds
4. $0 Ante 50/100 Blinds
5. $0 Ante 75/150 Blinds
6. $0 Ante 100/200 Blinds
7. $25 Ante 125/250 Blinds
8. $25 Ante 150/300 Blinds
A reasonable translation between live and online events is to multiply by 3 to translate online into the equivalent live blind speed (due to standard things like shuffling time, physical chip counting, manual split pots, longer time banks for thinking, etc etc)
So, on this basis, the WSOP is running at equivalent of 20 mins “online blinds”
Both are 3000 starting stack, so we just need to look at the cost of a rotation as the tournament progresses. So if we look at a point 2 “online hours” deep we will be at Level 8 online, and Level 6 in the WSOP. This leads us to:
Online Cost of Rotation = 9×25 + 150 + 300 = 675 chips
Live Cost of Rotation = 9×50 + 200 + 400 = 1050 chips
Which means that the WSOP is a faster structure than a standard online tourney. Welcome to the World Series of (Speed) Poker!
