Ocean KO — crazy gamble or a workable format?
The Ocean KO jackpot MTT format, which appeared on GGPoker a few days ago, has sparked serious debate in the poker community. Regulars fear the huge variance and worry about the fairness of the game, but recreational players are happily joining these tournaments.
A similar format has existed for quite a while on the Winamax network, where it leads in popularity among players. Ocean KO events feature a progressive knockout reward whose size depends on the level of the eliminated player's character and is multiplied by a randomly drawn coefficient.
Each of these levels has a minimum and maximum knockout size, and each multiplier has its own drawing frequency. Thanks to the multipliers that boost bounties, it's the fight to knock out the player with the highest level that becomes the most profitable. And in this format a $5 buy-in can, with a lucky break, bring a six-figure prize.
The difference between Ocean KO and Space KO on Winamax is that GG added a x400 multiplier (the maximum on Winamax is x100) and increased the frequency of the x10 multiplier (2.40% vs 0.50%).
An opinion has emerged among regulars that variance in jackpot PKOs is so high that reaching your expectation without an infinite bankroll would be impossible.
Fyodor "Lorem" Truntsev updated his variance calculator, and the calculations showed that it doesn't differ from other knockout formats. In serious downswings, freezeouts turned out to be the highest-variance format. But in upswings, jackpot PKOs can bring the greatest benefit.
📰 Subscribe to Pokerflow
A similar format has existed for quite a while on the Winamax network, where it leads in popularity among players. Ocean KO events feature a progressive knockout reward whose size depends on the level of the eliminated player's character and is multiplied by a randomly drawn coefficient.
Each of these levels has a minimum and maximum knockout size, and each multiplier has its own drawing frequency. Thanks to the multipliers that boost bounties, it's the fight to knock out the player with the highest level that becomes the most profitable. And in this format a $5 buy-in can, with a lucky break, bring a six-figure prize.
The difference between Ocean KO and Space KO on Winamax is that GG added a x400 multiplier (the maximum on Winamax is x100) and increased the frequency of the x10 multiplier (2.40% vs 0.50%).
An opinion has emerged among regulars that variance in jackpot PKOs is so high that reaching your expectation without an infinite bankroll would be impossible.
Fyodor "Lorem" Truntsev updated his variance calculator, and the calculations showed that it doesn't differ from other knockout formats. In serious downswings, freezeouts turned out to be the highest-variance format. But in upswings, jackpot PKOs can bring the greatest benefit.
📰 Subscribe to Pokerflow
