A phantom rung

The number of paid places in MTT-R NLHEs on PokerStars is based on one thing, and one thing only - the number of entries. That's just as it should be. No matter how many times a player rebuys, for payout calculation purposes he or she counts as a single entry. This is why the payouts in MTT-R NLHEs can grow to be so huge, which in turn is a huge part of their appeal :-)

PokerStars limits the paid places in MTTR-R NLHEs to somewhere in the range of 20 to 24 percent of the number of entries. Here's a breakout of the counts of the number of paid places in the tournaments I've played to date:

paid  count

   5      1
   6      1
   7      4
   8      5
   9     17
  12    216
  15    350
  18    150
  27     35

Whenever at least 12 players are paid, places 10-12 all receive the same payout. Similarly, whenever at least 15 payers are paid, places 13-15 all receive the same payout. And so on. Last night, I came in 18th, but the tournament only paid 15 places. So I landed on a phantom rung of the payout ladder :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    81      68   15    18        0

delta: $-100,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $38,380,500
2019 balance: $4,376,750
balance: $50,961,010