Is Late Registration a Good Idea?

(Photo: WSOP.com)

Providing the tournament is not a “freezeout” poker players can still join the tournament and play even if they are late. There are a number of reasons why this is allowed. It is in the interests of the tournament organisers to allow as many players as possible to take part as they get a fee for each registration. For example, in a tournament where the buy-in is $1000 + $100, every time a player registers, that is another $100 in the tournament organizer’s pocket, so to turn away poker players because play has already started is literally turning away free money and businesses do not like to do that. Players also like large tournament prize pools so the more players that enter, the larger the prizes on offer.

Because player pools are smaller than they were in the glorious days of the poker boom, more and more tournaments now offer late registration. Players can usually register late until the end of the first three levels of play and in the WSOP, for example, it is not uncommon for players to bust out of one tournament and immediately rush to catch the late registration period of another. Smart players may just make it before late registration closes.

But is it a good idea for you to register into a tournament during late registration or should you consider living to fight another day and waiting for another tournament where you can join from the start? Let’s analyse this now.

Late registration is fine!

When you are standing in line to late register for a tournament and you see players sweating their short stacks after making bad plays or suffering bad beats, you may find significant pleasure in the idea that you can sit down with a full starting stack, one that those players would gladly swap places with you to get. It is true that you cannot win a tournament in the first few levels of play, but you can certainly lose it. Even if there are rebuys, you are saving them by not busting. So there is some logic in waiting and not entering the fray too soon.

You should know your strengths and weaknesses as a player. If you are a player with a high level of ability in MTT’s then you can sit down at any table and quickly establish yourself at the table and gain an edge. I have played in many local live tournaments where the first levels are nothing but tiny uncontested pots with the odd raising war when two big hands collide. One decent pot at a later level wins more chips in one go. In this setting I do not need to enter on time to gain any advantage.

Another advantage of buying in later is that your opponents have information on each other but none on you! You can then construct your table image without worrying about previous hands played. Because of certain showdowns that happened before you sat down, players may already be focused on individual battles and you can fly under the radar. Whatever your opponents' focus, your initial bets and raises must be taken on face value. Be careful though as players will quickly begin to assess what you are doing. In the short-term, at least, you can use this fact to your advantage.

Don’t register late!

Let’s go back to our example of watching players suffer whilst you queue up to enter as a late entrant. In our example they have a shorter stack, but what about the chip leader? They have seen events work out in their favor. They have learned about the player tendencies of their opponents at a time when the blinds are smaller and the pots are therefore smaller. They have a larger stack and more knowledge and they are ready to literally cash in their knowledge at the given moment when the pots and blinds go up. If you register late you cannot possibly build up a large stack early or gain this knowledge. If you agree with this then you need to register on time.

Some players have a philosophy that if they cannot build a large stack in the early going it is not worth their time to splash around with a short stack. You don’t see this too often but some poor players can take this approach to varying degrees and it is certainly possible for you to be on the receiving end of a bad beat from a fish even if the right thing to do is play pots with them. However, if they want to double up or go home and you register late, you have no shot at collecting their chips.

You also need to consider the blinds. At the beginning of a tournament you have a stack of many big blinds, but this quickly diminishes as the blinds go up. By the end of late registration, the blinds will be higher than at the beginning of the tournament by a couple of increments which makes the value of your starting stack smaller. If you prefer playing with a deeper stack and adjusting your play accordingly, avoid registering late and get there on time.

I usually enter from the start of a tournament because I am eager to play, but I also am happy to enter a tournament late if, for whatever reason, I cannot be there on time. I like to win my first pot early and mentally “get into the tournament”.

I read a quote online researching this article that I liked a lot. It was written in 2013 by an internet user called Gaz. He said:

Well said Gaz! If you feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, that is not the time to be risking a buy-in for the sake of it. There is no rule that says a player who buys in late has an advantage or disadvantage, but I would say if you arrive at the table feeling it is a bad idea you should not be paying, wait for another opportunity, or buy an alarm clock!