The following article is from 2CardsCollege pro poker training and will take a look at progressive knockout tournaments on PokerStars.

The World Championship of Online Poker has just started on PokerStars. In the spring, when the series’ preliminary schedule was published, the poker site’s development team traditionally reviewed players’ proposals for changes. There was a frequent request to decrease the number of Progressive Super-Knockout tournaments (or to rename the WCOOP to World Championship of PSKO).

PokerStars listened to the regulars’ opinion and left only eight progressive knockouts in the final schedule (8 of 70 tournaments instead of the initial 15 of 48).

The number of PSKO has been increasing steadily since PokerStars introduced it:

Graph: PSKO weekly dynamics from January 1 2014 to May 2015

The poker site’s position on this issue is clear: amateurs like the dynamic format where they can have their buy-in back within the first hour. Besides, progressive knockouts yield more profit. Unlike regular knockouts where rake is decreased, the fee in PSKO is usual 10% and there are more players.

A simple example: the morning freezout for $33 ($3K Gtd) used to gather 130 to 140 players. When it became a PSKO, its field size tripled, as well as the poker site’s profit.

Here is another example: the change in the field size in a six-max tournament with $44 buy-in:

Graph: the number of players in $44 six-max before and after the format change

The leap happened after the format change. The tournament became so popular that two weeks after the new format was introduced, PokerStars increased its guarantee from $2,500 to $10,000.

Let us examine the arguments.

1. The Rake. In knockout tournaments, a significant portion of the prize pool is distributed during the early stages. There is less money in the pay zone and the chips cost less. Weak players’ mistakes cost them less than in freezouts and this lowers the good players’ ROI.

2. The Field. PSKO tournaments gather larger fields. It is logical to assume that the ROI of players should be higher there and the variance should be lower due to the peculiarities of the payout structures. Is it really a win-win for the regulars and the site or someone loses some of their EV?

The analysis

To determine the comparative profitability of the PSKO format for players, we analyzed the ROI of players in PokerStars’ mid-stakes tournaments. Most of the progressive knockouts fall into the medium buy-in category.

We took the top 100 of PokerStars leaderboard (TLB) as of June 9 and obtained a sample of solid players with their regular load.

We studied their statistics in tournaments with buy-ins from $11 to $55, dividing all tournaments into several categories: PSKO, fast structure PSKO, Bigs, Biggers, Hots and Hotters, regular speed, and turbo freezeouts.

The sample accumulated by 100 players over five-and-a-half months of playing is sufficient for an accurate conclusion: there were more than 5x AFS tournaments played in all categories (except for the Biggers) – the actual ROI not be statistically different from the real one over such a sample size.

The results are shown in the following table:

Surprisingly, the statistics show that there is no big difference in ROI between turbos and regular freezeouts.

The Bigs and the Biggers are the most profitable tournaments on the regular schedule. Their AFS is five to six times larger than that of the progressive knockouts with similar buy-ins, but the bankroll required to play them is the same.

There is no substantial difference between the ROI in regular tournaments and in PSKOs, it is in the range of 10 to 15%.The size of rake is a crucial factor with this level of ROI. In mid-stakes knockouts, the rake is reduced (5% in super knockouts and 8% in knockouts) and in PSKO it is not. The structure of payouts is much closer to bounty tournaments. Lowering the fee to 5% could increase the players’ ROI by 3% to 4% (taking rakeback into account).

In the Bigs and the Hots, the income of regulars is four to seven times higher than the profit of the site. In the rest of the tournaments, an average grinder cannot expect to have more than 15% ROI: the regulars’ and the site’s profit from each tourney played with 10% rake is almost the same.

Last observation: the downswings in progressive knockouts are 1.5 to two times shorter than in tournaments with similar field sizes and average ROI.

Conclusions

Combined with a lower downswing risk and increased field sizes, lowering the rake to 5% could make progressive super-knockouts really attractive for professional players. However, so far, PokerStars has not complained about the popularity of PSKOs and we should not hold our breath expecting them to lower the rake to the level it is in other bounty tournaments. We have to pay twice as much for the new format.

The situation might change, though, when other poker sites adopt the attractive PSKO format.