The $5m freeroll

The World Poker Tour is making poker history this December at the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas, with a record-breaking, first-of-its-kind $5,000,000 freeroll to celebrate launch of its sweepstakes poker offering: ClubWPT Gold.

Approximately 2,000 players will make take part in the biggest live freeroll of all time, competing for a life-changing $1m top prize. In addition to a seven-figure payday for the winner, 100 seats to the $10,400 WPT World Championship will be given away to players who cash in a random draw. Add to that five-figure mystery bounties with a larger than average percentage of the field making the money and the ClubWPT Gold $5m Invitational Freeroll is a truly unique event, with many strategic winkles.

Basically, this life-changing tournament has the craziest payout structure ever:

Flat payouts early

Top-heavy late

Unusual mystery bounty format

Random $10,300 seat prizes

Over a quarter paid

An unusually large percentage of the field is being paid and once we factor in the 1 in 5 chance of a 10k seat if you cash, the min cash is significant. This means the early to bubble stages of the tournament should play more like a satellite than a regular tournament.

should encourage players to gamble more aggressively

After the bubble bursts, the effect of the top heavy payout structure and mystery bounty aspect should encourage players to gamble more aggressively. At first the mystery bounties are relatively modest so they shouldn’t affect players’ strategy greatly, but they get very big on the final table. The big bounties on the final table means that as that approaches players should prioritise accumulation over survival if they’re short stacked, and chip stack preservation over further accumulation if they have a big stack.

On the final table the top heavy payout structure and the big bounties should encourage people to play much looser and gamble than on a “normal” final table. As the only thing that matters is the average, not what the biggest or smallest bounties are (beyond their effect on the average). The average bounty is your EV, how much a knockout is worth to you.

The mystery bounty component

The mystery bounty format is still relatively new, and the strategic implications are widely misunderstood. Most players focus way too much on the biggest bounty available, the only thing that matters is the average, not what the biggest or smallest bounties are (beyond their effect on the average).

As I explain in my book Mystery Bounty Poker Strategy, the average bounty is your EV, how much a knockout is worth to you. That book (and the Mystery Bounty Masterclass I produced for SimplifyPoker) explain how to calculate this in game and convert it to a chip value.

Free video

As the guys who literally “wrote the books” on ICM, satellites, and mystery bounty, Barry Carter and I felt uniquely qualified to “solve” the optimal strategy for this unique tournament, which we did for a video we just released on our site SimplifyPoker. We were going to charge for this video but decided to give it away for free instead to subscribers to our free newsletter.

If you aren’t already subscribed, you can do so here.

When you sign up, you also get our free ebook on poker study and a video course on modern poker theory. I can virtually guarantee everyone who doesn’t view this video will get one part of the strategy wrong!

In addition to the free stuff at the site, we have some courses you can buy, including the aforementioned Mystery Bounty Masterclass, a Target Stack Satellites Masterclass, a course on Exploiting Weak Live Fields, and…

Tournament Poker Study Simplified

In this course, I basically take you through my 1-1 coaching programme, with Barry as the student. This is what I routinely go through with my students to bring them up to speed with the modern game. If you were thinking about getting direct coaching from me, buy this series first.

this course shows you how to study hands yourself

Most important of all, this course shows you how to study hands yourself, and gives you a framework for further study with or without a coach.

Post Flop ICM Simplified

The next frontier in poker study is post flop ICM. Until very recently the secrets of how to adjust post flop on bubbles and final tables had only been available to a select group of elite players.

In this latest course, you can learn about how to adjust your post flop strategy during the endgame stages of tournaments. I coach some of the best players in the world specifically on ICM, and in this course I take you through all the stuff I usually teach them.

The endgame is where all the money is, and not knowing how to play on bubbles or final tables could be costing you a fortune in EV. This course could pay for itself if it prevents you making just one or two big mistakes when it matters the most.