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Anyone Play In Stars Hu Tourneys?


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I played in the heads up omaha tourney last night on Stars, and won my first match in around 10 minutes. I was the first player finished, and every other time that's happened to me, you have to wait for every other table to be finished until you're matched up with your next opponent.I thought nothing of it, left the computer on and went to grab a quick shower, knowing I had at least 15 minutes until the next opponent would be ready. --Or so I thought...I get out of the shower and come back to the computer and to my shock (and dismay) my girlfriend (who has maybe a basic understanding of holdem, and NO understanding of omaha) is sitting there playing a guy heads up, already down 500 chips. Seems that the "second" completed player was immediately matched up against me when he finished his match.I ended up losing this match, and going out "28th" out of 34 players in the tourney. How is that possible, when I won my first match? Next time, should I just take my time in the first match, since there didn't seem to be any advantage to ending it quickly!?!?Has stars made some kind of change where now you don't have to wait for the field to "half" until you get your next opponent? I sent their support an email asking this same thing, but haven't heard anything back as yet.

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I ended up losing this match, and going out "28th" out of 34 players in the tourney. How is that possible, when I won my first match? Next time, should I just take my time in the first match, since there didn't seem to be any advantage to ending it quickly!?!?
I don't have an answer, but I'm wondering how it matters whether you finish 28th or 17th, how many match ups do you have to win to get ITM?If you didn't get any money, although you won two matches and and someone else won won one, but took much longer, that would suck and can't be right. But I guess it speeds up the tourney a lot, if you don't have to wait for everyone else to finish at every "step".
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I don't have an answer, but I'm wondering how it matters whether you finish 28th or 17th, how many match ups do you have to win to get ITM?
No, you're right, it doesn't matter at all if I was 28th or 17th, but it would have been nice to know that they no longer "hold" your matchup until the field is cut in half. Live and learn, right, I won't be walking away from the computer next time I'm in one of these.It paid I think top 8 or something, so if I'd won the second matchup I would have cashed.(the holdem one I'm pretty sure is called "winner take all", but in this tourney it paid top 8)
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Here's the reply from Stars support:Thank you for writing about this matter. Please allow me to explainhow Heads Up Matchplay games work, so that you may understand what youare seeing.Matchplay events such as this are a lot like a single eliminationsports playoff... much like the American NCAA basketball tournament.If you start with a power of two, then everyone has an opponent, everysingle time.For example, if you start the matches with 256 players, then you'llplay one match to get to 128, then to 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, andultimately one winner. Any other starting number not in the abovegroup means that some players will not have a first-round opponent.Some players will get "byes" into the second round.For example, if 165 players enter such an event, we need to eliminateonly 37 players to get down to the next "perfect level" of 128.Thus, 74 players would play matches to eliminate 37, while 91 playerswill not have to play a first match to make it to the round of 128.It is a random selection that determines which players must play thefirst round, and which will get a "bye".Obviously, it is better not to have "byes" and for such matches tofill to a "perfect" starting number, though sometimes this does nothappen. We will continue to monitor participation in this event, andif it often fails to fill to a perfect power of two, we may considerlowering the maximum number of players permitted, to avoid first roundbyes.In the case of your tourney there were 34 runners, this means that 30players received "byes" and only four players had to play round one games,once two players were knocked out, the number of players was at 32, theperfect level for round two.You were unlucky enough to have been one of the four players arbitrarilypicked to compete in the first round. The reason the second round startedso quickly after you won your match was because there was in fact only tworound one matches being played.Thank you for playing in our heads up matches, and for choosingPokerStars.Regards,GarethPokerStars Support Team

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