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Unlimited Re-Entry in Tournaments Needs To Be Curbed
The Freeze Out
‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.’ Down the years, this well-known saying has become a tired cliché about the virtue of persistence. While apathy or idleness might, and I stress, might be ignoble traits, knowing when to quit is no bad thing.
A lot of poker players don’t know when to quit. We are, on the whole, a sanguine sub-species with an abundance of optimism that makes us less likely to walk away from the table. So long as we still have money in our pockets, the sunk cost fallacy will make some of us chase our losses while the feeling of ‘dueness’ will corrupt the logical faculties of others.
When the freeze out poker tournament was invented, that choice was taken out of the poker player’s hands, at least in the context of that game.
“Seat open!”, “On your bike!”, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
There was a purity to the freezeout. There was an equality to it. It further sportified poker that little more. A champion would be crowned who outlasted all others on an even playing field.
The Re-Entry Is Born
The problem with freezeouts is that they can hurt the aspect of poker that is social. For many recreational players, a poker night needs to be just that in order to be fit for purpose. It needs to be a night of playing cards, not an hour, or even less. Traveling to a venue only to take a bad beat or get coolered in level one leaves a bad taste in a player’s mouth. Of course, the more grizzled among us accept early bust-outs as part and parcel of the game, but it’s a discouraging thing for a newcomer and not exactly a great experience for anyone.
Poker trips can be expensive and are more justifiable for players who can increase their total cost of buy-ins. Live poker is also, in some sense, competing with online poker, where new tournaments are popping off every few minutes. It is therefore understandable that organizers would try to figure out a way to get players back in action.
The re-entry tournament was born, allowing unlucky players and those whose styles were more prone to early elimination to get back on the horse. The organizer certainly didn’t mind banking another registration fee, so it seemed like a win-win. The thing is, there are no win-win situations in a zero-sum game. If somebody is benefitting from a rule or a policy, then it is to the detriment of someone else. Much like the issue of long late registration periods, two influential groups gain advantage from re-entry - the organizer and the professional.
A Skulk of Foxens and a Raffle of Chances
Poker organizers recognized pretty quickly that re-entry was extremely good for their bottom line, and professionals realized that multiple bites of the cherry were in their best short-term interest too. As a result, the vast majority of tournaments today offer unlimited re-entry. Couple that with long registration periods for multiple Day 1 flights, and it can get very expensive for players who are willing to fire and fire again until they get a stack through to Day 2.
This might seem like a fair trade-off with bloated prize pools thanks to these blasters, but, in reality, each buy-in is just a new entry to that tournament, so there’s no real commutation taking place. Those players are just being allowed to increase their volume, which of course everyone is welcome to do, but when you analyze the data, it is an option mostly availed of by two somewhat overlapping groups: the professional players who consider every bullet to be +EV and the wealthy players for whom the money is of no concern.
In the case of professional players firing multiple bullets, this definitely thickens up the field, making the tournament tougher. There is an argument that some of this downside for the average player is mitigated by some of those players adopting a higher variance, lower ROI style with their first few entries, maybe even being willing to take some losing propositions to ‘spin up a stack or go again’. Nonetheless, a lot of players will just picture a field replete with a skulk of Foxens and a raffle of Chances and be put off.
A Boundless Hail Of Bullets
As the re-entry format grew in popularity, there was some pushback, but, ultimately, those who called it unfair or impure lost the argument to those who called it practical and necessary. The WSOP, in particular, has embraced hypothetically infinite registration. For example, with the upcoming WSOP Europe in Rozvadov, there are eleven unlimited re-entry events, three tournaments in which the maximum number of entries is 5, 12, and 24, and just one freezeout.
The WSOP is not the only one, and today, unlimited or token limits on re-entry are commonplace. In some small side events, this is probably tolerable, but a cap is required in more serious or showpiece tournaments. What started off as a courtesy to the unlucky player who got showered early has morphed into a boundless hail of bullets with the organizers supplying the bump stocks.
The time has come to curb unlimited re-entry in main events. They are bad for the long-term ecology of the game and they alienate and repel recreational players who don’t have deep pockets. Perhaps not all of the arguments made by their detractors hold up to mathematical scrutiny, but unlimited re-entry nonetheless dilutes the sanctity and inviolability of the contest. The satellite qualifiers, who are often ‘one and done,’ deserve better than to feel preyed upon or outgunned.
Common Sense
When players have unlimited opportunities, they will sometimes twist their games, justifying funky lines on the basis of the perceived EV of the next bullet. That is, of course, their prerogative to do, but it takes away somewhat from the integrity of the contest.
You can argue about the merits and demerits of having people in a tournament who are willing to empty the clip. You can debate whether there are inherent or even extrinsic competitive advantages. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that freezeouts make the consequence of busting the same for everyone.
With the financial demands on organizers in a competitive environment and the original reasons for permitting a re-entry, asking for a return to a freezeout culture is asking for too much. Instead, I think common sense re-entry policies need to be established for the greater good and long-term health of the poker ecosystem.
Back to the Drawing Board, Not the Cage
A few years ago, when we faced a reckoning on this issue at Unibet Poker, where I am a brand ambassador, I pushed for single re-entry as the compromise approach. I still like it as the happy medium, and I am not the only doe-eyed idealist out there. Recently, I had the great pleasure of speaking with the founder of the TDA and alleged WPT person of talent Matt Savage on this very subject:
"Personally, I'm fine with multiple entries for small buy-ins and single re-entry per flight for most mid buy-in championship events, but I would love to see the day when freeze outs become the norm for big buy-in championship events again."
I think Savage has landed on a pretty nice middle ground with an appreciation of the fiscal realities of organizing festivals mixed with a need to preserve some sense of prestige in poker. It’s time to start sending players who bust back to the drawing board, not back to the cage. If at first they don’t succeed, perhaps let them try again, but not try, try again.
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