I always tell my players, "I will listen to any suggestions you want to make, but the final decision is mine."
This gives players a voice, but also reminds them that I won't make changes that I think aren't in the best interest of the whole group.
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Tourney Penalize Starting Stacks for Late Arrival? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter PlaidDragon
- Start date
I always tell my players, "I will listen to any suggestions you want to make, but the final decision is mine."
This gives players a voice, but also reminds them that I won't make changes that I think aren't in the best interest of the whole group.
JustinInMN
4 of a Kind
I do agree with this. If you think being late is a strategy, you are admitting the risk of going busto is too great to overwhelm the advantage of playing. That said I see how this can work in season-point situations as mentioned above
.
Okay, let me see if I can put this to rest once and for all...
Tournament starts at 2 pm. Players A, B, and C are all huge sports fans, and their favorite team is playing on television starting at 1pm (expected to finish by 3pm). All three have registered for the tournament via rsvp guaranteeing them seats, but none have pre-paid.
Player A decides to watch the game at home, and plans on arriving late to the tournament.
Player B arrives ahead of time, pays his entry fee, and heads to the living room to watch the remainder of the game.
Player C arrives ahead of time, pays his entry fee, and leaves to watch the rest of the game at the nearby tavern with his sports friends.
The tournament starts at 2pm, with three empty chairs and a full stack at each chair. All three players are absent, by their own choice. One guy is present but not at the table, another guy was here but left (planning on returning later), and the third guy is going to be late.
All three empty-seat stacks pay applicable blinds when appropriate.
Please attempt to convince me why either any one of the three or all three shouldn't pay blinds like everybody else who were also issued stacks but ARE at the table.
Tournament starts at 2 pm. Players A, B, and C are all huge sports fans, and their favorite team is playing on television starting at 1pm (expected to finish by 3pm). All three have registered for the tournament via rsvp guaranteeing them seats, but none have pre-paid.
Player A decides to watch the game at home, and plans on arriving late to the tournament.
Player B arrives ahead of time, pays his entry fee, and heads to the living room to watch the remainder of the game.
Player C arrives ahead of time, pays his entry fee, and leaves to watch the rest of the game at the nearby tavern with his sports friends.
The tournament starts at 2pm, with three empty chairs and a full stack at each chair. All three players are absent, by their own choice. One guy is present but not at the table, another guy was here but left (planning on returning later), and the third guy is going to be late.
All three empty-seat stacks pay applicable blinds when appropriate.
Please attempt to convince me why either any one of the three or all three shouldn't pay blinds like everybody else who were also issued stacks but ARE at the table.
Lash
Straight
That’s different. If you buy in and draw a seat you are live.
Lash
Straight
If you tell me at cut off you still want a seat and start getting blinded You owe me your buy no matter what. No one should have to pre pay at the start
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
I have a wait list for every game. This is how I do it. I go even further that if you've paid me before tournament start, you get the early bird bonus. Player is seated with chip stack. It matters not if your ass is physically in the chair.
upNdown
Royal Flush
I honestly don’t think it’s a big deal either way. When I started playing tournaments and they blinded off all stacks, whether purchased or not, from the beginning, I thought that was fair.
When they changed the rules and started selling you a full stack whenever you bought in (freeze out or not) I also thought that was fair.
Now, I think doing both an early bird bonus and blinding off latecomers is unfair. But if you’ve invited me to the tournament and I know the rules, I guess I can either choose to show up early, choose to show up late, or choose not to play.
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
@Ben got introduced to the 25/75 blind level last Saturday.
Don't let him fool you. Ben is very aware of the 25/75. He's been to Atlanta.
Jonesey07
4 of a Kind
Haha. He ended up taking the tourney down too. He's a damn good player.
ekricket
Royal Flush
So you show up for a tournament at the local casino an hour early, but you find that they are taking all entries but can only seat 60. Locals playing cash have already locked up the first 60 seats, so you pay your money - an hour early - and Your the first alternate. Tournament starts, and it’s an hour before a seat opens and you can take it.
So your saying you should get docked some starting chips here?
I’ve played in casinos all over the world and have never been docked nor have I ever seen someone docked starting chips for registering late, even if the tournament is not full yet, as long as it’s within the open registration period.
Should rebuys be docked as well, since they are starting new later in the tournament and have some imagined advantage?
Just start your tourney on time and have a registration period that closes sometime, like after the first level or before the first break. As people buyin give them a starting stack and seat them, and forget about all this other crap. It’s the civilized thing to do.
If they have a live stack for some reason - they bought in but are watching the game, or called in and you trust them or whatever reason - but are absent then take the blinds as they come around.
I know it’s a home game, so you can do what you want, but if you start making arbitrary rules what’s next? Twos wild?
So your saying you should get docked some starting chips here?
I’ve played in casinos all over the world and have never been docked nor have I ever seen someone docked starting chips for registering late, even if the tournament is not full yet, as long as it’s within the open registration period.
Should rebuys be docked as well, since they are starting new later in the tournament and have some imagined advantage?
Just start your tourney on time and have a registration period that closes sometime, like after the first level or before the first break. As people buyin give them a starting stack and seat them, and forget about all this other crap. It’s the civilized thing to do.
If they have a live stack for some reason - they bought in but are watching the game, or called in and you trust them or whatever reason - but are absent then take the blinds as they come around.
I know it’s a home game, so you can do what you want, but if you start making arbitrary rules what’s next? Twos wild?
What you describe is exactly what we do. There is no late registration period; it ends when the tourney starts. Everybody who registered gets a stack, and a seat...even if not physically present.
What do you mean by 'cut off'? There is no late registration period. Players have registered and are guaranteed a seat prior to the event start.
Agreed.
Lash
Straight
Yes if it is a freeze out/no rebuy,you blind stacks off the start.
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
This changes everything. If there is no "late registration" then yes, their stack is active, and should be blinded. Sadly, it should also be a position, giving a player to the left an advantage, the same way the player on the left has an advantage over a really shitty player that projectes their folds before the action is on them. Because, that is EXACTLY what is happening. If a player gets up mid tournament, do you no longer make them a position? No. you pay your money, the chips run. If a player has a "home emergency" and leaves mid tournament, do you pretend that they were never there?
If there is no late registration, your "late players" are responsible for the buy-in. The money belongs in the prize-pool, if they make it or not. Once the money is there (assumed by the host or paid by attendance) the chips are live, should take up a position, AND SHOULD NEVER BE REMOVED.
And you, as a host, take 100% of the financial responsibility, covering for the missing players should they never show.
For the one event per year in our league finals, the top 10 have players pre-determined stack sizes. If one of the top 10 are late then they are blinded off until the first break at the end of level three. If not there by the break, then their stack would be picked up.
I don’t understand why this is controversial. I think we all can agree that all tournament players should be treated the same. So, why would you force one player to make two forced bets per round and not another? The fact that they aren’t sitting at their seat because they are late, doing something else, or too busy picking his/her nose seems irrelevant.
We give the early bird bonus to those who come late as long as they let me know they are actually coming before start time. We also blind them out. Our games are nearly all freeze outs.
Fair is a nebulous concept! It means different things to different people. As long as the rules are announced in advance, and then followed, it's fair. What really counts is the perception of fair.
Casinos are quite different than home tournaments, and both are different than bar leagues. I've never played in a casino tournament, so I can't say how they do it. I can say casinos do poker tournaments for the same reason they do everything else -- to make money! If home games did that, it's an illegal rake. Well, it's a rake that in most states is illegal.
Law: You will get the kind of behavior your rules encourage.
The "pay your money get a full stack" is fair if announced in advance. So is the rule that those wearing pink polka dot shirts get double the stack size if it's announced in advance.
For casinos, it's simple game administration. What's best for the bottom line is what they are going to do. I always thought it odd that they blinded off prepaid stacks, but not the stacks of latecomers, but I won't call that unfair. I'll just say that makes about as much sense to me as putting screen doors on submarines. But I get why casinos do it. Anything else is more complicated. They want as many entrants as possible because each one is worth more money to the casino. The more complex game management is, the less money they make. Home games lack that profit motive or the need to pay for management and floor space, so they should be different, probably in a lot of ways.
I used to play in a game that players didn't prepay, but if you let the host know you were coming, they assigned you a table and put a stack on that table for you and blinded it off. If you just showed up without notice, you paid and got a full stack. So here's what I did. First, I NEVER told them in advance I was coming. Their rules actually discouraged that. If I did run late, my stack wasn't blinded (I think I was late only once, due to getting off work late). Second, I volunteered to be the guy who blinded the late stacks. They needed someone reliable who knew how to do it, so they were happy to let me do them that favor. Third, I put those stacks to my left because "that made more sense when you shuffled behind." No one questioned it, and I never mentioned the big advantage it gave me. I got to be the BB twice a round, and if there were 2 late comers at my table, 3x per round. I'm not sure if anyone ever figured out what a big advantage that was for me.
You know what's even more stupid? It's when the host assigns those who have signed up at a table with unassigned seats, and at my suggestion, assign those not there tables first. If 2 wound up at the same table, I'd volunteer to sit at that table since dealing with 2 blinding stacks is "more complicated," and the host quickly agrees. No one wants to have to deal with that problem! Ah, if only they had 7 (in their 8-player tables) assigned to one table, and I could manage all 7! No one can really say it's an unfair advantage, because I followed the rules they had. It was self-dealt too, and I could deal really fast in that situation! To me, if the rules give a player that kind of advantage, the problem is the rules, not players taking advantage of the rules.
Casinos have less of an issue with that since there is truly random seating, which almost never happens in a home game. So yes, a player effectively gets the BB 2x/round, but it's not as certain as that home game situation I was in.
For the most part, our players don't prepay. If they did, I'd blind their stacks (and have on the rare occasions where it's come up). But I followed the pay and get a big stack, and I always want the most money in the prize pool we can get. Late arrivals, at least if the game is not full, I do not find to be a huge inconvenience, though I'll be the first to admit it is easier to plan when you know who is coming.
However, the perception of fairness was a problem. All it takes is one of your better players, who should know better, losing a hand to someone who sucked out on them, and then getting KO'd by a latecomer who "was rewarded with a full stack for showing up late," for them to complain. If the latecomer also sucked out on them, they'd complain and leave upset, though they came back.
I track this, and I know that a player showing up even one hand late affects their chances of cashing. Statistically, their chances of cashing are reduced by 67-75% in our game if they aren't there on time. My theory is that every game has a rhythm and not being there at the start causes late comers to miss something. It's been suggested that maybe that's because the good players don't show up late. There may be some truth to that, but it's not completely true. One of our best players is a few minutes late frequently (1/3 to less than 1/2 the time). He does better than most when he's late, but it does significantly and negatively change his chances of cashing. We have a bonus now (see below), and that might explain part of that, though I think he's good enough to overcome the lack of the bonus. It's hard to say being late is the cause though.
Correlation is not cause, but it's just hard to prove either way. I've shared those stats with the players who complain about losing early to a latecomer. I'm glad those players don't build submarines for us. They may be good at poker, but logic isn't necessarily their strong suit. The perception of unfairness persisted. So I decided to act even though I didn't agree.
A related problem is the lagging starting time. I've always tried to start on time. That same game I played in "started at 7." I'm not sure what they meant by started. Apparently that is also a nebulous concept. First it was wait for a couple of people who are coming, and then players figured whatever starting at 7 meant, it didn't mean they started playing poker at 7 and they didn't start blinding stacks off at 7. My first year, the average starting when from 7:05-7:10, to 7:40-7:45. Despite my attempts to start on time, I found the same problem, though not as bad.
I started with BG's empty seat rule. As the button approached an empty seat stack, we removed a SB and BB from that stack from play. If that player showed up fight after that, they had to wait until the button passed to get cards. By removing chips from the stack and game, we'd just have an empty stack at every seat. If someone showed up, they were randomly assigned a stack and lived with where that was. I found the starting time stopped lagging, and players perceived that as more fair.
To me for our game, "starting time" means when players draw their seating chip and move to their seat. Once that happens, we expect to start dealing cards within 5 minutes. I think of our intended starting time as being 15 minutes after the announced time, but the reality is that it is less than 5 minutes after most of the time. We play on Fridays, traffic might be a little heavier, and starting before 7:15 is just difficult for our crowd. I announce 7:15 as the starting time.
The only issue I had with that rule was it was apparently a little complicated for others to manage at the "other" table. My tables are in different rooms. So after using BG's rule (and he privately helped me develop our rule -- thanks BG!) successfully for the most part, I decided to start an Early Bird Bonus to those who were either registered and paid by 7:05, or at least in the door and in line to pay by then.
For us, that has been highly successful at starting on time -- even better than the empty seat rule. Depending on the night, that's 10-12.5% of their starting stack. Then everyone who comes after gets a full starting stack. Since I allow people to enter up to round 7 (the start of the 3rd hour), that means we don't deal with empty seats through 6 rounds. The truth is, the blinds are such that the failure to get the bonus is much worse than being late with the blinding. But players like it and 95% show up on time. It has even resulted in us starting some games 3-5 minutes early. If all pre-registrants are there and paid by 7:05, there is a reasonable chance we will be starting before the announced starting time.
Develop rules that encourage starting on time and are easy to manage. It's the best thing for you as a host, it's the best thing for your game, and your players will appreciate it.
I like Zombie's meal before hand idea. It's not practical for me for a couple of reasons. The first is that we play on Friday, a workday for most of my players, and we couldn't start until 8:30 or so if I fixed them a meal for the price of admission. The second reason is my wife won't cook for that large a crowd. If I fixed them a meal, I'd spend a fortune on get well cards! I love the idea though, and don't doubt he rarely has latecomers.
BG and others have rules that encourage starting on time. I found a couple of things have worked well for us and are easy to manage. That creates the perception of a well-run game, and players like that.
Casinos are quite different than home tournaments, and both are different than bar leagues. I've never played in a casino tournament, so I can't say how they do it. I can say casinos do poker tournaments for the same reason they do everything else -- to make money! If home games did that, it's an illegal rake. Well, it's a rake that in most states is illegal.
Law: You will get the kind of behavior your rules encourage.
The "pay your money get a full stack" is fair if announced in advance. So is the rule that those wearing pink polka dot shirts get double the stack size if it's announced in advance.
For casinos, it's simple game administration. What's best for the bottom line is what they are going to do. I always thought it odd that they blinded off prepaid stacks, but not the stacks of latecomers, but I won't call that unfair. I'll just say that makes about as much sense to me as putting screen doors on submarines. But I get why casinos do it. Anything else is more complicated. They want as many entrants as possible because each one is worth more money to the casino. The more complex game management is, the less money they make. Home games lack that profit motive or the need to pay for management and floor space, so they should be different, probably in a lot of ways.
I used to play in a game that players didn't prepay, but if you let the host know you were coming, they assigned you a table and put a stack on that table for you and blinded it off. If you just showed up without notice, you paid and got a full stack. So here's what I did. First, I NEVER told them in advance I was coming. Their rules actually discouraged that. If I did run late, my stack wasn't blinded (I think I was late only once, due to getting off work late). Second, I volunteered to be the guy who blinded the late stacks. They needed someone reliable who knew how to do it, so they were happy to let me do them that favor. Third, I put those stacks to my left because "that made more sense when you shuffled behind." No one questioned it, and I never mentioned the big advantage it gave me. I got to be the BB twice a round, and if there were 2 late comers at my table, 3x per round. I'm not sure if anyone ever figured out what a big advantage that was for me.
You know what's even more stupid? It's when the host assigns those who have signed up at a table with unassigned seats, and at my suggestion, assign those not there tables first. If 2 wound up at the same table, I'd volunteer to sit at that table since dealing with 2 blinding stacks is "more complicated," and the host quickly agrees. No one wants to have to deal with that problem! Ah, if only they had 7 (in their 8-player tables) assigned to one table, and I could manage all 7! No one can really say it's an unfair advantage, because I followed the rules they had. It was self-dealt too, and I could deal really fast in that situation! To me, if the rules give a player that kind of advantage, the problem is the rules, not players taking advantage of the rules.
Casinos have less of an issue with that since there is truly random seating, which almost never happens in a home game. So yes, a player effectively gets the BB 2x/round, but it's not as certain as that home game situation I was in.
For the most part, our players don't prepay. If they did, I'd blind their stacks (and have on the rare occasions where it's come up). But I followed the pay and get a big stack, and I always want the most money in the prize pool we can get. Late arrivals, at least if the game is not full, I do not find to be a huge inconvenience, though I'll be the first to admit it is easier to plan when you know who is coming.
However, the perception of fairness was a problem. All it takes is one of your better players, who should know better, losing a hand to someone who sucked out on them, and then getting KO'd by a latecomer who "was rewarded with a full stack for showing up late," for them to complain. If the latecomer also sucked out on them, they'd complain and leave upset, though they came back.
I track this, and I know that a player showing up even one hand late affects their chances of cashing. Statistically, their chances of cashing are reduced by 67-75% in our game if they aren't there on time. My theory is that every game has a rhythm and not being there at the start causes late comers to miss something. It's been suggested that maybe that's because the good players don't show up late. There may be some truth to that, but it's not completely true. One of our best players is a few minutes late frequently (1/3 to less than 1/2 the time). He does better than most when he's late, but it does significantly and negatively change his chances of cashing. We have a bonus now (see below), and that might explain part of that, though I think he's good enough to overcome the lack of the bonus. It's hard to say being late is the cause though.
Correlation is not cause, but it's just hard to prove either way. I've shared those stats with the players who complain about losing early to a latecomer. I'm glad those players don't build submarines for us. They may be good at poker, but logic isn't necessarily their strong suit. The perception of unfairness persisted. So I decided to act even though I didn't agree.
A related problem is the lagging starting time. I've always tried to start on time. That same game I played in "started at 7." I'm not sure what they meant by started. Apparently that is also a nebulous concept. First it was wait for a couple of people who are coming, and then players figured whatever starting at 7 meant, it didn't mean they started playing poker at 7 and they didn't start blinding stacks off at 7. My first year, the average starting when from 7:05-7:10, to 7:40-7:45. Despite my attempts to start on time, I found the same problem, though not as bad.
I started with BG's empty seat rule. As the button approached an empty seat stack, we removed a SB and BB from that stack from play. If that player showed up fight after that, they had to wait until the button passed to get cards. By removing chips from the stack and game, we'd just have an empty stack at every seat. If someone showed up, they were randomly assigned a stack and lived with where that was. I found the starting time stopped lagging, and players perceived that as more fair.
To me for our game, "starting time" means when players draw their seating chip and move to their seat. Once that happens, we expect to start dealing cards within 5 minutes. I think of our intended starting time as being 15 minutes after the announced time, but the reality is that it is less than 5 minutes after most of the time. We play on Fridays, traffic might be a little heavier, and starting before 7:15 is just difficult for our crowd. I announce 7:15 as the starting time.
The only issue I had with that rule was it was apparently a little complicated for others to manage at the "other" table. My tables are in different rooms. So after using BG's rule (and he privately helped me develop our rule -- thanks BG!) successfully for the most part, I decided to start an Early Bird Bonus to those who were either registered and paid by 7:05, or at least in the door and in line to pay by then.
For us, that has been highly successful at starting on time -- even better than the empty seat rule. Depending on the night, that's 10-12.5% of their starting stack. Then everyone who comes after gets a full starting stack. Since I allow people to enter up to round 7 (the start of the 3rd hour), that means we don't deal with empty seats through 6 rounds. The truth is, the blinds are such that the failure to get the bonus is much worse than being late with the blinding. But players like it and 95% show up on time. It has even resulted in us starting some games 3-5 minutes early. If all pre-registrants are there and paid by 7:05, there is a reasonable chance we will be starting before the announced starting time.
Develop rules that encourage starting on time and are easy to manage. It's the best thing for you as a host, it's the best thing for your game, and your players will appreciate it.
I like Zombie's meal before hand idea. It's not practical for me for a couple of reasons. The first is that we play on Friday, a workday for most of my players, and we couldn't start until 8:30 or so if I fixed them a meal for the price of admission. The second reason is my wife won't cook for that large a crowd. If I fixed them a meal, I'd spend a fortune on get well cards! I love the idea though, and don't doubt he rarely has latecomers.
BG and others have rules that encourage starting on time. I found a couple of things have worked well for us and are easy to manage. That creates the perception of a well-run game, and players like that.
Klobberer
Full House
I offered 500 on top of a 10k starting stack for everyone who shows up at least 5 minutes early. Every single player was here 10 minutes early! Even a guy that has never shown up less than 30 minutes late! Success!
GenghisKhan
Full House
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Maybe someone above has already said this, but if your blind progression is very relaxed, you may have to put a rule no one can join after 1st break.
Meaning if late arrival cannot guarantee arriving before break, you replace them with someone else if you have spares on your call list.
Maybe it's because our blind schedule starts too slow (we're all good friends and our blind increases are not super aggressive), and because it's single table, but my group of 10 has always believed that late arrivals have an advantage over half the table.
Our results have always proved it too. Late player arrives after 1 or 1.5 hours. By then maybe 1 or 2 people are busted out, 1 or 2 may be short stacked. And the late player has not lost any large amount of chips to a hand as they haven't played any yet, just the odd blinds.
They have always arrived being middle of the pack in chips. And late players have always finished in the money (top 3). Now it's not the finish my group focuses on, more that sitting down they are still middle of the pack in chips. But they do not want to make the blinds more aggressive either.
So, give the late arrival a full stack, blind them, but if you notice same thing as me you may have to instill the "arrivals after x time or level are out" rule. We don't charge them, just remove remainder of chips. Once this rule is in place trust me no one arrives past said deadline.
Actually it happened once due to family stuff and we allowed it. Good buddies, shit happens.
Meaning if late arrival cannot guarantee arriving before break, you replace them with someone else if you have spares on your call list.
Maybe it's because our blind schedule starts too slow (we're all good friends and our blind increases are not super aggressive), and because it's single table, but my group of 10 has always believed that late arrivals have an advantage over half the table.
Our results have always proved it too. Late player arrives after 1 or 1.5 hours. By then maybe 1 or 2 people are busted out, 1 or 2 may be short stacked. And the late player has not lost any large amount of chips to a hand as they haven't played any yet, just the odd blinds.
They have always arrived being middle of the pack in chips. And late players have always finished in the money (top 3). Now it's not the finish my group focuses on, more that sitting down they are still middle of the pack in chips. But they do not want to make the blinds more aggressive either.
So, give the late arrival a full stack, blind them, but if you notice same thing as me you may have to instill the "arrivals after x time or level are out" rule. We don't charge them, just remove remainder of chips. Once this rule is in place trust me no one arrives past said deadline.
Actually it happened once due to family stuff and we allowed it. Good buddies, shit happens.
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