POTD #169 A Freezeout in Balmy Cyprus

It's been snowing in Toronto this week, so let's head back to the beach.

My son was born in May 2024, so I skipped EPT Monte Carlo, Triton Montenegro and the World Series of Poker, which meant my return to live poker was a PGT and Onyx Club co-production: the Super High Roller Series in Cyprus. This series had an interesting wrinkle that went against prevailing trends in Super High Rollers: All of the tournaments were freezeouts. If you busted in level one, you were on timeout for 24 hours; you had all day to enjoy the ocean and the buffet of Turkish food, but you could not play tournament poker. This format is quite a changeup from the GG Super Million$ I wrote about yesterday, where I’ve jokingly called your first or second entry “practice bullets.”

I do like freezeouts as a change of pace, with some caveats. They need to be at a stop with a lot of players. This freezeout in Cyprus had 30 people in it, and registration closed with 11 people remaining and a 2.4x buy-in mincash. That encourages people to max-late-reg without their equity being diluted by a tragedy of the commons effect that occurs when a dozen people max-late-reg. All tournaments should try to be structured in a way that rewards game starters over people who max late reg. I am a fan of variety in tournament structures. Whether it’s different blind and ante structures, different speeds, or different rebuy and registration policies, changing structures are a way to cater to a wide range of VIPs, while encouraging poker that rewards on-the-fly problem-solving and punishes specialists looking to exploit one specific loophole.

If you are one of the unlucky few to get knocked out of a freezeout early, it can give you a day off in the middle of the trip, which can help you survive the grind of playing. It introduces some psychological elements to the game: Some people change their strategy and blast off to either get the day off or run up a big stack; others want to play poker for as long as possible and they tighten up because they don’t want to go back to their hotel room. In today’s hand, my opponent was a consummate professional. Jeremy Ausmus. who I’d imagine was playing his normal game and not trying to deviate because it was a freezeout, but one of the things in poker is you never know how people will react to odd rule changes, which is why I am generally in favour of them.

Super High Roller Series Cyprus $51,500 NLHE
(2k/4k/4k) (SB/BB/BBA) Registration is still open, but not for me, it’s a freezeout.

It folds to me (140k) in the LJ and I make it 9k with A♣️Q♦️, Jeremy Ausmus (200k) makes it 34k covering me in the SB, I call.

Flop (76k) K♥️5♥️3♣️: Jeremy bets 19k, I fold.