House Dead Money in Guaranteed Prize Pool Tournys

[lwestatbus]

I was looking for a tourny to play on Stars last night and had my eye on a $4 + .40 FL tourny with a guaranteed prize pool of $1,000. I first noticed the tourny about 10 minutes before start time when there were only about 180 players registered. It occurred to me that if fewer than 250 players registered then the house was throwing in $4 per player in dead money for each player under 250. The tourny actually ended up filling up very quickly but was then reported as being FULL one minute before start time, even though there were only 243 registered players. (There wasn't a cap listed on the tourny as some have.) So Stars still ended up throwing an extra $28 into the prize pool.

It seems to me that any of these undersubscribed guaranteed tournys would represent a good value. Does anyone know of any that are regularly under subscribed? That is, a tourny with a prize pool guarantee where the number of players signed up is often under the break-even point for the guaranteed prize pool?

[raisebot]

What you're talking about is called overlay.

Most guaranteed tourneys on Bodog used to have huge overlays, not sure about these days though.

For instance, when I took 3rd in their 30k guaranteed, they added $3468 to the prize pool, which works out to an extra $5.75 per player.


Consider these tourneys juice-free and the best value for your money.

[Gunslinger]

I think you'll be hard pressed to find a lot of Stars tourneys that don't meet their guarantee, since they're the biggest site. Most overlays happen on smaller sites, where they're trying to entice players to come play.

I think I read a story recently of someone cashing in a Full Tilt tourney that had an overlay, then his next rakeback payment was short, and when he e-mailed them about it they said it was because of the overlay, which seems REALLY messed up. Don't know if that's true.

[raisebot]

It wouldn't surprise me if it was true.
When I played for a little while on Cake, they deducted everything from your rakeback. Some $6 deposit fee (wtf is that all about), freeroll cashes, etc.
Full Tilt is shady as hell, I believe stars is pretty much the only somewhat reputable site at the moment.

[Jauron]

I think you'll be hard pressed to find a lot of Stars tourneys that don't meet their guarantee,

I signed up for one @ Stars with 10 minutes left before it started because it was waaay short of players and the overlay was gonna be pretty big. 10 minutes later they have double the players needed.

[lwestatbus]

I signed up for one @ Stars with 10 minutes left before it started because it was waaay short of players and the overlay was gonna be pretty big. 10 minutes later they have double the players needed.

I also see a lot of the Stars tournys with a real flurry of sign ups at the last minute. (I also see a flurry of ring game players quitting all at once from time to time as well as ring game players who sit out for a long time and may or may not come back. I think they are also moving to a tourny but holding their place at the ring table in case they bust out early.)

Thanks, raisebot, for the terminology info. Also to the others for info on other sites.