To Reentry or Not to Reentry?

If I’ve been referencing back to Alex Dreyfus often in my articles, it is for a reason: man has been starting some solid discussions lately. One of the recent topics he’s touched upon is that of reentries. He tweeted that in his opinion, no Main Event of a big poker tournament should ever have option of multiple entries.

Main Event of big poker tournaments should never be re-entries. It is totally against promoting poker as a game of skill. #FreezeoutFTW
— Alexandre Dreyfus (@alex_dreyfus) November 15, 2014

This line of reasoning goes hand in hand with Dreyfus and GPI’s efforts to ‘sportify’ poker. Making all the big events single bullet only would ensure that those with deeper pockets cannot abuse that fact and would have that advantage over a ‘poorer’ competition.

Reactions in the replies were mixed – some were firmly with Dreyfus on this one, while the others are convinced that there is nothing wrong with having multiple shots at the same event, even if it is the major one. Let us look at some of the pros and cons here.

‘Unnatural’ advantage

Having an option to re-enter the event certainly does give a sort of psychological advantage to those with couple bullets behind. Knowing that push comes to shove you can always just grab another seat can help one to play pressure-free, call down thinner and making bolder bluffs, especially against those who do not have the same option due to their financial situation.

But going back to the original statement, does this really take away from the ‘sporting’ element of the game? It does only if we assume that sports, in general, are completely fair and that talent and willingness to work hard are the only determinants of the success.

However, this is not really the case. Athletes from the different spheres are often left behind because they do not have financial means to continue or advance their career. Some make it through, but many are left behind. Is it fair? No. Is it the way it should be? Probably not – but it is the way it is and it is not highly realistic that poker will be the one leading the way of change in this sense.

Building Prize Pools

It is not only the professionals who like the idea of multi-entries. From my personal experience, I’ve heard many ‘fun’ players talking about it as the good thing, enabling them to have more fun. In a sense, freezouts are cruel, you lose your chips and you are busto, the fun is over.

On the other hand, while ‘fun’ players are having fun, they are also building a prize pool, the fact that is equally appealing to themselves and professionals. Sometimes this will make tournaments much more attractive and bring in bigger crowds. Of course, we can guess that Dreyfus was mostly referring to really big events, like EPTs, WPTs and such where number of players is usually not an issue.

Even still, big prize pools attract more players and in that sense, reentries can be good for future prospects.

Making it Worthwhile

This one goes together with the prize pools in a sense, but it relates more to amateurs. Although some, no doubt, prefer the more leveled field, there are many who will be reluctant to travel somewhere for just one bullet, knowing that they may come a long way for just an hour or two of play.

Reentries, or at least giving an option to enter both starting days in bigger events, may encourage some of these people, because they will have more chance to go deep and come back with a story. Travelling somewhere for hours and coming back with nothing but an hour worth of play is hardly a satisfying feeling.

There are arguments for both sides, but I’ve personally never seen reentries specifically as bad for poker in any shape or form. Rebuys are bit different and making main events rebuys would probably be much bigger issue.

As it is, reentries do make the number of good players in the field bigger by duplicating them several times, but they can also make tournaments more attractive to number of amateurs, so while I don’t have particularly strong feelings towards this issue either way, I don’t think that removing reentries would do that much for poker overall.