Full Tilt Poker Matrix SnGs

Have you ever thought that you were better than the rest of the folks at the table, but that you couldn't prove it because of a cold deck or bad beat?

Full Tilt has introduced a new concept called a Matrix Sit-n-Go. The idea is that they take 9 players and sit them down to 4 simultaneous single table SnG tournaments. It's one thing to get lucky and win a tournament. It's quite another to pwn the same field of 9 over the course of 4 independent ones.

But is it worth it? Let's analyze the Matrix and see how far down the rabbit hole goes.

There are actually 5 prize pools in a Matrix tournament - one for each of the individual tournaments, plus an overall prize pool for the Matrix itself. The prize pools take the traditional 50%, 30%, 20% breakdown for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. If you win all four of the individual tournaments, you can "scoop" the Matrix pool. So let's make the math easy - There are 50 "points" for the Matrix, and winning any of the contests gets you 5, coming in 2nd gives you 3 and coming in 3rd gives you 2. "Scooping" the Matrix gives you 10. So the best you can theoretically do is 4 * 5 + 10 - 30 points. For a $22+$2 Matrix SnG, each point is worth $3.96, so that's $118.80. If you instead had entered 4 plain SnGs each worth $5.50 + $0.50 (which is the $22+$2 divided by four), you'd have won $99. That's a premium of $19.80, or 20%. The next best finish you can get is winning 3 of them and placing 2nd in the 4th. No scoop for you! Instead, you'd almost certainly win the Matrix prize, plus 3 1st place and 1 2nd place, or 4 * 5 + 3 - 23 points. That's $91.08, compared to the alternative of $89.10 - a premium of only 2%!

Still, I played a $22+$2 one for the novelty of it. I didn't do too badly. I won two of the four tournaments, placed 4th in the third (bad beat) and 9th in the last (made an ill advised move against pocket kings). I wound up 1st in the Matrix prize pool, so I earned 15 points, or $59.40. Had I played individually, I would have won $49.50 - a 20% premium.

Here's how it broke down:



Figuring out who benefitted is easy. Everybody who cashed at all cashed 20% less than they would have, except for the 3 of us who cashed in the Matrix pool. So if you don't make it into the upper echelons pretty predictably, you probably should avoid these. I may play one once in a while for the novelty of it, but playing 4 SnGs at the same time is a bit more busy than I would normally want to be.