Lately I've been looking back at tournament structures for previous WSOP events, Main Events in particular. I noticed one thing in particular changed when Bally's took over. Since 2022, the tournament structure makes liberal use of uneven blind levels, seemingly in order to color up chip denoms faster.
For the last few years at Rio, uneven blind levels like "200/300" and "300/500" were only used on Day 1 due to the phasing out of the 25 chips. But now the structure has levels like "1000/1500," "1000/2500," and even most bizarrely, "100,000/150,000". That one's bizarre because the 25,000s are still in play, so "75,000/150,000" would work just fine.
Is there a reason besides coloring up why these uneven blinds would be used? Has this been a common practice outside the WSOP, or is this a more recent innovation?
For the last few years at Rio, uneven blind levels like "200/300" and "300/500" were only used on Day 1 due to the phasing out of the 25 chips. But now the structure has levels like "1000/1500," "1000/2500," and even most bizarrely, "100,000/150,000". That one's bizarre because the 25,000s are still in play, so "75,000/150,000" would work just fine.
Is there a reason besides coloring up why these uneven blinds would be used? Has this been a common practice outside the WSOP, or is this a more recent innovation?
