Summer Seniors
For those old guys on here (are you paying attention Comp?) the Venetian has posted their Deep Stacks III schedule (http://www.venetian.com/content/dam/lasvegas/venetian/master/main/home/casino/DSE_III_2016-Schedule.pdf). They have a $600 buy in Seniors tourney running June 14th - 16th. June 14th & 15th are days 1A and 1B with day 2 running on the 16th. This tourney is conveniently scheduled to run just before the WSOP Seniors, which starts on the 17th. Flights, car and hotel are booked. :-)
Comments
The problem for me is that I will be playing the new WSOP Tag Team Event (thru satellite) with a pro friend, but it won't be until July 6-8, so I don't want to stay > 23 consecutive days in Lost Wages. DirtArse & I will be playing WSOP Event 27 on June 17. After the HPO Season 4 Championship Event on June 24 (you can win a voucher thru Rama), there will probably be another Seniors Event at M Resort.
Do you know the dates for other Seniors Events? I'm hoping all the other Seniors Events will be after June 17, so we can skip Sheldon Adelson's evil tournaments.
As of today only three casinos have released their schedules - Rio (WSOP), Venetian (DeepStack III) and Golden Nugget (Grand Poker Series). The Seniors tournaments for those three are all pretty close together:
Venetian - June 14 (Day 1A), June 15 (Day 1B) and June 16 (Day 2); $600 buy-in
WSOP - June 17-19; $1000 buy-in
Golden Nugget - June 18 (1 day tournament); $240 + $10 buy-in
Unlike some, I'm not opposed to playing at the V despite the evil Adelsen. I find their tournaments to be among the best that I've played. The structures are usually as good or better than most. Not only do I play there, I usually stay there (at least when my wife is with me). 😜
FYI, I'm planning to play the WSOP Seniors as well. Maybe we can meet up before or during.
I'll try to play at Golden Nugget on June 18, 25 & 27. If I win the satellite, I get to play in my 1st ever "Super High Roller." If the Tag Team format will be similar to the WSOP one I'll be playing, then I'll play it as practice with a different teammate.
I'll be at the Venetian. I'm planning on playing most of the Senior tournaments the week of the 13th, beginning with the Wynn. I'll be playing the Senior at the V, WSOP and possibly PH. Registration for the Wynn lasts until the beginning of level 6 so you should be ok as long as you get there before 3:30 pm or so.
It seems that EDC and Seniors week coincide every year. It was on last year during my stay as well. Saw lots of interesting young folks - brought back memories of my wild and crazy days.
EDC is very popular with many of the young poker pros, willing to pay for the mandatory three-day pass. Anybody recognize the players below, besides Liv Boeree and Jonathan Duhamel?
Thanks. I have it on my list of possibles. All depends on how I make out in the Venetian senior. If I make day two of the V's then I won't be able to make the Aria. Otherwise I'll probably play the Aria.
Patience Factor is more than good enough for non-pros who want to get a lot of play for their money, without necessarily looking for the slowest structure IF they make it to Level 18 or 14. S-Points seems to ignore the first five levels, which makes it inaccurate after the huge changes in the WSOP blind structures this year.
I warn my friends about the Rio Daily "Deepstacks" :bs: and all our metrics confirm that it is terrible, including your lowest rating of only 17 for "(1-Vig%) x S-Points."
Note that I've shown staff fees (where they are disclosed) separately. Being the cheap bastard that I am this will certainly factor into any potential tips that I might give should I cash (although the 30% "tip" that Uncle Sam takes for "big" wins will certainly be a bigger factor in my tipping).
x (1-Vig%)" = 71.37. I would much rather play M Resort's $480+75, Aria's $385+$65 and GN's $300+$60 than the hard-to-beat 20% rake of Binion's and GN.
If I decide to use S-Points for all my future tournaments, I would personally use a multiplier for both Patience Factor and Rake in your final column, e.g., (3 * PF + S-points) * [2 * (1-Vig%)], but your extra columns are more than good enough to post on the 2+2 thread as they are better indicators than just S-points.
A friend who "threw everything away and went pro" rarely played in the tax-free WPT Canada events but kept playing in the Daily Deepstacks & other 30%-taxed open MTTs every summer. Hopefully, he will finally make better game selection when I show him your spreadsheet.
I almost always tip before I leave a profitable series, including a first place win in Las Vegas when there was no withholding, but after last summer's >$4,000 30% deduction, I did not give any more.
Just to be clear, are you saying you would weight PF by a factor of 3? I was wondering about trying to weight one factor over the other but I wasn't sure which factor should count more, PF or SPoints. I'll play around with your suggestion and see what it looks like.
By the way, have you done the calculations for the highest buy-in $300+$65 Daily Deepstacks, at least to confirm that the 17.8%-raked MTT with only 20-minute levels is not much better than the other DDS?
I've attached an update of my file. I've ranked the tournaments based on your weighted formula (last column) and separated the Seniors tournaments from the other tournaments that I'm interested in during my stay. Some comments on the results:
1. Wynn has the top-ranked Senior. The WSOP Senior, despite its low PF, still ranks second. I guess that's an indication of the better "play" in the latter part of the tournament. The Venetian is a close third and Planet Hollywood is fourth. Overall it looks like most of the senior tournaments are reasonable to good value.
2. Of the other tournaments, I think it's safe to say that Planet Hollywood has pretty good structures and the Venetian's are also good. Despite it's high vig%, Binion's daily $10K guaranteed is also reasonable value.
3. At the other end of the spectrum, the Rio's dailies and turbos at PH and V probably should be avoided unless you need a quick fix.
It's interesting that four of the worst six tournaments in your list are the Rio Daily Deepstacks. You won't be playing any cash games or tax-free satellites?
Here's the BlondeFish-approved version.
Don't plan on playing any satellites but I may play some cash games at the V. My preference for cash games is actually limit. I cut my teeth in live poker playing 4-8 at Bellagio and then moved up to 8-16 as my game of choice. I played 15-30 limit at Bellagio and 10-20 limit at Mirage a few years ago but I haven't played either lately. I've played a bit of 4-8 with a half kill and 8-16 when it's spread at the V the last few years to pass time but devote most of my time to NLHE tournaments now (best way to control my spending and have a chance to make the odd decent score). I'm strictly an amateur and I generally only play live poker when I'm in Vegas (once or twice a year, if I'm lucky maybe a third trip late in the year). I avoid NL cash games - I find the kids too wild and crazy to really enjoy them.
I have contacted him and if he doesn't correct this, avoid this and any other $520+$80 PH tournament that has already the highest rake of 13.3% for a $600 buy-in.
Updated my data once more. PH Seniors now ranks fifth, behind the GN. Anything else change (I looked at a few other PH structures and they seem to be unchanged)?
Did you also use 15,000 starting chips for the Golden Nugget Seniors Events? GN's structures file now shows only 10K, so I don't know if I've already gone senile or the casinos are perpetrating elder abuse. :wink2: