Questions: late reg, SharkScope and mtt HUD

3 questions -

1) What is your opinion on regging late for mtts? Seems like a pretty major disadvantage to me, you start with a lower number of bb's so get forced to make moves pretty fast and you miss out on time you could be accumulating chips from the bad players who bust early. Do you have a cutoff, like you will late reg but not if more than half and hour has passed or something?

2) Why is sharkscope so wrong? I just opted in and it has my recent mtt wins but the jumps on the graph don't match up to the amount I won even though in the list (and when I hover over the graph) it has the correct amount won. Like it jumps by a grand for my recent win but should jump by closer to 2 grand.

3) What HUD setup do you use for mtts? What are the most useful stats?

Ty :cheers:

1. I am not a big fan of the late reg/re-entry format. If it were just 15 mins or so it wouldn't be so bad but some last for hours. It has the effect of turning it into a donkfest.
I won't enter late/re-enter if I'm only getting 10-12 bb's. Usually by this time all tables have a stack or two that severly diminishes your fold equity.

when the late reg is more than 15 min, i think, it´s because the tournament structure is too slow, and that´s why some tourneys allow people to register up to 2 hours after the beginning,

for instance tourneys where the blinds go up every 15 or 20 min and there are not ante at the early stages, and therefore late reg makes the tourney shorter for the players, otherwise one could be seated for more than 5 or 6 hours playing, and actually to make a deep run probably will need more time than that, so maybe that is the reason they let people enter late

1) I personally really dislike the "extended" late reg. periods of almost 4 hours in most cases. I think it just a money making mechanism for Merge and other sites. Rather than make it a rebuy tournament, they make it a "re-entry" tournament and leave the late reg. open for an obscene amount of time. Thus, making rake money for every entry/re-entry that players make. I don't have a "set" guideline for myself, but I tend not to late reg. after an hour. As yous said, I'd rather be there when the blinds are smaller (giving me more room for play) and the fish are plentiful.



2) Not exactly sure why Sharkscope is so off, but I know it doesn't track every game, for instance, private forum games. FWIW, my stats on Sharkscope and OPR are wrong for every site/skin I have ever played on. They show I'm profitable, but the totals are inaccurate.


3) Sorry I can't be much help on this one. I don't use a HUD, but have been looking into them... So I am rather interested to see the responses to this question. Do you use one currently, if so, which one? And have you seen an noticeable improvement in your results since using it? Thanks in advance.

I personally try to avoid late registration if possible. Of course, there have been occasions when something has prevented me from being there for the start of a tournament, and I had no choice but to register late. Even still, I usually won't join a tournament past the 3rd blind level.

From the site's point of view, I can understand the reason for having late registration. It allows more players to join, which of course increases the amount of the tournament fees they collect as well as the prize pool. As the prize pool climbs, it entices more players to enter. I see some regular tournaments with three player minimums that get cancelled regularly because they don't have enough players. But once they start, they usually end up with at least fifty players. Players seem hesitant to join until the field has increased enough to create a worthwhile prize pool. Of course, the higher the prize pool builds, the faster players start registering. So as more players join, more players join. But nobody wants to be first. After all, who wants risk their money on a tourney where you can cash and still end up losing money. As you might expect, the tournaments with guaranteed payouts are going to have the longest late registration period in order to give as many players as possible the opportunity to join in hopes of covering the guarantee. Of course the higher the guarantee, the longer the late registration period.

Again, this all makes sense from the poker site's perspective. From the player's perspective, I can't understand why a player would intentionally avoid joining a tournament as early on as possible. I want to be in there taking advantage of every possible opportunity chip up. That means being there from the first hand dealt. I am particularly bewildered by players that choose to wait until the very end of the late registration period to join a tournament. By doing so, they are quite often choosing start a tournament with a few as fifteen big blinds, and sometimes less. They are essentially handicapping themselves to the point where they take their seat so short stacked that they are playing all-in-or-fold poker from the moment they sit. In my opinion, it turns poker playing into gambling. You're pretty much giving yourself raffle ticket odds in the hopes of being dealt one hand worth risking all your chips on. And even if you are dealt that one hand worth risking you stack on, it's not guaranteed to hold up. We should all know by now that the best starting hand doesn't always win.

I don't even want to get into Sharkscope. All I will say about it is that I know for a fact that it is wildly inaccurate.

waterboy73 said:

1) I personally really dislike the "extended" late reg. periods of almost 4 hours in most cases. I think it just a money making mechanism for Merge and other sites. Rather than make it a rebuy tournament, they make it a "re-entry" tournament and leave the late reg. open for an obscene amount of time. Thus, making rake money for every entry/re-entry that players make. I don't have a "set" guideline for myself, but I tend not to late reg. after an hour. As yous said, I'd rather be there when the blinds are smaller (giving me more room for play) and the fish are plentiful.



2) Not exactly sure why Sharkscope is so off, but I know it doesn't track every game, for instance, private forum games. FWIW, my stats on Sharkscope and OPR are wrong for every site/skin I have ever played on. They show I'm profitable, but the totals are inaccurate.


3) Sorry I can't be much help on this one. I don't use a HUD, but have been looking into them... So I am rather interested to see the responses to this question. Do you use one currently, if so, which one? And have you seen an noticeable improvement in your results since using it? Thanks in advance.

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I use pokertracker 4 and it's great, probably more useful for cash games than tourneys but still very useful and would be even better on the smaller sites where you're likely to play against the same opponents more often. Having the HUD is so useful, like I can see immediately what everyone at the tables M value is, which is helpful when trying to work out their shoving/raising range. It's also good for analysis off the table, replaying hands, analysing your own play and tracking your results.

Just answered question 2 for myself, Sharkscope seemed so wrong because I was looking at the results in £ rather than $