vegas poker

There is now proven information using independent chip model (ICM) calculations to show that late registering for various poker games can increase your equity by varying degrees. 


Depending on how long you’ve been around in the poker world, one drastic change that you may have noticed in the past few years is the amount of late registration time that is now offered in tournaments. Late registering for tournaments is whereby you don’t need to enter the tournament at the very start, but can join later with the same starting stack.

It used to be that a typical online tournament would allow maybe 30-60 minutes of late registration time, and in a live game, you would be able to enter within the first few levels of play. These days, however, you can enter live games on day 2, skipping the whole first day of deep stack play, with even the WSOP main event allowing this. Whereas online tournaments now often have hours of late registration, and in some larger events now offer a similar day 2 entry.


What Do the Pros Think?

Whilst some players like Mike Matusow, a four-time WSOP bracelet winner, argue that late registration ruins the integrity of the game and allows a player with a larger bankroll who is more risk-averse to jump into a field with fewer players and gain an edge. Other players such as Matt Berkley, high stakes cash game player and owner of Solve For Why training, state they embrace this new feature in tournament poker, citing benefits such as it being good for the game, allowing people to participate in more tournaments, and making for larger prize pools.


Is Late Registering Beneficial for Everyone?

There are two ways of looking at late registering to poker tournaments, on one hand, it will give you an ICM boost, as you are now playing for a share of the remaining prize pool, with few players to compete against. There are books and online studies written about the subject that a quick google search can guide you to if you are looking to learn about ICM theory in more depth. We also recommend checking out this ICM paper, written by Kenny Hallaert, a top 3 Belgium pro with over $4.5 million in career earnings.

A strong counter-argument to late registering games being beneficial is that you can miss out on playing deep stack poker against a softer field, so if you feel you have an edge, you might want to play as early as possible when the field is full of lesser skilled players.


When Is Late Reg Especially Good?

It’s not just as clear cut as, enter a tournament late and you’ll be scooping up some extra value, there are certain games that are better suited to this entry timing than others.

A great time to late register for a tournament is in Satellite games. This is because, you don’t have to build a huge stack and look to win this kind of format, you simply need to survive long enough to win a seat. Let’s look at an example that we made with a free online ICM calculator of a $100 game to win one of five $1,000 seats:

Equity in late registering a $100 satellite with 50 entries and 5 seats
Payout Prize Stack Chip % ICM $ Value ICM %
1st $1000 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
2nd $1000 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
3rd $1000 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
4th $1000 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
5th $1000 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
6th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
7th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
8th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
9th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
10th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
11th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
12th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
13th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
14th $0 35000 7.00% 349.11 6.98%
15th $0 10000 2.00% 112.45 2.25%

In this example, we can see that if we entered this game with the 10,000 starting stack with just 15 players remaining in total, our equity for our $100 investment has instantly risen to $112.45. This is based upon completely even chip distribution, which is not typical in a real game. If the chip stacks were skewed differently we could have an even better ICM value.

Another example might be when you are looking at playing a live game, let’s say you have to travel to the game and play a 3-day event, and your hotel costs on the first night are $100. Well, you could skip that added expense by buying into the game on the next day if that’s an option. This would also leave you free to play some poker on the previous day and look to make some profit.


When Is Late Reg Not Good For Your Equity?

One game format that you will want to avoid late registering for at all costs are knockout tournaments, specifically progressive knockout (PKO) games, which are a hugely popular format these days in the poker world.

Turning up late to a knockout game is essentially paying extra to enter because for every person that is removed from the field 25% of their buy-in is removed from the prize pool, which is money you can now not compete for.

It’s a common misconception that registering late can be good because you might land on a table with some shorter stacks and look to get some value from knocking them out. Whilst this might be true in a small sample, it doesn’t take the larger picture into account because there is still a large amount of the prize pool missing at this later point in the game.


Conclusion

There are some great spots for your money to be found when it comes to late registration of tournaments, exercise good game selection, and don’t enter if you feel the stacks are too shallow for you to play with.

Look to find +EV satellite spots, and if you are in doubt about whether your late registration is finding you some added equity, then use a free ICM calculator to do some quick math before hoping in the game.

Look to play to your strengths, if you are a great deep stack player, then it might be worth you buying in from the beginning of a game and looking to chip up against a weaker field. However if you have done a lot of work on your mid-stack game for instance 25-40BBs, then look to late register at these kinds of stack depths so you are very comfortable playing the games.


James William
Writer

Based in California, James William writes about golf, tennis, UFC and the (sometimes complicated) world of betting on sports. A big lover of live poker, James also takes care of casino reviews for Vegas-Odds.com.