Flat Payout in the Main Event is A Good Thing

[sammysusar]

Im not opposed to having a massively top heavy structure in most tourneys but in a field with 5600 the flat payout is so much better. Making the top 50 in such a large field is a very strong accomplishment and needs to be rewarded. Would be ridiculous not to give a sizable payout to them.

[SoftcoreRevolt]

Completely agree, anyone but the best professionals not liking a flatter payout is very silly. Flatter payout gives everyone a more realistic chance at a good payday and keeps most of the money in the poker economy, a side I hadn't considered before, and I am glad it was posted in the other thread.

I also completely agree, I think proffesionals and realistic amateurs like this.

For the bread and butter poker player it gives them a good chance at a decent cash in a field where they have to deal with a great # of donkeys and for the amateur some nice $$ for a good run off of a 40, 100 , 200 whatever $ quali.

This can only be good for poker. The days of top heavy payouts won't come to an end soon. Hopefully, once the boom levels out, there will be flatter payouts with a factor of prestige to certain tourneys like WSOP and the Bellagio 25k . Comparble to the Grand Slams in Tennis for example. Well...that would be the ideal of the way it would be for me anyway. I don't care about seeing instant millionares and the level of play would increase at flatter payouts.

Betty

[PokerPaul]

i think ine of the big reasons the pros dont like the flatter payouts is if they finish in the money, its not worth it for them to just get their money back plus a small amount, since they liekly put up the full buyin.

online and sattelite qualifiers however only put up whatever their sattelite buyin level was so anywhere from $40 to maybe $500 at the most, so finishing in the money and scoring $10000 is a big windfall.

[Sean D]

I agree flatter payouts are a good thing. The main reason for the top-heavy payout structures is probably just a marketing thing for the event organizers. If they can say "so-and so won 1 million dollars for first place," they may be able to attract more players looking to hit it big the next year. Even in this years series, it was quite a stretch to guarantee the final table at least a million dollars. Payouts were gradual, then 10-12 got 600,000 , then 9th place jumped up to 1M, then it flattened back off pretty enormously. I guess it means something to the organizers to say "The whole final table this year is guaranteed to be a millionare."

[Vincent Lepore]

If you play tournaments for profit then the flat payout scheme is what you want. If you are striclty a cash game poker player the top heavy huge first prize structure is what you want to see. The advertisement value that brings new players to poker is much greater in huge payout tournaments. I've heard cash pro's complain that all of that tournament money leaves the poker community because of the huges payout. they complain that the single winner is not likely to put the money back into poker. There is some truth in that but the advertisement that comes from huge payouts is worth it.

Vince

[AleoMagus]

I just posted this in granny's thread, but I'm gonna copy it here too....

Why are people so insistent on the claim that the payout was flatter? They still paid 10% of the field, and that still escalated to the top finishing prize. It only seems flatter because the winner made a smaller amount than the previous winners in terms of his % of the prize pool. That seems important, but it is really secondary to whether or not the same % of the field made the same % of the prize pool. This has to be looked at on a percentile basis, not on an individual finishing position basis.

After all, what does it matter that you finished xth place if you are not taking into account the number of entrants? Just making the final table this year was the equivalent of winning a 560 person tourney (in terms of % of field that gets this far) and you would suggest that in the 560 man tourney we should pay the first place finisher (say) 30% and yet do the same thing in the 5600 person tourney?!

In truth, we should be willing to pay the final table 30%, not the winner, and this is essentially what happened.

If you were to look at it as a graph of what % of the field recieved what % of the prize pool, it's not that much different this year as any other year. Well, not so different as many are suggesting anyways.

In other words, I don't think that there is an issue of the payout being flatter. Sounds to me like what is really going on is that some people would prefer it was sharper.

Regards
Brad S