I will second the thought of having rules that encourage the behavior you would like. Our game is a fun game first and foremost, so penalties are out of the question.
We didn't have so much trouble with no-shows, but we did have trouble starting the tournament on time so we added an "Early Bird Bonus" similar to what was mentioned earlier ITT. If you arrived at or before the scheduled start, you received a bonus in chips.It has worked wonders for getting guys to the table and ready to play at the start time.
In league play, if we were no-showed to a point where we don't have enough players for a "league game" (5 or less) we take the available points for a game with the number of previously confirmed players, divide that evenly and award the points to the players that did show up and fire up a cash game. We'll move on to the next game on the schedule from there.
We didn't have so much trouble with no-shows, but we did have trouble starting the tournament on time so we added an "Early Bird Bonus" similar to what was mentioned earlier ITT. If you arrived at or before the scheduled start, you received a bonus in chips.It has worked wonders for getting guys to the table and ready to play at the start time.
In league play, if we were no-showed to a point where we don't have enough players for a "league game" (5 or less) we take the available points for a game with the number of previously confirmed players, divide that evenly and award the points to the players that did show up and fire up a cash game. We'll move on to the next game on the schedule from there.