The naked truth

Tonight, I won't be entering a tournament. I won't be entering one tomorrow night, either. In fact, I will never again enter a tournament with the intention of making a long term profit. I'll only enter them for fun and entertainment. What happened to cause this violent shift in my attitude towards tournaments? It's simple. I ran the numbers, and numbers don't lie. Here's the naked truth:

- I've played 605 sit and gos in my poker career
- I've placed first 108 times, and second 118 times
- what I call the "old $50,000" tournament structure was this: buy in: $50,000,  entry fee: $800, first place prize: $195,000, second place prize: $105,000
- what I call the "new $50,000" tournament structure is this: buy in: $45,000, entry fee: $5,000, first place prize: $175,500, second place prize: $94,500
- if I had played all my tournaments under the "old $50,000" tournament structure, I would have made a profit of $2,716,000
- if I had played all my tournaments under the "new $50,000" tournament structure, I would have had a loss of $145,000

The conclusion is simple. There's no business model for me to play under the new structure. I simply can't make any money doing so; the best I can do is break even. That just won't cut it. If PokerStars ever reverts to their original structure, I'll be back to tournaments in a big way. Something tells me, though, that that's quite unlikely. It's back to cash games for me.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        28     5        0
 45000      5000           6         9     5        0
 45000      5000           6        49     1   175500
 45000      5000           6         1     6        0
 45000      5000           6        10     3        0
 45000      5000           6        38     2    94500

delta: $-30,000
tournament balance: $1,868,840
balance: $8,751,539