The ClubWPT Gold $5M Invitational Freeroll is a unique beast of a tournament. For those fortunate enough to have secured a Golden Passport, it's important to understand – or at least try to – the optimal way to approach this event. Thankfully, Dara O'Kearney has provided you with a blueprint for success. We spoke with him ahead of the start of the freeroll on Friday to get more essential info.
How should players – recreational and professional – approach this singularly unique tournament?
It's a really unusual structure, and there are certain aspects that pull in different directions.
It's a mystery bounty, which obviously makes building a stack a good thing. The very top-heavy nature of the payouts and the big mystery bounties on the final table pull in the same direction. On the other hand, a quarter of the field – or probably more than a quarter depending on how many people show up – are going to get paid, and the payout is not insignificant either. Even though the published minimum cash is small, the added wrinkle that one in five players who cash but don't make the final table will get a $10K ticket. Effectively, that adds $2K in value to the minimum cash – that's big.
Another thing to think about is that a professional looking at this tournament will think this is a $2.5K buy-in, 2,000 runner field with a $5 million prize pool. A recreational player won't necessarily see it the same way. They're in there for free. It hasn't cost them anything. It's also a great experience just to play a tournament like this.
Would you prioritize building a stack to have a shot at bounties or making the money?
I think from an optimal point of view, your main objective early on is to try and give yourself the best chance of getting into the money. In that sense, it'll almost play like a satellite. That's how it should play down until the money. And I think the money bubble itself will be a very, very extreme ICM situation, and players should play tight.
Once the money bubble bursts, we should see it become a completely different tournament. It's now basically a very top-heavy mystery bounty tournament, but there's another wrinkle. The average value of the mystery bounties, which kick in somewhere around 270 players remaining, is pretty small. Typically, mystery bounties are worth five or six starting stacks. In this tournament, initially, they'll be worth less than a starting stack.
The most important thing players should be thinking about once in the money is making the final table. On the final table, not only are they playing for a lot of money, but also the mystery bounties suddenly multiply in value by 20 times. With the bounties on the final table being worth 20 times as much as previous bounties, getting to the final table with a big stack suddenly becomes very, very attractive.
As soon as you get into the money, you should be playing very aggressively, trying to build a stack. The initial pay jumps are not at all significant. It almost becomes a winner-takes-all tournament at this stage because the first prize is so huge. It's $1,000,000 for first – that's 20% of the total prize pool, and I think second is $250,000. You just don't see pay jumps like that anymore.
As the final table approaches, this means two things. If you're a short stack, you want to get to the final table covering at least one other player so that you can win these big bounties. At that stage, the bounties will add up to more than the second-place cash and being able to compete for them will be very important.
If you're a big stack, you should actually be playing pretty conservatively because you want to maintain that stack for the final table. You don't want to take flips or gamble and find yourself short – that's a disaster. It should play very differently from a normal final table bubble.
What do you think is the most common mistake players will make in this event?
I wouldn't be too surprised if players overvalue the bounties initially, even if they've played mystery bounty events before. I think people will be used to the idea that the bounty is worth a lot, whereas in reality it's not. It's going to be worth less than a starting stack. The other thing about mystery bounties, and this is a mistake people make in all of these events, is they focus on the biggest bounty. If it's still in play, they tend to overvalue the bounty. If it's out of play, they tend to undervalue. It's always just the average.
Do you think we'll see more of these events in the future?
First of all, I think this is a genius idea. This event ticks all the boxes you want in a freeroll, and you have the maximum number of players leaving with a positive experience. 100 people from this tournament are going to play the $10,400 WPT World Championship, another great experience for them. You're also avoiding the problem a lot of mystery bounties have, which is that all the excitement gets sucked out of the tournament as soon as the biggest bounty gets pulled.
I'm actually surprised that this sort of innovation – withholding big bounties until the final table – hasn't been done before. I think it's a brilliant idea and I think other mystery bounty organizers will look at this and say, 'You know what? That's a great idea, it makes the final table far more interesting, and it keeps the interest in the tournament right until the end.'
And, let's face it, a lot of the audience for this will be fairly new players. When they watch final tables, they find them incredibly boring because, if they're played correctly, everybody plays extremely tight. This tournament will override that by two factors: the top-heavy payouts and the significant bounties. It should make for a great spectacle.
What compels you to take a deep dive into tournament structures and how they influence strategy? Is it just the love of figuring out the puzzle?
Yeah, that's very much it. Since the start of my career, the thing that has always appealed to me most is trying to work out the optimal strategy for new formats as quickly as possible – before everybody else. I've specialized in lots of different things, and I've always prided myself on my ability to work out the strategy really quickly and, in recent years, communicate it clearly.
Dara O’Kearney is sponsored by Unibet Poker, the co-host of the award-winning Chip Race Podcast and creates books and courses at Simplify Poker.
Images courtesy of Danny Maxwell/Rational Intellectual Holdings Limited/Irish Poker Open
