Nice Multi Win

Still alive, still grinding away...

After a few bankroll decimations -- the good kind I suppose -- to pay for various things in my life since my last long-ago update here, I'm back hitting the online tables with regularity. Micro limits... bankroll building...

Despite a growing FTP balance which I should be using to take more shots at satellites, I generally avoid tournaments most of the time. As a poker player, you work hard (and often to little effect) to maintain some kind of sanity and emotional balance... and well, I probably don't have to tell you how a string of time-sucking tournaments that end in bad beats or coolers can upset that balance. But still, I don't think I've ever been in a MTT online where I wasn't in awe of the amount of dead money. (I did satellite into the Sunday Million once a few months ago with FTPs and didn't cash.)

So Full Tilt has added these new "Knockout" tourneys, where most of the buy-in goes into a traditional prize pool, with some reserved for each player: Knock someone out, and you win their bounty. Tonight I finished in first place in a 90 player, $3+.30, winning $72, and KOing 10 players for an extra $5 (.50 a-piece).

My play was good, and I ran good. I busted 5 of the 9 players at the final table, all desperate short stacks, and overcame a 2:1 deficit heads-up in a several level battle. Now, I can't really comment on the effect of the bounties on how people play... I didn't observe any situations where .50 is going to influence your decisions, but perhaps less-rational players might. What those little bonuses do accomplish is to help offset the buy-in of the tournament, even if you don't cash. At the above noted structure, busting as few as 3 other players is going to get you nearly half of the total buy-in back. In effect, the bounties "flatten" out the prize structure- typically in a 90 player tourney, 9 players will cash (10%), where in a knockout tournament I'd guess somewhere around 25-40% will get at least something back for their efforts. Take a horrible beat on the bubble, and chances are you may still have made money or broken even.

Of course, if you bust out early yourself, you probably still are down the whole buy-in, but in general playing knockout tournaments vs traditional tournaments should lower your bankroll fluctuations, and help offset some amount of variance.

Good luck out there.