How big of an EV boost is it to stall after late regging?

Following complaints at the WSOP that some players stalled before sitting down after late regging, we put some numbers on why it's so bad.

Last week the topic of late registration once again hit the WSOP, as High Roller crusher Chris Brewer complained about players abusing late reg. The issue was that players were stalling after max late regging, essentially trying to buy as much time as possible before they started playing, because their chips were not in play yet. 

The clock has to stop for the max late reg in these high rollers. It’s extremely unfair what is happening @WSOP we are 15 minutes into the level with a line of 12 people and tables still getting opened. People walking in to reg 5-10 minutes past reg and allowed in. @padspoker…

— Chris Brewer (@Chris_D_Brewer) June 7, 2024

Since the tweet a change has been made whereby players who bust just before late reg ends have access to a kiosk so they can re-enter quicker. 

However, because I am a colossal nerd, I wanted to get a sense of how much of an advantage stalling to sit down when you late reg could be, 

An EV gain by taking your time to sit down

The following I did with this free resources from Holdem Resources Calculator. I simulated a spot from the $25,000 8-Max event running at the time of writing, using the payout structure from that event and 317 entries. I gave the spot 129 players (to simulate the late reg period and the players who already bust), then I gave everyone a random stack that added up to the 317 total stacks. 

In example 1 I had a 130th player late register, on time. I simulated a further spot where the same player did not sit down till a further 3 players bust out. Finally, I simulated a spot where 10 players bust out before he sat down. You can see the raw results here. 

As you can see, late regging is instantly profitable in every scenario. However, it is more than twice as profitable if you can wait out 10 players. This is just a hypothetical example based on the current $25k event taking place, it will be more pronounced the nearer late reg is to the money, if the field size is smaller and if the player was able to wait out more eliminations. 

A $300 boost in a $25,000 event may seem trivial, but Brewer is right that it is still stealing EV from the other players. It is also not quite as trivial when you consider it in terms of hourly. If the final example above took 15 minutes, we are still looking at a $1,200-an-hour edge. 

That's not the only way it is arguably unfair on those players already in the event. While most of us could not fathom the idea of coming in at a super shallow stack depth in a $25k event, the shallower the better if you are one of the weaker players. If I came in at 30BBs and was sat to the right of Chris Brewer, he could exert a lot of edge over me. If I came in at 8BBs, he would have much less of an edge. Shallower stack depths are much easier to play and harder for professionals to gain an edge over weaker players. 

You still have to accumulate chips in both scenarios if you want to win the thing, but it is much easier to at least min cash a tournament the later you can enter. Even if that means having a stack that will likely be all-in in the first orbit. 

What should events do to tackle stalling like this? Let us know in the comments: