Tourney Penalize Starting Stacks for Late Arrival? (2 Viewers)

PlaidDragon

PlaidDragon

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How much (if anything) should an initial buy in be penalized for late arrival?

I.E. T10000 and an individual arrives at the start of L4 (75/150) with the three prior levels being:

25/50
25/75
50/100

My next event one of my players reports he might be an hour late but still wants to play.
 
TDA rule:
7: Alternates, Late Registration, & Re-Entries Alternates, players registering late, and re-entries will be sold full stacks, randomly seated at any position, and dealt in except between SB and button.
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If late arrivals are an issue, offer a bonus to early arrivals. Usually 15 minutes before kickoff. While it may be semantics between "penalty" for arriving late, and "bonus" for arriving early, assholes penalize players for taking care of their kids/finishing a work shift/going to church (I had that one). Awesome hosts give a bonus.

Which do you want to be? o_O
 
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I know some here offer an extra chip (a T1000, perhaps) to players who arrive early.

I like the idea of rewarding early players, much more than punishing late players.
 
Players who are not in their seats should still have to pay the blinds. Usually, an orbit at a full ring, self dealt table takes 20 minutes to complete.
Every tournament that I have played in prohibits players from joining in after the first break.

Here are two ways you can address the issue.

1) Players who arrive on time receive 500 bonus chips. 2.) The inverse. Players receive 500 chips when someone unexpectedly shows up late. (Without given prior notice.)
 
Your late player in the example will have a 66BB stack to start while everyone else started with a 200BB stack. No need to penalize any further.

Bonus chips for on time are always a great incentive.
 
Never penalize. When arriving late they already get a reduction in the number of big blinds. Way better to offer an early arrival bonus. Keep it positive.

We also require them to post a big blind when taking their seat.
 
Beakertwang said:
I know some here offer an extra chip (a T1000, perhaps) to players who arrive early.

I like the idea of rewarding early players, much more than punishing late players.
Click to expand...

Warning: I tried this once with my casual tourney group a while back. Some liked it but others hated it, and (correctly) commented that rewarding early players and punishing late players is effectively the same thing.

It caused enough grief within the group that we gave it up after a few weeks.
 
DoubleEagle said:
Never penalize. When arriving late they already get a reduction in the number of big blinds. Way better to offer an early arrival bonus. Keep it positive.

We also require them to post a big blind when taking their seat.
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This is the best answer IMHO. No negative other than having to post. Will employ this at the next game.

Thank you all.
 
Schmendr1ck said:
Warning: I tried this once with my casual tourney group a while back. Some liked it but others hated it, and (correctly) commented that rewarding early players and punishing late players is effectively the same thing.

It caused enough grief within the group that we gave it up after a few weeks.
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How is rewarding players that get there early a punishment to players arriving late? Players have a choice. Be punctual and be rewarded. Lombardi time! If your not ten minutes early to a meeting you are late!
 
DoubleEagle said:
How is rewarding players that get there early a punishment to players arriving late? Players have a choice. Be punctual and be rewarded. Lombardi time! If your not ten minutes early to a meeting you are late!
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If you have 10k starting stacks and a 1k penalty for arriving late: early arrivals get 10k and late arrivals get 9k.
If you have 9k starting stacks and a 1k bonus for arriving early: early arrivals get 10k and late arrivals get 9k.
Mathematically, rewarding early arrivals is identical to penalizing late arrivals. You're just calling it something different.

Also, this is a very casual weeknight group - at the time it was a $10 buy-in. Some players consistently struggled to get there on time due to work commitments and/or driving long distances through unpredictable Orlando traffic. It wasn't worth the aggravation and the possibility of losing players, so we got rid of it.
 
At our games I do 2 bonuses. 1 bonus if you RSVP, and another if you arrive and pay on time. 10% of the starting stack for each. The caveat for the on time bonus is that if you email/text/phone me before the start time letting me know you'll be late, you still get the bonus.

The reason for the on time bonus is to make sure I know who is going to be coming. If someone's running late, but doesn't tell me, and then no-shows then there's the trouble of making up their stack, having a dead stack at a table and then removing the stack when i find out they're not coming. And I can't be bothered phoning/texting people who haven't arrived on time to check to see if they're still coming. It's just inconvenient when there's already so much going on to get a game to start on time. Before offering the bonus, this happened all the time.

Practically everyone RSVP's so 99% of the players get that bonus, but then there's the odd time that someone shows up unexpectedly. I order food for the night so having too many of these can cause food shortages. If you RSVP and then no-show without letting me know, then the next time you don't get your RSVP bonus.

If all of your players are punctual and having late players all the time isn't a problem, then don't bother with the bonus/penalty. I know that I can't rely on 30 people to show up on time, or at least let me know in advance they're going to be late, without some sort of incentive.

2 other leagues I play in do the something similar. It works really well.
 
We offer a 10% stack bonus to players who are paid and seated 5 minutes prior to the announced starting time (dealers hand out the bonus chips).

Not seated? No bonus. Works very well, and events start on time. Late players get the full stack they pay for, with blinds deducted as applicable.

Pre-paid stacks stay on the table for the duration of the event. Unpaid stacks (no-shows) are pulled after the first hour.
 
Simple answer, no. Early Birds get Chips and Points Boost, late players until first hour normal stacka and points.
 
Schmendr1ck said:
Warning: I tried this once with my casual tourney group a while back. Some liked it but others hated it, and (correctly) commented that rewarding early players and punishing late players is effectively the same thing.

It caused enough grief within the group that we gave it up after a few weeks.
Click to expand...
I understand the reason your players hated it. But my experience was exactly the opposite. I added a 10% on time bonus this year and after 8 games, only twice did someone not get the bonus. It's a Saturday game, I imagine I'd be lynched if I tried this on a weeknight with Dallas traffic
 
I wonder if there's ever been a situation where *everyone* has turned up late so just the host (who didnt actually have to 'turn up' cos they LIVE there) got the bonus :p

"Yeah sorry I was the only one who got the T5000 bonus"

"But it's only a T1000 tourney!"

"Sorry rules is rules"
 
Schmendr1ck said:
...(correctly) commented that rewarding early players and punishing late players is effectively the same thing.
Click to expand...

It is exactly the same thing, as you pointed out Chris. Unless the players are 6 year olds that can't see that. I do have a penalty for late arrival (it helps me when distributing tables) and if I was to say I changed from a penalty for late comers to a reward to early arrivals they would ALL laugh at my face, LOL!!! What matters: if you want people there on time, stacks for players there on time need to be larger than for those who are late.
 
We serve dinner before the card game. Except for one player that would drive directly in to our game from church, we have had maybe 1 late arrival in 10 years.

The church changed the time of their mass (Zombie-Priest influence maybe :whistle: :whistling:). I honestly cannot remember the last time I had a late arrival now.

Make the game something players want to attend. Attendance takes care of itself.
 
andy699669 said:
Simple answer, no. Early Birds get Chips and Points Boost, late players until first hour normal stacka and points.
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Wow, points too? I assume that’s for some kind of league or tournament series?
Do whatever works for you, but giving early birds extra chips AND extra points - I wouldn’t like that.
 
BGinGA said:
No participation trophies, either.
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73b.png
 
Before we started the early arrival bonus, we had numerous players consistently arriving 10 or 15 min. late. After instituting the early arrival bonus, late registrations have become minimal. We have about 50 players in our weekly group, about 25 show up on average. Not one person complained about the early arrival bonus when we started it. In fact, they liked getting the extra chips in their stacks. The chronic late arriving players all started showing up on time. Some people just plan to be late. They are late everywhere they go.

Ultimately, it's what works best for your group. Early arrival bonus works for us.
 

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