Flight payout

Why organisers use it

Flights exist because a field is too large to seat at once. The problem with bagging alone is that a player can play eleven hours, survive, and still bust Day 2 inside the first orbit with nothing to show for the night. Paying each flight fixes that: everyone who makes it through has banked something, which makes a long Day 1 easier to sell and brings players back for the later flights.

What it changes about how you play

Two things, and they pull in opposite directions.

Near the flight's own money bubble, the structure creates a second bubble that would not otherwise exist. Short stacks fold into the payout the way they would on any money bubble, so pressure from a big stack is unusually profitable there. See bubble factor.

But the money at the flight bubble is usually a min-cash — a small fraction of the prize pool, with the real equity sitting at the final table. A player who protects a flight min-cash by folding a strong hand is trading a large chunk of tournament equity for a small amount of certain money. The correct read is almost always that the chips matter more than the flight payout, and the players who disagree are the ones worth attacking.

Where you will meet it

It is standard in the big British weekenders — Grosvenor's Behemoth pays 15 per cent of each flight — and increasingly common across European and Latin American festivals with multi-flight Day 1s. Read the structure sheet rather than assuming: an otherwise identical festival may bag through without paying a peso, and the difference changes how the last two levels of the night should be played.

Not the same as a rebuy or re-entry

Flight payout describes money going out to players. Re-entry and rebuy describe money coming in. A festival can combine them freely, and the most aggressive formats do: unlimited re-entry across flights, with every flight paying its own survivors.