You're a Bunch of Factors

I'll leave that to you to answer.. especially if you witnessed the final table 'showdown' at the lockleys last night...

to be honest, my opinion of final tables in general is that they are all luck in a super turbo format

if all "luck", ie. random, shouldn't everyone get a perfect distribution of 9th, 8th, 7th.... 2nd and 1st over a statistically significant time period.

Wouldn't be too hard to prove or disprove that theory

I think because of the small stacks relative to blind levels, there is little room for anything else other than push/fold poker. That is why you often see 3 or more all ins in the same hand, meaning a player does need a greater amount of luck than normally.

I think that NPL should investigate the possibility of capping the blinds at the final table, possibly at 5k/10k (depending on venue size though).

I have frequently seen some excellent shorthanded battles which are almost ruined when the blinds double and players only have 3-4 BB left instead of double that.

So perhaps at the start of any final table, the blinds should be raised once, and then capped. I think this would remove a lot of the perceived luck of final tables, without making the tourney run for too much longer.

I don't think the percentages on luck need to be calculated if you're playing against someone who will explode if they don't win. Thats actually called, 'intimidation'...

But the heading asks to differentiate between skill and luck

If there's a story you wish to tell about a particular final table, by all means - fill us in!

intimidation actually looks a lot less intimidating when you write it in pink

maccatak11 wrote:So perhaps at the start of any final table, the blinds should be raised once, and then capped. I think this would remove a lot of the perceived luck of final tables, without making the tourney run for too much longer.

This has been raised numerous times on here, with varying degrees of support. I personally like the idea, but I seem to think Garth rebuffed it pretty well one time (can't remember the line he took tho)

rcon wrote: This has been raised numerous times on here

Yeah i remember but i coudnt remember what the official line on this was, i thought this thread might be a good place to discuss this again.

Intimidation is a wonderful thing.

If you really want the full story, perhaps another runner could elaborate...