Hey @jazzbythebay - always good to converse with you as well. I see where you are coming from and its an interesting idea but I’m not sure its practical or would even have much of an impact on the type of play in these games. Also, I don’t think the type of behavior you see is limited to just the play on this site. Let me give you some real world examples.
The WSOP Main Event is coming up - a $10,000 buy-in, freezeout (no reentry) tournament. Some 7,000+ players will enter. Some will pay the full 10K and some will get there via satellites with as little as $200 entry fees. You will have players ranging from top pros to total amateurs and everyone in between. There will be people who have played countless tournaments and some who have never played a live tournament before in their lives. There will be people who have $10K in spare change and those who have saved for years to be able to play in this event just 1 time. Quite a range of players. The 1 thing they all have in common is that they want to play and hopefully win.
Well, on Day 1 you will have the professionals playing tight and trying to keep variance down and grind their way through and chip-up for the most part. No one wins on day 1 but plenty of people go home. You will also see people come in and start open-raising to 10XBB and playing like absolute maniacs. People who are used to playing 1/2 live games will bring that same strategy to the Main Event and cause all sorts of headaches for the other players. Imagine having saved up for years to be at this game and on your very first session facing a total maniac. You sure as heck don’t want to go out in the 1st few hours so you are folding hands you normally wouldn’t and having an overall miserable time. Now some of these maniacs will go bust and others will rake in the chips and send players packing.
Tournament poker is a high-variance game. It is not the same as cash where you can rebuy or leave or change tables. You are stuck with the table you are seated at, period. You may be seated in between 2 absolute agrotards or you may get a table with rocks. You may be seated to the immediate right of a world-class professional who is looking at you like you’re a free meal. You just never know. Sometimes it works to your advantage and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s the nature of the game, whether played here or at the Rio.
I’ve played in many multi-day live tournaments and I’ve seen plays that would make you nauseous. I’ve been in the spot where the math says call but I fold because I wasn’t willing to risk my tournament life just then. I am positive players like me get exploited the heck out of by the better players because they know we are more risk averse than they are at the moment. I’ve seen maniacs come in and go out of their way to try and bust the pro at the table - not because its the smart play but because they want to be able to tell their friends they did it.
So basically all open-entry tournaments are zoos, other than the really high $ events that only the very wealthy or very accomplished enter. If this is the case for actual money, how do you think tournaments for play-chips will be? Its reasonable to assume that in the aggregate, without the monetary considerations, the play and the players here will be wilder and looser than those playing for money.
IMHO, I think that everyone should find the format that they are most comfortable with and just try to enjoy it as best they can. I’ve always believed that format matters far more than stakes. Higher variance players will enjoy the shorter/shallower formats more. Players who enjoy the meta-game, the ability to make plays and try to minimize variance will enjoy the longer/deeper formats. Over time, the formats dictate the type of player you are likely to find in any given game. This is why I think you would enjoy some of the 15K MTT’s with 125+BB starting stacks more than a 50K or 100K game with 75BB or less and rapidly escalating blinds.
As always, GL and best to you and all. Find the games you enjoy and don’t worry so much about the buy-ins.