How much are 10 minutes worth?

Weired title, isn't it? But I will explain it in a minute.

I'm still looking if I can make it to Lotusphere in Orlando and the tournaments Tunica (or the Bahamas) in January. Therefore I am still following all the information around. Johnny Grooms the TD for the WPO events at the Gold Strike has published the structure of the lower buy-in events ($300 / $500) and I tested them with the PF-Formula. The $300 events have a slow structure giving them a PF of 11.92 with 40 min. levels and 2,500 chips. The $500 events have the same structure but 50. min levels ... now we are back to the title of the post ;-) ... and I was really surprised to see the PF change to a whooping 15.82! Just ten minutes more per level change it from a good to a very good structure.

I now looked at the WSOP-C events that will run at the same time in Tunica. They haven't published their structure yet but most probably it's the same as in other WSOP-C events. Harrah's gives you more chips but has a different structure that earns the $300 events only a PF of 8.61. So the WPO structure is way superior here. In the $500 events Harrah's offers some more chips and extends the levels from 45 to 60 minutes. But still the PF of 14.52 is lower than at the WPO.

Kudos to Johnny Grooms for creating a competitive structure for the January event in Tunica. If I make it to Tunica I will of course play the WPO events instead of the WSOP-C events as they get you more play for your money.

Unfortunately the WPS at the Bahamas doesn't seem to be interested in players that ask about the structure. I emailed them two times but never got a response. So even if the weather in January is much nicer at the Bahamas than in Tunica it looks like Tunica is the better choice in terms of tournament quality.