Tournament "In the Money" Calculation

[Sully]

Any of you statistics-types ever figured a formula for this?

I was playing in a multi-table qualifier the other day, and the first 22 spots all recevied a free roll into a bigger tourney. Since there was no money involved, there was no difference between placing first and 22nd.

I am wondering if any of you have figured out a general formula to determine when you can begin to just fold your way into the prize pool. I would assume the formula would have to take into account total tournament chips in play, current / future amount of blinds, total players left, etc...

Any thoughts? Probably not an exact science, but it would be very useful if you were half an hour away from a spot in the big one, and could figure your odds of folding your way in at little risk....

Thanks -

[SossMan]

It's a pretty dynamic calculation....there are many, many factors to consider...blinds, when they increase, how fast is the table playing, how many short stacks are out there, how short are the short stacks, obviouly, how many chips do you have, what is your table image, how many short stacks are actually at your table (that you can feed off of for a while)....

[Sully]

I agree that it would be a very dynamic calculation, but knowing some of the minds around here, I feel like it could be reduced to some sort of general formula that could be used as a guideline....similar to the "risk of ruin" calculations for bank roll.

Also, some assumptions would have to be made, such as assuming that all tables play the same amount of hands, etc.

[eMarkM]

Well, first approximate how many chips, on average, you will need to be one of the finalists. This is your target stack. So, 100 entrants starting with 1000 chips and 5 get the "big prize". Your target stack would be 100*1000/5 or T20000. From there you need to figure how many blinds you'll pay between now and when the 6th guy is eliminated or how much "padding" you need to still maintain that average when it gets down to 5. That's the more dynamic part you need to figure. The more you're above that target threshold the more I would avoid confrontation with similar sized stacks. In practice, you should have a good feel for when you can start folding Aces as it will be fairly close to the bubble by then.