How does PS calculate its guarantees

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Lokhup

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I'm fascinated by the way the total entries at pokerstars tournaments never fail to exceed the house guarantee. How can they be that predictably precise across so many tournaments, prices and start times? It's uncanny.
 
absoluthamm

absoluthamm

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Not really, with as big of a playerbase as they have, it's not like they don't have the people to play. And when you add a guarantee, that makes people want to play because there is not only a guaranteed prize pool, but also the possibility of an overlay.
 
Poker Orifice

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I'm fascinated by the way the total entries at PokerStars tournaments never fail to exceed the house guarantee. How can they be that predictably precise across so many tournaments, prices and start times? It's uncanny.
Well if you were running a $1 buyin $2,000guar. for a few mos. that began regularly getting 3,000 entrants, then bumped it up to a $2,500guar. Pretty sure it'd be pretty easy to calculate. Do this over a period of time with a number of buyins/tournaments, it'd be fairly simple when you think about it.
, but also the possibility of an overlay.
Can't say I've ever played a guar. on Stars where the prizepool/# of entrants didn't exceed the guarantee (except for maybe the WorldRecord attempts)
 
absoluthamm

absoluthamm

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Can't say I've ever played a guar. on Stars where the prizepool/# of entrants didn't exceed the guarantee (except for maybe the WorldRecord attempts)

Me neither, but there have been many times where they haven't been met when I reg'd(And no, I'm not one of those guys who reg's days ahead of time). The only site I have ever actually played tourneys with big overlays on has been Bodog, but that is a thing of the past now.
 
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Lokhup

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Experience alone?

I know they have the numbers. It's how they crunch them to predict the future that interests me.
 
absoluthamm

absoluthamm

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It's all based on the past.
"The last 4 weekends got 25,000 entrants at *whatever* $1 tourney, so now next weekend, we can assume that we will get that many again, so let's call it a $20,000 guaranteed." If the numbers start to slip and there are overlays showing a decline(running declines, not just 1 or 2 weeks) then they will lower the guarantee so there isn't a huge overlay. Pretty simple really.
 
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Lokhup

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Should have known

Right on. The secret is hiding there in plain sight.Thanks.
 
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