Due to the nature of the topic, this article is not meant to hit or state that one is better than the other. It is merely giving facts and days and lets the readers decide for themselves which is better.

Big tournaments tend to attract many players since it would take a very long time to finish the event. Organizers created a Multi-day format where there would be many qualifying days and survivors of each day will meet on Day 2.

Some of the earliest ways to make the cut-off was to either limit the players going into day 2 to a fixed number regardless of how many players play. or it stops at a certain level that is widely accepted and fair.

Along the way, a new format was introduced by a brand and is deeply associated with a brand in the percentage of the entries. Most normally called played to ITM.

Nowadays, the play to the percentage of the field is called to play to ITM. As it is normally set to the ITM.

The good thing about it is that players who survive get their money back and short-stack players can play again.

it dies to induce players to buy in again and it does limit the number of players that will qualify to day 2. Less burden on the house especially the ones with limited spaces.

The problem with playing to ITM is it does change the game drastically. and there are other factors one should consider.

Unlike playing to level X, A player can formulate a plan or strategize his gameplay. For example, a player who has a good stack at level x can now formulate whether he can take more risk or lesser risk.

While playing at ITM is different. you can be the chip leader at level 15 but the blinds will keep going up until a certain number of players are left.

Which is another negative against play to ITM. The tournament could last 3-4 hours more and the blinds will keep going up to ensure x number of players will only survive.

Another factor is that, Yes, it could be good that let if the buy-in is big. The ITM will also correlate to the buy-in. However, if the buy-in is small and the ITM is small. you might end up with an unhappy crowd.

And because the end of the tournaments is unpredictable. It will isolate certain crowds like older players who have limited time to play or players who have certain conditions.

Some poker rooms have handled such situations and have avoided the play to ITM and instead extended the levels.

There are actually key reasons for this and they are based on their data. it does make a whole lot of sense.

Nowadays, players are more aggressive. If managers where to look at the data available. extending the level by 2 which is what other poker rooms did will achieve the same result.

Day 1A players have often times fewer qualifiers regardless of how many players joined. They love to take more risks with a mindset that they can qualify again tomorrow. If people were to study the days. The percentage of people qualifying in day 1A even falls below the 12% line.

While the last-day qualifying rate is higher as players’ mindset is “itatawid ko na ito para maka day 2” or they are happy with their stack and will be happy to just qualify for day 2.

In reality, if the tour was played to ITM instead of Play to X level. basing on percentage. more players qualify for day 1A and fewer players qualify on the last day base on percentage versus number of entries. registered.

The end result is based on past tournaments using increasing the tournaments by two levels as the basis, the end result is almost the same with a margin of error of 1-2%.

The success and failure of a tournament do not depend on play to ITM or Level X.

It does not! we repeat!

This article was to open the eyes of many players and poker room operators to more options that they can use to formulate their tournaments.

Times have changed. Players are more aggressive today than 5 years ago.