What is the ideal poker tournament payout?

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What is the ideal poker tournament payout to you?

One with a few places paid with a higher minimum cash and substantial pay jumps? Or more places paid with the consequence of lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps?

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Thanks to @CRStals for this topic idea.
 
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I prefer more places paid with the consequence of lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps. More players getting something for their efforts is more fun. 🙂 10-15% places paid is ideal.
 
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It should have some correlation with the player pool. Having 3000 players and only 30 places paid would be hard to achieve though. But top heavy is good. Having a min-cash and maybe only doubling one's buy-in makes very little sense to me.
 
I personally prefer a significant reward if I happen to go deep in a tourney. It makes no sense to waste hours and hours of play just to get one's buy-in back.
 
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I prefer cash games and hate the variance of MTTs, especially with "top-heavy" structures.

So, I prefer more places paid with the consequence of lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps.

Smoother, smaller pay jumps throughout the bubble and deep into the money allow players to avoid massive variance swings.

It keeps play more strategic and less reliant on flip-heavy situations.

In the long run the smaller payouts adds up for the better players.

If you have a super top heavy structure any idiot can win once and live on that winnings for a very long time.

Just look at some of the wsop main event winners.
 
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Top 5 in Replay is really hard to achieve, a FT place should be honoured,
so best 10 percent paid out is a minimum in my opinion
 
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Martin said:
What is the ideal poker tournament payout to you?

One with a few places paid with a higher minimum cash and substantial pay jumps? Or more places paid with the consequence of lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps?

a9d5c9373f47e361f9d041cda0f6ec11.jpg

​
Thanks to @CRStals for this topic idea.
Click to expand...
I prefer tournaments with more prizes, even though the payouts are smaller. I prefer this structure of prize pool distribution because I often have a positive result in such tournaments. For me, any positive result is an ITM.
 
I would definitely go for more places paid with a lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps. I'm not a big gambler and i prefer games like that in general.

That's why I always liked sit and goes. Because some of them pay out like 30 %.
 
I also would definitely go for more places paid with a lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps because it reduces variance.
 
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More places paid with the consequence of lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps?
In the previous Pokerstars Cardschat freerolls if you win a dollar a day you are looking at $365 a year.

With 5 places at replay, fewer people actually win dollars after making the FT. Missing out on a payout can be frustrating.
Most people I know lose more than that $365 per year. So having a few places paid with a higher minimum cash and substantial pay jumps, actually i dis-incentivises many people and leads to less tournament participants. Nine places would help restore the incentive to play.

I had one friend who won a enough for a poker holiday at a casino, which he and his wife had a great time.
Over the next 3 years he lost double that amount and gave up poker. This guy was a good player.

I think small incremental wins are far more easier on the mind and the wallet.
We all wish we can win big and how many of us achieve that outcome?
 
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Instead of the top 3 being so top heavy, I would like to see the money being spread more evenly at the final table with smaller pay jumps. For example, if there was $100,000 prize money for the final table, I would like to see it spread out something like this (example used is for a $250 buy in daily deepstack type tournament):
1st   21000
2nd   16000
3rd   13000
4th   11000
5th   9500
6th   8000
7th   6500
8th   5500
9th   5000
10th  4500
 
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I used to really like the bodog turbo beginners, that payed 4 of 10.

They did not take very long and the villan's implosion factor was high.
 
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I think the second option would be better. I prefer there to be more paid places, with the consequence of a lower minimum cash and smaller payment jumps, that way more will enter into prizes and thus reward the players for their efforts.
 
I like the second option, considering my level of player. I look for cheaper tournaments, and this way I have more chances of getting into the prize pool, by playing in cheaper tournaments.
 
Of course, I would choose a tournament with more paid seats. That way, I would at least have a better chance of recouping my buy-in.
 
I dont care to much about the payout structure. But a top heavy structure increase variance, which people should take into account, if they want to follow some kind of bankroll management scheme.
 
Martin said:
What is the ideal poker tournament payout to you?

One with a few places paid with a higher minimum cash and substantial pay jumps? Or more places paid with the consequence of lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps?

a9d5c9373f47e361f9d041cda0f6ec11.jpg

​
Thanks to @CRStals for this topic idea.
Click to expand...
I'll go with more places paid and smaller pay jumps. When I'm looking for a tournament that I want to play I'm always searching for tournaments that have more paying positions (with more starting chips and slow blind structure). To be honest, these days in micro or lower buy-ins these are much harder to find.
 
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So my 5 cents here:
The price structure should have a minimum cash that brings buy in back, how this is achieved is another question.
If this is made by a more flattened pay out structure with not so big pay outs at the final table or another method of making the laddering nicer.
So for me, it should be more places paid with a min cash that gives buy in back, the steps on the ladder are smaller.
 
I would prefer is less places where paid in a tournament to make the payouts for going deep/cashing more substantial.

I would like min cash in a tournament to be around 2.5× to 3× the buy in for that event/tournament.
 
Martin said:
What is the ideal poker tournament payout to you?

One with a few places paid with a higher minimum cash and substantial pay jumps? Or more places paid with the consequence of lower minimum cash and smaller pay jumps?

a9d5c9373f47e361f9d041cda0f6ec11.jpg

​
Thanks to @CRStals for this topic idea.
Click to expand...
15-20% of prize places from the total number of participants.
 
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Only ideal scenario is me ending in ITM-places.

So yeah it probably isn't much difference (for me) whether there are 1,5,10 or 20+ paid prizes as long as i get something from such tournament(s) 🤔
 
Pokerstars a while ago made it their goal to spread out payouts, so more players are "in the money", but I don't like this move. When you play for several hours, only to get your buy-in back? And payjumps are not that significant on PS either. I think in other rooms situation is at least a bit, but better. So all of this made me come to the conclusion that I like ITM to be something truly valuable, hence the lowest prize should be at least 4x bigger than the buy-in. And payjumps should be also significant, so I'd like to have rather smaller number of payed prizes, than a bit of crumbs for everyone who played 2.5 -3.5 hours. Obviously, I'm talking about online poker.
 
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