As you will have probably heard by now, there's a slight variation to the planned schedule for the remainder of this European Poker Tour main event. Under normal circumstances, the EPT has a last table of eight players and the penultimate day finishes when player number nine is knocked out.
But here in Prague this week, in a bid to finish a sequence of extraordinarily long final days, the action goes to continue until the tip of level 29 -- unless we get all the way down to six players first. It implies that lets come again tomorrow and start the one final day with fewer than eight players that the EPT has ever seen.
I suspect that that will be not up to ideal for some armchair EPT fans, for whom an extended day and night watching the action progress offers a day-off-worthy distraction. However it is a blessed relief for anybody who sat within the tournament rooms of Prague in 2013, then the PCA, Monaco Grand Final and Barcelona events this year, as today ticked into tomorrow after which the sun came up.
According to everybody who has watched some of them, the important thing factors in determining the length of a last table are as follows: choice of big blinds in play, standard of player and duration of the heads up passage of play. It's all but impossible to persuade the latter two factors: less experienced players often get to the overall table and will decelerate action, while additionally it is often the case that a heads-up battle can go ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong for hours and hours or end.
However that first factor can be influenced -- even without deviating from the established, pre-published structure. do it's to increase the times within the lead as much as the final, in order that the general starts in a later blind level and there are fewer big blinds in play.
Here's the normal EPT main event schedule:
Day 1: Eight 75-minute levelsDay 2: Six 75-minute levels (end level 14)Day 3: Five 90-minute levels (end level 19)Day 4: Five 90-minute levels (or right down to 16 players) (end level 24)Day 5: All the way down to a last table of eightDay 6: Final table
I decided this afternoon to take a look back at those epic tournaments to look if there has been any particular reason they went on goodbye. I gave the impression to understand that along with the monstrous final day, those tournaments shared something else in common: an overly short Day 5. Will today's decision to play five levels regardless give us a more manageable day tomorrow?
Prague, Season 10Total players: 1,007Total chips in play: 30.21 million
End of Day 4: Level 24 (22 players; 1.37 million average; 57 BBs)End of Day 5: Level 26 (8 players; 3.78 million average; 94 BBs)Final table ended: Level 33
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PCA, Season 10Total players: 1,031Chips in play: 30.93 million
End of Day 4: Level 24 (20 players; 1.55 million average; 64 BBs)End of Day 5: Level 26 (8 players; 3.87 million average; 96 BBs)Final table ended: Level 34
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Grand Final, Season 10Total players: 650Chips in play: 19.5 million
Day 4 ended: Level 24 (17 players; 1.15 million average; 47 BBs)Day 5 ended: Level 27 (8 players; 2.44 million average; 49 BBs)Final table ended: Level 35
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Barcelona, Season 11Total players: 1,496Chips in play: 44.88 million
Day 4 ended: Level 25 (25 players; 1.79 million average; 44 BBs)Day 5 ended: Level 32 (8 players; 5.61 million; 35 BBs)Final table ended: Level 41
Tomorrow's final table at EPT11 Prague will, if things visit plan for the remainder of today, start in level 30. And so, if we emulate the tournament here in Prague last year, shall we have a three-level final table.
However, just check out the Barcelona main event. That one went into level 41, which might still leave us an 11-level final table tomorrow. If memory serves, the tournament officials shortened the degrees towards the top of the day, but that also represents an absolute monster.
At the time the last hand was dealt, the blinds in Barcelona were 600,000-1,200,000, the largest they have got ever been at the tour. It meant there have been 38 big blinds in play. If the overall hand is dealt in Prague this week when there are 38 big blinds in play, we we be in level 39! Holy moly.
Full coverage of the principle event is at the main event page. Action from the high roller is at the High Roller page.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: European Poker Tour]
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