Bally's 11am Tournament is worth playing

I just returned and wanted to let LVMB members know of a good tournament deal. Bally's 11am now offers a $2,500 guarantee tournament and the day I played it only had 16-18 players. Top 3 places were paid, and when it got to 6-handed we chopped for $416. Except for one player, all stacks were average size, but at this blind level even the big stack was "short stacked" as he had about 1/3 more chips than the next closest player.

It was a weak structure, but +EV. $100 buy-in, $5k starting stacks and, as I recall, the blinds double every 15 minutes (perhaps 20?). Toward the end it becomes push-and-pray.

The guy next to me and I got some beats put on us early, but somehow we both hit an AI (I sucked out for once!) so we both cashed.

Nice players, nice dealers & mgmt.

 

Thanks for the info! My husband took note of this and will probably play in this one while we are there!

 

Thanks for the info, was looking for a few tourneys to play in while down there.

 

Bally's Tournament

I played that tournament a couple of weeks ago and as soon as the blinds hit 400-800 it became a pushfest.
I got knocked out when my pocket Kings got beat by pocket 6's when he hit a 6 on the river for over 7,000 in chips and I pushed it all in pre-flop.
On the day that I played, they had 2 full tables and 6 people on a waiting list (alternates) and every time somebody got knocked out, an alternate would take the seat.
At my table, we had one alternate sit down, go all in on his first hand and get up and leave and this kind of seemed like the style of play for most of the alternates.
I am sure that the end result of the tournament affects the outlook of the individual player.
On this day, the entire tournament lasted less than 2 hours.
With the existing structure, it is not a tournament that I would play again.

 

yea sounds like a tournament that is good if you dont mind a coin flip at the end. it is quite annoying when you play top notch for 90 minutes and then blinds get so high you see an all in preflop every hand and have to get lucky to win. annoying, but thats the life of a $100 buyin with no money making for the casino... they are banking on you continuing to play in the other rooms or hitting the tables or slots after you drop $100 to try to win more.

 

Actually, the casino does make money on tournaments. Of that $100 buy-in, $75 will go to the prize pool, and $25 will go in the casino's pocket. If the prize pool is not large enough to cover the guarantee, the difference is made up from the jackpot rake at $1 per hand in the cash games. This jackpot money can't go in the casino's pocket. It has to be distributed back in player promotions.

 

Interesting. I didn't know that.

 

Sounds like a weird way to go about it.

 

Gaming commission regulations.

 

PH is offering a similar promo

$2K guarantee, but the buy-in is a bit less.
I played a few this summer but realized the rotten structure was killing me. Both offer a decent starting stack & 20 min blinds BUT the blinds start at 100/200, so it is similar to walking in 40 min. late in a tourney that starts at 25/50.
Not for me anymore.

 

Im going to try this tourney, and just realize it's more like a slot machine than poker