KO is OK

Recently, PokerStars added a "KO Poker" tab to their main lobby. Last night, I decided to give this poker style a try. KO, as you might expect, stands for knockout. The twist in this flavor is that only half your buy in goes towards the place payouts; the other half is your bounty. Every time you knock another player out, you win their bounty. If you get knocked out, the player who did it wins your bounty. If you win the tournament, you get your bounty back; there's no such thing as knocking yourself out :-)

Already, after only a short acquaintance with KOs, I like them a lot. The bounties help smooth out the variance of the results. They allow you to fail to make the place money but still win back a portion of your buy in. There are probably a lot of players trying KOs for the first time, so I expect to find a lot of fish out there, at least to start with. I'll make hay while the sun shines :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT   8-Game   4350   650       6     3      67   18    51        0
KO    NLHE     1056   144       9    56       9    3     2     2481
KO    NLHE     2640   360       9    57       9    3     1     8580
KO    NLHE    17600  2400       9    22       9    3     4     8800
KO    NLHE    52800  7200       9    38       9    3     3    73900
KO    NLHE    52800  7200       9     4       9    3     7        0
KO    NLHE    52800  7200       9    14       9    3     4        0
KO    NLHE    52800  7200       9    36       9    3     1   184900

delta: $9,461
KO no limit hold'em balance: $14,461
balance: $11,939,145