The Real Facts About Tex's TEARS Tournament Structure

I have been urged by a number of people in the poker world to respond to a recent column in Card Player, "Foxwoods: A Hidden Gem," by Daniel Negreanu, because they believe that many players may have been misled by some comments in that column that inaccurately describe certain aspects of the TEARS tournament structure. It is my intent in this article to clear up these misconceptions. Certainly, we all are entitled to voicing strong opinions on any subject, and we try to back up our opinions with reliable and up-to-date facts, because if we don't, we may appear to be poorly informed or even out of line. In order to enable you to better form your own opinion about tournament structures, allow me to clarify a couple of misstatements about the TEARS structure.

First, consider this quote from the column: "As is the case in most tournaments, you know how long the levels will be before you put up your buy-in. How frustrating it is to buy into a tournament expecting hourlong levels, only to find that because there are 'too many' entrants, you will get only 40-minute levels! (Such is the case with a system like TEARS; the amount of skill required in any given tournament is ultimately determined by the number of entrants. The more entrants, the shorter the rounds.)"

Making a statement such as this about TEARS is misleading. Naturally, players and tournament directors alike are concerned with total playing time. The truth is that the tournament director can set the length of levels at one hour or any other length of time he wishes. Most tournament directors want to know how much playing time it will take to finish an event, and TEARS furnishes them the tools with which to make their decisions.

I recently posted a letter to the Tournament Directors Association (TDA), an organization devoted to standardizing tournament rules and one that I strongly support, regarding structure standardization. In that post I said, "There have been a number of statements made about TEARS that are not true. I would like to clarify these misstatements, and convey the truth to this group. TEARS is a tool that the tournament director can use to set the length of levels to whatever he wishes. The levels can all be set to the same length, or to shorter levels early in an event and longer levels later in an event. This allows a tournament director to predict approximately how long an event will last. (In other words, the TEARS system allows tournament directors more flexibility than they have had in the past.)

"TEARS also predicts approximately how many players will be left to start each level. The average number of chips, playing time, and dealer downs also are predicted. All of this information is extremely important to most tournament directors, who have always controlled the length of tournaments. This used to be done by having large blind increases and not giving enough starting chips. In the TEARS structure, the starting chips are adequate and the blind increases are gradual."

Now, consider this quote from Negreanu's column: "They (Foxwoods) avoid the clumsy, annoyingly slow, red chip levels. Red chip levels are $15-$30, $20-$40, $30-$60, $40-$80, $60-$120, and so on, where $5 chips are still necessary. These levels create far too much work for the dealers and confusion for the players. The dealers are forced to make change for virtually every bet, thus increasing the likelihood of an error."

The levels for TEARS are: $15-$30, $25-$50, $50-$100, $75-$150, $100-$200, $150-$300, $200-$400, $300-$600, $400-$800, $600-$1,200, $800-$1,600, $1,000-$2,000. As you can see, the facts are quite different from those portrayed in the column. In my post to the TDA, I said, "The early levels in the first version of TEARS had too much play. The betting limits had levels that left lower denomination chips on the table a little too long. But thanks to our advisory board, these problems were addressed and adjustments were made about 10 months ago. Mike Sexton, a member of the TEARS advisory board, suggested that there should be a minimum number of average big bets per player at the start of a final table. As a result, we have developed a tool to warn the tournament director if the average chip count becomes too low. This tool ensures plenty of play at the final table, and is available to directors if they wish to use it."

We know and agree that there are at least two other tournament structures (and maybe more) that are very good and player-friendly. TEARS has been installed for 40 cardrooms around the world, and is also one of the best, as a very large number of players and tournament directors will attest. Just ask Dave Lamb, Matt Savage, Mike Gainey, and others who regularly use it. And even if the Tournament Directors Association chooses one of the other structures in its efforts to standardize tournament rules and procedures, I believe that the TEARS advisory board and I have accomplished our goal of trying to make tournaments better.

For all the facts, E-mail Tex Morgan at [email protected]. To access the latest TEARS shared files, if you have Excel and Word 97 or later, click on http:\briefcase.yahoo.com/texstears.