Friday, 29th March 2024 00:46
Home / Uncategorized / EPT11 Malta: Re-entry? No thanks

All the beans have been counted at this week’s €25,000 High Roller event, and all that now remains is to determine how they are going to be spilled. The prize pool information reached us a little while ago, and here it is in easy-to-read form:

Players: 68
Re-entries: 20
Total entries: 88
Total prize pool (after deductions): €2,156,000

1 – €572,300
2 – €397,800
3 – €263,000
4 – €205,900
5 – €166,000
6 – €129,400
7 – €102,400
8 – €79,800
9 – €60,400
10-11 – €46,400
12-13 – €43,100

As you can see, approximately 30 per cent of the field required their solitary re-entry, and if one doesn’t give it too much thought, that sounds about par for the course. But what’s notable, perhaps, is that some players, including Vanessa Selbst and Sam Trickett, bought in, went bust, but then opted not to fire a second bullet. I wondered whether that 30 per cent figure is about right, or do more people usually re-enter?

vanessa_selbst_ept11_25k_day1.jpg

Vanessa Selbst: No to two bullets

It was pretty easy to answer that question. This €25,000 buy in is kind of unusual and is usually only reserved for events in Monaco, where it is the buy-in for the “regular” High Roller event. What’s more, re-entries have only been allowed since Season 9, so the European Poker Tour has only actually hosted two other €25,000 single re-entry tournaments.

They were:

Season 10 EPT Grand Final
Players: 104
Re-entries: 55
Percentage re-entering: 53%

Season 9 EPT Grand Final
Players: 84
Re-entries: 37
Percentage re-entering: 44%

By quite a considerable margin, then, this tournament has had the lowest percentage of re-entries from €25,000 events.

There is a 25K buy in over at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, even if the currency there is US dollars. And when we bring that into consideration, we can see that there is usually a higher re-entry percentage there too:

Season 11 PCA
Players: 131
Re-entries: 69
Percentage of field: 52%

Season 10 PCA
Players: 148
Re-entries: 49
Percentage of field: 33%

Season 9 PCA
Players: 118
Re-entries: 43
Percentage of field: 36%

(In Season 8, the first time a re-entry was available in a $25,000 tournament, only seven people re-bought. It took some time to catch on.)

In addition to Selbst and Trickett, the other players opting not to re-enter, even when they had the chance, includes: Olivier Busquet, Dimitar Danchev, Martin Jacobson, Eugene Katchalov, Jonathan Duhamel and ElkY.

eugene_katchalov_mike_mcdonald_ept11_25k_day1.jpg

Mike McDonald and Eugene Katchalov: Yes, and no

Even though Mike McDonald, Philipp Gruissem and Igor Kurganov were among those who did re-enter, you have to look at that list above and think, perhaps, that re-entering might not have been the value play in the tournament.

None of the above are actually in the building today, meaning I can’t check up on their reasoning. But one suspects they are out and about, enjoying their day off and preparing for the Main Event and/or the Global Poker Masters and/or the €10,000 High Roller later in the week. Only then will can their “value” decisions really be judged.

Follow all the action from the EPT Malta festival at PokerStars Blog. We have hand-by-hand action from the €25,000 High Roller in the panel at the top of the €25,000 High Roller page. Feature pieces are below. We also have a man on the IPT Malta stop. You might also want to download the EPT App, available on both Android or IOS. Unless you don’t.

Study Poker with Pokerstars Learn, practice with the PokerStars app