Although I am in the midst of doing a series of columns on A-K, I want to interrupt the series for one issue to comment on Daniel Negreanu's column in the Vol. 20/No. 20 issue. First of all, I agree that the
European Poker Tour is off to a great start. (I wish American casinos would treat players as well as the European and Australian ones do.)
My disagreement with Daniel revolves around his argument that starting with 20,000 in chips at 50-100 blinds is the same as starting with 10,000 in chips at 25-50 blinds. He would be right if the blinds at each level were exactly doubled, as they are in the first level. The reality has been that tournament directors just start the first level higher, but do not double at each level. I am going to illustrate this by taking a typical structure and showing why there is more play with the 20,000 starting stack. (For ease of computation, I am omitting the antes, because they really don't change the basic argument.) The first eight levels of a typical tournament that starts with 10,000 in chips are shown below with their percentage of starting stack:
Now let's look at the first seven levels of a typical tournament that starts with 20,000:
These tables clearly show that with 20,000 and a typical structure, there is more play. By level 7, you are blinding 9 percent of your starting stack of 10,000, but only 6 percent of your starting stack of 20,000. This certainly gives tournaments with higher starting stacks more play - at this level, 50 percent more.
The main problem that this change doesn't address is that it gives more play at the wrong time. Yes, it is nice to start slowly and play some deep-stack poker. I'm fairly tight, and I love the fact that people put huge stacks in jeopardy with relatively weak hands. But given a reasonable number of playing hours per day and a reasonable number of days for the tournament, you eventually end up with little or no play. And this occurs when you'd like to most play - around the bubble, getting down to the final table, and when there are four or five players left. Before the bubble, short stacks desperately try to survive to the money. Once the money is reached, everyone explodes. Players realize that they don't have enough chips to play poker, so they "shoot craps." We see it at televised final tables over and over again; players have enough chips to last, at most, five rounds. They consistently get all in before the flop with marginal hands. It's exciting, but it's not poker. I am willing to sacrifice early play for late play. And if I'm willing to do it, surely a player like Daniel - who is not only better than I am, but much better at loose, aggressive poker - must want to avoid a "crapshoot" at the end.
Steve "Zee" Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he spends Thursday afternoons and Friday nights at his bar Doc Holliday's on Avenue A and 9th Street in New York City, where the lovely Joanna will pour drinks and talk poker, if it is not too busy.
