Poker Articles

A Bit of Maths: Big Tournament Tactics
By Paul Samuel
(The UK's answer to Mike Caro or Lassie)

1. Introduction

I am booked to play in the Masterclassics in Amsterdam in November. I am really looking forward to it! The big tournament is the Lido and I am posing myself the following question. "How many chips do I need to accumulate at each betting round in the big one?"

Here are my preliminary thoughts :-

2. Big Tournament Tactics

The Lido starts on Wednesday, Nov 6th, and has 60 minute rounds starting with 10,000 TC and 25/50 blinds. Here's the structure in some detail :-

Table 1 - Lido Structure

It is anticipated that there will be 170 players each buying in for € 3,000 (that's euros). I understand that 30 places will be paid!

Now let us imagine a round (i.e. 60 minute period) in which you muck every hand. What percentage of your stack can you afford to lose to still be safe?

For the sake of argument let us say 20.00% can be lost in this fashion. This is our principal parameter, thus :-

Define the 'Playable Factor' to be 5 (equivalent to 20.00%).

Now calculate the cost of each round according to the antes and blinds :-

Table 2 - Round Costs

Now combining this with our 'Playable Factor' we have the following extended table :-

Nb. Column 'N' is the estimated number of players.

Table 3 - Full Lido Simulation

From our theory we can expect a steady start for 4 rounds, then a huge increase in activity after that as low stacked players are eliminated and the big boys get busy.

Our prediction is that the 'Payline' will be reached on the 10th hour, the 'Final' on the 13th hour and the Winner decided by the 17th hour!

Here's a graph of the chip increases plotted against level :-

Figure 1 - Graph of chip increases