STEPs question, any thoughts?

[raptor517]

ok, i just found out about the steps tournaments all of 3 minutes ago. I was thinking, if a player started on level one, and worked his way up to level five, coulde he settle for the $1065 and not play in the tournament? this would cost party nothing. i was just wondering if it works like this at all, because if it does, then that would be an INCREDIBLE way to make money. any thoughts please post.

[tigerite]

No, you cannot.

[mikeyp]

Tiger is right, you cannot. I currently have a freeroll to lvl 5 and wish that I could run with the money. But I guess party gives freerolls to the next level instead of cash because it gives them more rake.

*And technically this is a MTT*

[David04]

Do you have to do all tournaments consecutively? Or can you win get a freeroll into a level, and then come back the next day and play the tournament? Or do you have to play until you win or bust out?

[FourKing Hell]

I don't usually even read this forum, but the STEPS tournament got my attention and I decided to do some math on it. My hypothesis was that it was a bad bet, and it got confirmed.

[ QUOTE ]
, then that would be an INCREDIBLE way to make money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why? I'm not entirely familiar with Party's SnG payout structures, but I did the math on this one. You need as much 'luck' to work your way up to the $500+35 stage as you would doing it yourself, i.e. playing a SnG, using your winnings to finance a higher-stakes Sng, etc.

In fact, due to the 'retries' and 'loopbacks' offered, EV for each stage is lower than would be expected from a regular SnG, because a 'retry' or 'loopback' uses prize money to re-enter you AND PAY FOR THE RAKE. That is, if you place in the retry-spot, you'll win, say, $215 but you have to use that to enter an event where your equity is only $200. In fact, it's even less than that - because of the presence of those retries/loopbacks.

I made a spreadsheet in Excel and enabled the iterating calculation function, and these were my numbers assuming an equal chance to finish in each spot:

STEP 1 EV: $ 7.88
STEP 2 EV: $ 39.40
STEP 3 EV: $169.79
STEP 4 EV: $462.11
STEP 5 EV: $1K (No loopbacks/retries in the final stage)

There's something else I have against tournaments: you're basically forced to risk more money than you would otherwise if you were given the choice. Without even taking the extra rake in account, if you have, say, a $1000 bankroll for $10 SnGs and someone gave you another $1000, would you risk it all in a single $1000 SnG?

Enter the steps tournaments and you're placing yourself in a position where you'd have to be very lucky to get that $1000 in the first place, and THEN risk losing it all. You probably WILL lose it all, because in the end, Level 5 is just another SnG - with a $1K buyin. The sharks will be waiting...