Report from the Bally's(LV) tournament this past weekend... 20k first place 740 invited players from Bally's,Flamingo, Harrahs, Paris, and Rio Free entry, free rooms, $50 food vouchers, free t-shirt. 1 player advance each round. $250 rebuy first round Although this was a Bally's event, it was actually played in a pit at the Paris next door. This was the first time I played at Bally's in a number of years. The dealers and pit critters were the friendliness I have seen recently anywhere in Vegas.
WOW!!! 740 players for a prize pool of $40,000. I remember back in Jan., 2006, Bally's had a $30,000 tournament that only drew around 100 players. It was a disaster from Harrah's point of view but great from the player's point of view. Anyway, let's figure this out. 740 players for a prize pool of $40,000 gives each seat a value of $54 ($40,000 / 740). But they were charging $250 for a rebuy . This type of tournament is OK if you happen to be in LV anyway or a cheap weekend trip to LV with free hotel and a nearly free steak dinner. The main thing is that you seem to have had a good time and that's what's important. Don't get me wrong. I, too, have attended events like this and have had a good time with no regrets. The only point I'm trying to make is that the tournament entry was only worth $54.
Bally's Hey Tooolguy... Well, your arithmetic is perfect. $40,000/740 is in fact $54.00 Lets look at it a different way... To win a share of $40,000 one would have to beat 13 other players; 5 in round 1, and 4 in rounds two and three. The cost....zero, nadda, nothing. (actually truely zero, cuz I used a free round trip ticket from Southwest.) From my perspective, this appears to be a much better deal than most of the events regularly promoted in this forum. My point is...there seems to be a bias against invitational casino tournaments by senior members of this site. I'm not sure why. Maybe you or someone else could explaim this to me.
invitational tournaments Fred I don't care about invitationals because I'm not enough of a high roller to get invited. I don't care if casinos offer them but I am only interested in tournaments that are open to everyone. I try to avoid going into such casions. If they don't want my entree fee then they don't get any of my money. tgun
Fredguy, I'm not sure I can explain the problem with "invitationals" as well as others on this site that have a much better command of the English language than I but I'll give it a shot. Invitationals have been around for a while but it's only in last few years that the trend has accelerated. Tournaments were held as "open" for the most part to attract players to the sponsoring casinos. But a lot of the tournament players went for the tournament without giving the casino any side action. This made the tournament unprofitable for the casino and thus the "invitational" evolved. Now more and more casinos use tournaments as a comp for the players that have a sufficient record of play or as a way to get probable new potential higher rollers into the casino. Now that's all fine and dandy but the end result, from a player prospective, is less choices of tournaments to play in. And that's why many hate invitationals. Now that being said, do I play invitationals? You bet your bippie I do and so do most on this site. It can be a great comp. However, I'd rather have "open" tournaments to increase my choices. Besides, in many cases but not all, the value of the "comped tournament" is minimal. Case in point - the Bally's tournament you mentioned. The comped entry is only worth $54. As for the free rooms and $50 food voucher, I get offers like that all the time so that's nothing special. So if they tack on a tournament entry worth $54, well they are not really giving me that much more. Now maybe someone else can jump in with their thoughts.
Played in it. Awful format and awful EV based on the number of players. The rebuys were the real racket in this whole thing. Wouldn't even consider a rebuy especially in a one advance table format. The $54 value pretty much covered my gas. As was stated, if you are a local or can get to Vegas for nearly nothing, then it's not a bad way to waste a couple hours, but definitely not worth it otherwise.
Bally's Tourney Played in it....enjoyed it.....made the semi's....would do it all again! Friendly staff, friendly dealers. Getting there wasn't a problem as we were in Vegas for the MM tourney anyway! le
To Counselorlee See my post on the Hilton MM tourney. If that is the MM tourney you are referring to, your EV was higher at Ballys.
Total Prize Pool Was the prize pool increased at all with this number of participants? Were round advances/table winners paid anything? What number of participants was the original prize schedule based on (usually stated on the printed invitation if somebody still has one)? Chips
Tinker, The Millionaire Maker Counselorlee was referring to was the one held at Caesars Palace, not the LV Hilton qualifier. chipsmccoy, Two questions you raised are from information on the invite to the Bally's tournament: 1) Prize pool is "based on 400 participants or more". 2) 1st through 6th place prize money total $40,000 - which is the advertised prize pool. So it doesn't look like round advances/table winners were paid anything. The question I cannot answer is "Was the prize pool increased at all with this number of participants?". Observation: As for the number of players at the Bally's tournament, I'm still having a hard time believing they attracted 740 players. To quote from a post by Fredguy - "To win a share of $40,000 one would have to beat 13 other players; 5 in round 1, and 4 in rounds two and three". If that statement is true, through the process of deduction, you cannot end up with 6 players at the final table when starting with 740 players. So something is not right. Can someone jump in here to verify the 740 number or how the table advancement was handled?
Actually, the described rounds can work for a large field of the size described. Assume the format is 1/6, 1/5, 1/5, finals of 6. If this format were full, it would accomodate 6 * 5 * 5 * 6 = 900 players.
Bally's Tourney Can't be certain of the numbers, but....I feel relatively certain there were no more than 450 players.....don't pin me down. Sorry I didn't keep a running count. Pay-out was as advertised...1st, 20K; 2nd, 10K; 3rd, 5K; 4th, 2.5K; 5th, 1.5K; 6th, 1K. le
I stand corrected. I missed the post that said 1 advance per round. I thought it was 2 advance for the 2nd and 3rd rounds.
