No - that would be an out of turn action!
Tourney Player left mid tourney, what to do? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter DrDysfunctional
- Start date
1A25R
Flush
Nope
1 player per hand
asian bino
Two Pair
Last tournament I organized, final with table 6 players. A lady started to go all in preflop every hand with about 35BB
At her 5th attempt, someone annoyed by the strategy of squeeze - blind stealing told her "you known, your bluffs will not last long, one of us will catch a premium hand"
To what she answer, I must go pick my mother so I'm going all in because I want to give my stack to one of you.
Very next had she got 2 calls, she showed 8-4 off, borad came 5K726,she eliminated 2 players.
Remaining players agreed to pay a 4th place from winnings and then the tournament ended in a shove-all in fest in less than 5 hands.
Disappointed
One Dope-slap to her for revealing what she was doing.
3 Dope slaps to the guy who 'complained about her strategy......"
Thank you for the correction. I did indeed mean trips.
I would simply post the blinds of the player who excused himself from a single table tournament and remove the blinds from his stack in a multi table tournament.
lol, that was epic.
A few years back I emailed the author of "RROP" about a question regarding showing during the showdown, and his response included the argument that his interpretation partially relied on what's best for the game.
So I'd probably ask myself in this particular type of case if it's good for the game to 'let the stack play' without the player. I think I'd come down on the side of "probably not" myself. I just imagine players at the games I play with my friends getting annoyed at someone being able to buy in, leave, and still cash out. I think we're all there to be social and to play, not not play. I just imagine our players sitting there, and the fourth remaining player out of ten getting knocked out and the final three are now two humans and one human-less stack of chips... I don't think they'd be happy about that outcome.
Granted, it's arguably less fair for the absent player, but if it's made clear ahead of the game that leaving means they lose the chance to advance into the money I think that's quite likely a better outcome for the game in general. Not sure where the line should be drawn in terms of time though. Freezout?... I can see the problems, but as I said, I think a fair amount of people would come down on the side of removing the stack at some point.
If a player pays an entry fee in good faith, then the event operator should pay out prizes in good faith. If you're going to remove somebody's paid-for stack simply because they cannot stay until the completion of the event. either refund their money or let the stack remain and compete for prizes. Removing it without compensation is basically stealing imo.
Compensating for a removed stack seems fine to me.
Like I wrote, I think (for example) a player that buys in, does a couple of rebuys, gets busted on the bubble and 'loses' to an absent player's "headless" stack would be pretty bent... in our game. It's not better for our game to have players win money without a player playing.
I also think what TexRex wrote is food for thought. If players are on the bubble and realize that acting a specific way means this absent player is blinded out of the money, and that way is a certainty, then all that happens is that this player's absence slows down play until the stack is gone. I think we'd have to consider what the value is of that in a home game. Fair enough, leaving the stack until the bubble, having a conversation about it and then tossing it seems unethical and just like collusion. Then again, if a small stack is risking elimination, goes all in, gets two callers, then it makes sense for them to check it down to the river. One of the callers getting the other caller to fold could result in the all-in player winning a hand that the folding player would have won. That checking would be done with a tacit understanding that that's the best way to maximize getting rid of that short-stack, so is it collusion if it isn't verbal? So once TexRex' game had that situation even once, and if they had played it the way he described they would have played it, then the next time it happened they'd have done the same without talking about it first. Collusion the first time, not the second, just common sense? So the net effect of simply removing the stack (after a rule change) is saving X blind levels worth of just folding - and folding several levels just to get in the money surely isn't good for the game.
Like I wrote, I think (for example) a player that buys in, does a couple of rebuys, gets busted on the bubble and 'loses' to an absent player's "headless" stack would be pretty bent... in our game. It's not better for our game to have players win money without a player playing.
I also think what TexRex wrote is food for thought. If players are on the bubble and realize that acting a specific way means this absent player is blinded out of the money, and that way is a certainty, then all that happens is that this player's absence slows down play until the stack is gone. I think we'd have to consider what the value is of that in a home game. Fair enough, leaving the stack until the bubble, having a conversation about it and then tossing it seems unethical and just like collusion. Then again, if a small stack is risking elimination, goes all in, gets two callers, then it makes sense for them to check it down to the river. One of the callers getting the other caller to fold could result in the all-in player winning a hand that the folding player would have won. That checking would be done with a tacit understanding that that's the best way to maximize getting rid of that short-stack, so is it collusion if it isn't verbal? So once TexRex' game had that situation even once, and if they had played it the way he described they would have played it, then the next time it happened they'd have done the same without talking about it first. Collusion the first time, not the second, just common sense? So the net effect of simply removing the stack (after a rule change) is saving X blind levels worth of just folding - and folding several levels just to get in the money surely isn't good for the game.
Sounds like more of an issue with the player's attitude (or competence) vs an issue with the policy -- the absent player could merely have folded every hand (if present) with the exact same results. It's no fault of the absent player that he outlasted the other guy, and making that complaint is just irrelevant misdirection on where the blame actually lies.
Not good for the game? Perhaps debatable, but folding for several levels (and/or otherwise altering one's play) in an attempt to make or improve one's monetary return is a basic component of the tournament game, regardless if there are empty seat stacks in play or not. I see little difference here -- some players will tighten up in an attempt to ride it out, others will get more aggressive in an attempt to take advantage of those who do, and some will be totally oblivious to the situation with little or no change in strategy.
Exactly. That's what I'm 'debating'.
And I never said it was the fault of the absent player, nor do I blame them. Not sure where you got that from...
Ultimately it doesn't really matter what you or I think about it IF players are unhappy about the outcome. Realistically it's probably not happening too often, so it won't be a huge problem, but if the goal is to host a game where people are happy about things in general then this is worth considering.. or 'debating'.. If people don't like the game they don't show up. If they do they show up.
The difference is being at the table and making the decision to fold yourself into the money versus not being at the table and not making the decision to fold yourself into the money yet getting into the money anyway.
It's the difference between playing poker and not playing. Folding is a decision as well.
So is the decision to not play hands. Same player could be in the living room drinking beer and watching the football game, and letting his stack blind out.... legally. No difference.
So why is your theoretical busted-out player bent?
So why is your theoretical busted-out player bent?
I had a situation a couple of years ago where a player had a family emergency and had to leave the tourney knowing he would not be able to return. I picked up his stack and refunded his buyin. No one complained.
I think this is a far superior way to deal with a problem like this rather leaving their stack on the table and blinding them off. Not going to happen in a casino, but in a home tourney with our friends IMO it is the only fair way for all concerned.
Legend5555
Full House
The only time leaving an empty stack in the game becomes an "issue" is on/near the money bubble. It creates a dynamic that I could argue is no fun for anyone. It would be in everyone's best interest (ICM considerations) to allow the empty stack to blind out if all players have a larger stack. It's an exaggerated problem of typical ICM issues because the big stack can punish the remaining players even more than usual because there is no fear the empty stack will play back. If everyone agrees (open colluding issues aside), they could all just blind out the person if they are willing to take the hit in time. It would be ridiculous from an EV perspective to let the empty stack cash.
There really isn't a truly "good" solution. It's all trade offs. Either you screw the person that left by removing their stack and not letting them have a chance to cash, or everyone else is given some weirder than normal incentives near/on the bubble.
I personally think there should be room to make some educated decisions on how to handle this based on what point in the tournament this happens. Whether that be a refund and removing the stack, allowing the player to straight up forfeit their stack and buy-in if that's what they decide to do, or just leaving in the stack and blinding it off. These are home tournaments we are talking about after all. I don't think you have to be a real stickler especially if the group (including the affected player) can agree on what to do.
FWIW, I would err on the side of blinding off the stack as @BGinGA suggests. Though given the speed of home tournaments, I wouldn't be shocked to see everyone essentially agree to blind that person out if they made it to the bubble. Which just feels wrong. But oh well I guess.
There really isn't a truly "good" solution. It's all trade offs. Either you screw the person that left by removing their stack and not letting them have a chance to cash, or everyone else is given some weirder than normal incentives near/on the bubble.
I personally think there should be room to make some educated decisions on how to handle this based on what point in the tournament this happens. Whether that be a refund and removing the stack, allowing the player to straight up forfeit their stack and buy-in if that's what they decide to do, or just leaving in the stack and blinding it off. These are home tournaments we are talking about after all. I don't think you have to be a real stickler especially if the group (including the affected player) can agree on what to do.
FWIW, I would err on the side of blinding off the stack as @BGinGA suggests. Though given the speed of home tournaments, I wouldn't be shocked to see everyone essentially agree to blind that person out if they made it to the bubble. Which just feels wrong. But oh well I guess.
Really? I'd guess you aren't really doing much 'home gaming' then. Or maybe you're not really picking up on social queues well. If it isn't obvious to you what the difference is socially then I doubt you'd agree even if I spelled it out to you.
Just re-read what I wrote. I explained it.
I’ve been too busy to respond for a few days. I went back and checked our records to verify facts. He actually had enough chips to go almost 3 full rounds based on getting in 2 orbits a round, but he would have become ineligible before that by other rules. I also researched our rules in play at the time.
Like most places, we have policies and we have rules. Policies are general guidelines. Rules are more specific, but have policy reasons behind them. Sometimes rules and policies clash.
In my first post on this thread, I said a caveat is if there is a house rule allowing chips to be removed from play. We do have such a rule. So no, we didn’t take advantage of him, and we certainly don’t say collusion is OK. He knew the rules. I tried to change the rule in his favor, but he opposed that. By that rule, he was out and his chip stack was to either be removed from play, or equally divided between the other players.
It isn’t hard to imagine a situation where a player’s chips either being removed, divided equally, or blinded has a negative impact on other players who stay to play.
It was left open because if he left with a large stack during the preliminary table, it could negatively affect the others at his table by removing that table’s chips from play. At the final table, we didn’t see that as an issue. So it wasn’t clear what should happen. However, about 10 minutes after he left, we had a color up break coming and thought we would just settle the method then.
Let me give an example: Suppose T1 starts with 8 and T2 starts with 7. Suppose both tables have seen 2 eliminations. Player at T2 KO’s 2 other players. Hypothetically, he had 3x the starting stack, or 3/7 of the chips at that table. Then he leaves. Almost half the chips are gone from that table, putting others at that table at a disadvantage in a table up if his chips are removed.
One of the things that made it weird is over the next 5 hands after he left, 3 players went out, including the largest chip stack. The situation was quite different after those 5 hands.
Our rules allow a player to be out for only 30 minutes. We didn’t have a specific rule about blinding for 30 minutes because that was based on the player’s intent. In his case, he didn’t intend to come back, so the blinding rule didn’t really apply. We used it in hopes he might come back and decided to resolve it during the short break (which turned into a long break discussing the options).
Our rule was written [1] for players who left because they never intended to stay as long as the tournament was scheduled, [2] to keep players from running out and doing something in the middle of a game and returning (an example is going to get food), or [3] to prevent collusion where a large chip stack leaves with his confederate getting to be in the dealer position 2x a round. Our rule is if you must leave, and you aren’t in the money, no payout.
The purpose of the rules in play were not to deal with a real emergency, but temporary situations. That was not a temporary situation, but we were willing to follow the 30 minute rule in hopes he would be back due to unforeseen changing circumstances.
We also have a rule to deal with a situation not contemplated by our rules, and we did follow those procedures. However, no one was willing to change the rule, which is actually fine.
The biggest reason he wanted to be disqualified was because he knew he wouldn’t be back. He didn’t want the appearance of helping one of his best friends in the game, an excellent player who would have benefitted by being in the dealer position 2x per round. That very issue had been under discussion for 2 months because it was 2 months prior to that the guy made the comment about playing in a cheap poker game, planning to leave before the end, but hoping to have a big enough stack to win anyway. Apparently that one and only time player didn’t read our rules about that.
In our possible rule change procedure, we could have considered that the situation was different than contemplated by the rules, but rules would have to be changed to either refund his money or let him get in the money. The latter clearly broke the spirit of our rules.
Therefore, the only issue was whether to blind his stack for the others or remove it from play. It would have any effect on him because he was out when he left because he didn’t intend to come back. Dividing the chips equally would be players not playing hands, but simply collecting blinds. It wouldn’t be collusion in that case, it would just be speeding up the dividing of his chips.
Where we really erred was not removing his chips from play. He could have accepted his money back, which was offered. He didn’t take it because he had knocked several players out.
As has been pointed out, every single way of dealing with this has disadvantages. What is in the best interest of the game does count. There was a lot of discussion on the situation afterward, and we did modify our rule a little bit to clarify, but our rule is still if a player leaves and doesn’t return, he only gets a payout if he is already in the money.
Part of the reason for the rule is we play usually on Friday nights. For me, it’s often been a long week. I won’t stop normal play if it goes long and I’m out, but if it’s no longer normal, that affects others. The closest thing to normal I think is removing their chips from play.
That was a group rule that actually goes back to hosting tournaments in the 1980s, and we jokingly dubbed it the “armistice rule.” One army wants out of the war. They are allowed to withdraw and go home. They can’t win the war after the leave, so they give up all claims to territory gained. Then the armistice is over and the others start fighting again. One reason we don’t have a clear rule on whether there will be a refund is because facts a circumstances could affect that decision. Another thing that isn’t clear is whether it’s 30 minutes, or 30 minutes of clock time. Again, facts and circumstances.
Players leaving is not clear cut. For casinos, it’s easy to have rules they will apply. They do it for profit. They really don’t care who they offend because they are selling you a dream of winning. Some player benefits 2x per round? So what! That is just the luck of the draw, so to speak.
Casinos have other rules that are irrelevant to a home game. For example, I read the WSOP rules and they care what you advertise. I don’t in my game. You won’t be on TV in my game. I don’t have any sponsors paying that you might compete with, and I bet other home games don’t either.
MattyMatt hit the nail on the head! Home games are different. Games are smaller. A player leaving, especially somewhat near the money, is more challenging. Offending someone might kill the game, especially of the person offended keeps several other players from coming back. Thus, the best interest of the game should be considered, and that might be different for different games.
DoubleEagle had a great solution (a refund and remove chips), but it may be outside of his rules. And in the right situation, like my example above, it’s not perfect. A player previously KO’d loses to a guy who is treated like he wasn’t there? I think if you are KO’d, you don’t have a complaint, but not everyone agrees with that.
Legend5555 is also right. It’s all trade offs. The plan might be to err on one side, but the actual situation suggests another solution.
Here is the rule we use now. “To avoid giving any player a positional advantage due to an absent player, the empty-seat chip stack is not dealt cards, and both small and big blinds are removed from the chip stack and removed from play when that seat would normally post the big blind.” It doesn’t apply to someone who runs to the kitchen, restroom, or a smoke break. They are just blinded, but again, that’s a temporary situation.
Like most places, we have policies and we have rules. Policies are general guidelines. Rules are more specific, but have policy reasons behind them. Sometimes rules and policies clash.
In my first post on this thread, I said a caveat is if there is a house rule allowing chips to be removed from play. We do have such a rule. So no, we didn’t take advantage of him, and we certainly don’t say collusion is OK. He knew the rules. I tried to change the rule in his favor, but he opposed that. By that rule, he was out and his chip stack was to either be removed from play, or equally divided between the other players.
It isn’t hard to imagine a situation where a player’s chips either being removed, divided equally, or blinded has a negative impact on other players who stay to play.
It was left open because if he left with a large stack during the preliminary table, it could negatively affect the others at his table by removing that table’s chips from play. At the final table, we didn’t see that as an issue. So it wasn’t clear what should happen. However, about 10 minutes after he left, we had a color up break coming and thought we would just settle the method then.
Let me give an example: Suppose T1 starts with 8 and T2 starts with 7. Suppose both tables have seen 2 eliminations. Player at T2 KO’s 2 other players. Hypothetically, he had 3x the starting stack, or 3/7 of the chips at that table. Then he leaves. Almost half the chips are gone from that table, putting others at that table at a disadvantage in a table up if his chips are removed.
One of the things that made it weird is over the next 5 hands after he left, 3 players went out, including the largest chip stack. The situation was quite different after those 5 hands.
Our rules allow a player to be out for only 30 minutes. We didn’t have a specific rule about blinding for 30 minutes because that was based on the player’s intent. In his case, he didn’t intend to come back, so the blinding rule didn’t really apply. We used it in hopes he might come back and decided to resolve it during the short break (which turned into a long break discussing the options).
Our rule was written [1] for players who left because they never intended to stay as long as the tournament was scheduled, [2] to keep players from running out and doing something in the middle of a game and returning (an example is going to get food), or [3] to prevent collusion where a large chip stack leaves with his confederate getting to be in the dealer position 2x a round. Our rule is if you must leave, and you aren’t in the money, no payout.
The purpose of the rules in play were not to deal with a real emergency, but temporary situations. That was not a temporary situation, but we were willing to follow the 30 minute rule in hopes he would be back due to unforeseen changing circumstances.
We also have a rule to deal with a situation not contemplated by our rules, and we did follow those procedures. However, no one was willing to change the rule, which is actually fine.
The biggest reason he wanted to be disqualified was because he knew he wouldn’t be back. He didn’t want the appearance of helping one of his best friends in the game, an excellent player who would have benefitted by being in the dealer position 2x per round. That very issue had been under discussion for 2 months because it was 2 months prior to that the guy made the comment about playing in a cheap poker game, planning to leave before the end, but hoping to have a big enough stack to win anyway. Apparently that one and only time player didn’t read our rules about that.
In our possible rule change procedure, we could have considered that the situation was different than contemplated by the rules, but rules would have to be changed to either refund his money or let him get in the money. The latter clearly broke the spirit of our rules.
Therefore, the only issue was whether to blind his stack for the others or remove it from play. It would have any effect on him because he was out when he left because he didn’t intend to come back. Dividing the chips equally would be players not playing hands, but simply collecting blinds. It wouldn’t be collusion in that case, it would just be speeding up the dividing of his chips.
Where we really erred was not removing his chips from play. He could have accepted his money back, which was offered. He didn’t take it because he had knocked several players out.
As has been pointed out, every single way of dealing with this has disadvantages. What is in the best interest of the game does count. There was a lot of discussion on the situation afterward, and we did modify our rule a little bit to clarify, but our rule is still if a player leaves and doesn’t return, he only gets a payout if he is already in the money.
Part of the reason for the rule is we play usually on Friday nights. For me, it’s often been a long week. I won’t stop normal play if it goes long and I’m out, but if it’s no longer normal, that affects others. The closest thing to normal I think is removing their chips from play.
That was a group rule that actually goes back to hosting tournaments in the 1980s, and we jokingly dubbed it the “armistice rule.” One army wants out of the war. They are allowed to withdraw and go home. They can’t win the war after the leave, so they give up all claims to territory gained. Then the armistice is over and the others start fighting again. One reason we don’t have a clear rule on whether there will be a refund is because facts a circumstances could affect that decision. Another thing that isn’t clear is whether it’s 30 minutes, or 30 minutes of clock time. Again, facts and circumstances.
Players leaving is not clear cut. For casinos, it’s easy to have rules they will apply. They do it for profit. They really don’t care who they offend because they are selling you a dream of winning. Some player benefits 2x per round? So what! That is just the luck of the draw, so to speak.
Casinos have other rules that are irrelevant to a home game. For example, I read the WSOP rules and they care what you advertise. I don’t in my game. You won’t be on TV in my game. I don’t have any sponsors paying that you might compete with, and I bet other home games don’t either.
MattyMatt hit the nail on the head! Home games are different. Games are smaller. A player leaving, especially somewhat near the money, is more challenging. Offending someone might kill the game, especially of the person offended keeps several other players from coming back. Thus, the best interest of the game should be considered, and that might be different for different games.
DoubleEagle had a great solution (a refund and remove chips), but it may be outside of his rules. And in the right situation, like my example above, it’s not perfect. A player previously KO’d loses to a guy who is treated like he wasn’t there? I think if you are KO’d, you don’t have a complaint, but not everyone agrees with that.
Legend5555 is also right. It’s all trade offs. The plan might be to err on one side, but the actual situation suggests another solution.
Here is the rule we use now. “To avoid giving any player a positional advantage due to an absent player, the empty-seat chip stack is not dealt cards, and both small and big blinds are removed from the chip stack and removed from play when that seat would normally post the big blind.” It doesn’t apply to someone who runs to the kitchen, restroom, or a smoke break. They are just blinded, but again, that’s a temporary situation.
Or maybe you'd rather just be a condescending asshat, and not explain squat. Okay by me.
Only possible problem with this approach is if a player is getting crushed, and "has to leave, emergency, sorry" and ends up getting his buy-in back in the process. Donk move, certainly, but so is pulling somebody's paid stack, imo.
Maybe an ICM refund would work better, idk....
In this case I know that it was. He didn’t asked for refund, I just gave it to him. But, yea it could happen. I like to think our group would never do that.
...and when that player is short-stacked, are you still going to refund entry fee? If not, how many chips does one have to have before you will? Half of original stack? Starting stack?
I’d like to think people would be honest but it only takes one perceived instance of somebody taking advantage for others to start justifying questionable behavior.
Refunding entry fee when players have an emergency is just asking for trouble. Blinding off the player is the only fair solution. The method for blinding off is debatable, though.
If I did a couple rebuys, got busted on the bubble, and got beat by somebody not even there, I’d be really bent, too. I’d be bent because I sucked so badly (and, admittedly, there have been tournaments in which I did suck that badly). The only person to blame would be myself, not the situation or the host. Anybody who got pissed off at anything or anybody other than him or herself probably has bigger issues.
I find players who get bent out of shape by things like this tend to be the same people who say (or yell) things like “How could you call me there?” when they got caught bluffing, “You called my pre-flop raise with that crappy hand?” when their opponent flops a better hand, and “I can never win a coin flip” when they consistently get all their money in on coin flips. They also tend to be the same people who will complain about losing as a 67/33 favorite but deserve to hit when they are an 80/20 dog.
Sorry for the numerous edits on this one. Had trouble with my phone.
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It was an unusual situation that happened only one time. It was about an hour or so in to one of our extended length events that runs 9 to 10 hours and he had an above average stack. He didn’t ask for his buy-in back. No angle here. Just a one time situation that will likely never happen again.
Or maybe they just find it a bit annoying that someone who isn't actually playing gets in the money. It could be that too you know, rather than deeper psychological issues.
Also: variance.
"I picked up his stack and refunded his buyin. No one complained.
I think this is a far superior way to deal with a problem like this rather leaving their stack on the table and blinding them off. Not going to happen in a casino, but in a home tourney with our friends IMO it is the only fair way for all concerned."
A bit weird that the above got a thumbs up from you... Isn't what he's saying pretty much what I was saying? I'm confused...
I understand that, and I’m sure there is no malice intended, but like I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t matter if there was an angle or what the player wanted. The precedent has been set now, and if it does happen again, but this time later and with a smaller stack, what are you going to do when the player assumes he/she will get his/her entry back?
I agree, it’s not likely to happen soon, but play long enough, and these things pop up and players have long memories when it comes to things like this.
I didn’t know that players being upset because they played too poorly (or took a bad beat) and couldn't beat an empty seat was “deeper psychological issues”. I just thought it was just immaturity and a fragile ego.
Ok, I admit "deeper psychological issues" is hyperbole.
How about we agree on "Not everyone can be as mature and have as stable an ego as Gobbs"...? Sounds good?
Poker Zombie
Royal Flush
I have to say, when we had a dead seat finish in the money, nobody was upset. That's poker. Sometimes you get shovey and whiff. Sometimes you get shovey and win. I can't imagine anyone getting upset about it. If they did, their likelihood of being invited back would diminish.
I think that's a really good concern. Basically we're looking at two possible ways a person can misuse a rule on this. Simply buy in and let the stack dwindle to zero while the person is out doing something else (bad for the game) or buy-in and then fake a reason to leave to get the buy-in back if things aren't going well (bad for the game).
I too am curious if a refund based on ICM would work.
My hunch now is that it's more likely that someone might misuse the rule the way you fear they might (above) than someone having to leave due to an emergency and the remaining players end up blinding off the stack into the money. So maybe there's more potential for misuse with a refund-policy, and I wonder if ICM adjustment would be a sufficient deterrent.
Any ideas for how to calculate ICM for a refund?
Let’s just say not everybody can be mature and have a stable ego. That’s probably sufficient.
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