All-In Or Fold

Last week in Las Vegas, I found out about a unusual tournament at the Aria. On Monday night, they had a $160 "All-In Or Fold" Tournament with a $25 Bounty.

Why is it called "All-In Or Fold"?

Because those are your only options preflop, All-In or Fold. No limping, no min-raising, and no just calling a shorter stack's All-In. It's only All-In or Fold. If everyone chooses Fold, then the BB gets a walk and we move on to the next hand. Seems simple, right?

Well, I get bored with just regular "TV Poker" tournaments. So I will happily jump at any opportunity to play something different, as long as it doesn't cost me too much money. The $160 is well within my buy-in range.

This was put on by LIPS, although I don't know why since guys were allowed to play. There was 97 players for this tournament, which was a bit surprising to me. Although there were a few players that signed up for the evening tournament, and immediately un-registered after they realized what was happening.

The other surprising thing about this night was the play. We got 6000 chips, and the Blinds started at 100/100. To me, it seemed the "proper" strategy was to play tight, because why risk 6000 chips to win 200? However, it appeared that I was one of the few players who had this thought. On the very first hand at my table, UTG went All-In for the 6000, and he had AKo. A Mid player called the All-In with ATo, and was out of the tournament.

Other players were treating this like a rebuy tournament, even though they couldn't rebuy. There was a Kid at my table who still had a chip stack in a Cash game. He declared that he was here to gamble in order to get a monster stack, or he would go just back to his $2/$5 table. Overall, I was very surprised on how few walks were given to the Big Blind.

As for my tournament, I got a decent seat at the table. The two players on my Left were playing tight, and waiting for premium hands. This meant I was able to steal the occasional Blinds. However, right after those two players was the Kid who wanted to gamble.

I was able to double up in Level 1 with my AQ vs TT. In a later hand, the UTG shoved. I was UTG+1 with 33, and had to fold. Two other players shoved All-In. I would have flopped a Set and collected two bounties and got a monster stack. Oh well, right fold - wrong time.

In the next level, I lost my double up with my AJ vs JJ. After that, I went very card dead. With so many players willing to gamble, I had to pop the clutch, and drop into Super Nit gear for a while. Eventually, a very active Lady shoved. I had 7h 7d, and was the only caller. She had KQc. The Flop was 7c 5c 4c, giving her the Flush and me Top Set. I missed my Full House Draw, and was out in 45th place.

Now I'm gonna take off my Player hat, and put on my Tournament Director hat. This was their first attempt at this type of tournament, and nobody was happy with the structure. It had 6000 chips and 20 min levels: 100/100, 100/200, 200/300, 200/400, 300/600, 300/600/100 (I'm not sure what the rest of the levels were, since I left.)

Some of the players though the structure was way too slow. It should have 10 min levels, start with less chips, have the levels go up much steeper, and have antes much sooner. Not surprisingly, these were the players who were here to get their gamble on.

As a former TD, I do agree that the structure needs some work. If I were to run this for one of my home games, I would start with less chips. I think something in the 30BB - 40BB range would be good, but I would have the Blinds go up slowly. I would have antes starting in Level 1 or 2. There needs to be something in the pot that's worth risking your whole stack. I would also probably have 15 minute levels.

While this seems like a turbo, it's not necessarily the case. What happened in this tournament was tables started breaking rather quickly after the late buy-ins ended. But once we went from nine tables down to five or six, things started slowing down. Stacks got bigger, and players were less willing to risk all their chips against another big stack. So once the initial stacks doubled up, and maybe doubled up again, there was some fold equity against other players, and the bust-outs went much slower.

Of course, building a tourney structure is always a bit of theory before it's actually tested. Once it's played a couple of times, then more adjustments can be made. Maybe some of my CPMGers will give this one a try.