Tourney When to Blind in Players that are Late? (1 Viewer)

Several comments:
  • NOTHING in unfair if it is clearly spelled out in advance and handled consistently. The perception of unfair varies from one person to the next.
  • Under WSOP and TDA rules, only pre-paid players have their stacks blinded. Late registrants receive a full stack. Yes, they are big casinos. It's easy for them to manage. It is unfair in a home game? Back to perception.
  • A late penalty or on-time (or early bird) bonus is semantics, different ways of saying the exact same thing. However, perception is no one wants to be penalized. We now have an early bird bonus.
  • BGinGA helped me develop a system we used where we put stacks at every seat. If that seat was empty, when the BB came, we removed a SM and a BB and took it out of the game. Those stacks weren't dealt cards. To JButler's point, no one to the right benefits from that system. If you don't see what a huge advantage is to that player to the right of an empty stack, I'm going to think you probably don't understand the significance of position. It's a fairly easy to administer system. It was a little trouble, but not significant. Putting chips up after the game was some trouble, but not that much.
  • I changed to an early bird bonus more to help get us started on time and it's worked great for that. It might have cost some players who used to come who don't want to show up late and then receive fewer chips. It's easy to administer. The only thing easier is a full stack for late players.
  • You aren't going to make everyone happy no matter how you do this. If you don't believe it, read the previous posts and see how different people see this. Those people aren't likely to tell you that's why they aren't coming, BTW.
For several years I've tracked player performance. I can show that on average, about 22% of on-time players cash. For late players, it's about 8%. And that's for people starting at even one hand late. Players who are usually on time don't perform as well when they are late. Based on that, someone would have a hard time convincing me that there is an advantage to a late player. But again, perception is an issue. Few players are good enough to really overcome the disadvantage of being late. But the perception comes from a player saying something like this. "I lost a (big) hand to someone who had a lesser hand but caught on the turn and river. Then someone showed up late, got a full stack, and when I went all in with the nut hand on the flop, they caught the turn and river and I was out. Starting with a full stack when you are late is so unfair." Sadly, many of them believe there is a connection to a late player receiving a full stack and them losing two hands they shouldn't have lost. There isn't.

A late player loses something about the flow of the game or something about the game that I haven't figured out how to measure. Even if they get a full stack, once the blinds go up, they are playing with fewer BB than everyone else started with. The later they show, the bigger disadvantage that is.

I used to play in a game where if a player committed to play but was late, that player's stack was blinded. If someone showed up who wasn't committed, they got a full stack. Knowing that, here's what I did. I'd volunteer to have a late player sit next to me -- my left of course -- and take care of blinding them in. I was very reliable at doing that. I was happy to be reliable doing that since it gave me the advantage of getting the last position 2x each round. I also didn't commit to coming. That way, if I was late, I got a full stack. I'd explain that with my job, things could go wrong at the last minute, so I'd be there when or if I showed up.

What I did in both situations is not cheating nor is it unfair. It's simply applying the rules. If you think this is unfair, the rules are what was unfair.

Some are bothered by removing chips from play. If you blind stacks but remove chips from play, that has exactly the same effect on the game as the early bonus/late penalty.

Bottom line: There are pros and cons to every method. No method is more right than another, or more wrong. Tell them the rules in advance and apply them consistently. Do what is easiest to manage. You are the host. Why make your life more complicated?
I have no doubt there's some correlation between coming late and performing poorly. And there are lots of reasons I can imagine for that. But the biggest one has to be that you start your on-time players with more chips!
Do you have any statistics that predate your early bonuses?
 
How does this sound? Just thinking off the top of my head...

Anyone who arrives before a certain time gets a bonus, non-value chip. If they bust out, they get to exchange that chip for 10% (or 5% or whatever) of their starting stack.

It's like the time bonus mentioned earlier, with the benefit that nobody actually gets treated preferentially (i.e. your stack isn't greater or smaller just because you got there early or late) and as the game progresses it makes less difference....."!
I just read this above quote, but my initial 1st impression is that it generally is not as good an idea as a time bonus
A) - It allows a mix of game players, where some actually can't be busted out after they are all-in, while others can ..
B) - The value of the mentioned "chip", at the time it can be used by the player , can vary wildly, from 20bb's or more to an SB or less, &it will be different for every player at the time they use it , an On Time Bonus has the same value to all players it is given to.
 
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Do you have any statistics that predate your early bonuses?
I will let Tex Rex confirm, but I'm pretty sure when we were discussing him implementing on-time bonuses and blinding out stacks without providing positional advantage to other players, his statistics up to that point (many years worth) already showed that on-time players had significantly better performance records.

It's one of the reasons that I am now rarely late to a tournament. :)
 
Probably because if you're on time, you're more likely to be interested in/committed to playing, ergo winning.

Possibly.
 
I guess from a "give the latecomers a full stack when they turn up" POV, they're paying a full buyin but only getting a fraction of the initial big blinds that everyone else got.
 
After reading all of this, I'm opting for a normal stack of 15,000 to all players and Everyone that is on time gets 2,000 extra in chips. That's roughly 10% more as a bonus to be on time and if someone thinks that's unfair, I'll not that even if you show up late "you get a normal stack. We didn't take anything away." Positive reinforcement is better than a penalty. Thanks all.
 
Although there's something to be said for the simplicity of just giving a full stack to latecomers, with or without an on-time bonus, I like BG's solution. Put the stack on the table, don't deal them cards, remove the SB and BB from the table when the button hits and pass them over. They effectively get a late penalty commensurate to their tardiness and nobody benefits from it. And if they never show up, there's no effect on the game at all.
 
UpNDown, BG is correct; most of those stats were accumulated when everyone got a full stack. I'm glad to know I've prompted BG to always be on time!

The theory that the more interested players were there on time might have some validity, but most of my players who are later than the first round are late because of something other than lack of interest. We used to have serious traffic issues, but most of those have finally cleared up. Some do still come from a long way, and they sometimes hit traffic on the way.

I have fewer late players now, but it's possible that some just aren't going to take a hit and just don't show if they can't be on time. I have one who works that night, and he's usually 25-40 minutes late. He does better than the average late player, but he's also one of the better players. His cash ratio is I think lower than it would be if he were there on time, but since he started coming, it's always after he gets off work.
 
I will say I really liked BG's solution on the stack and thought it worked well. But the early bird bonus is both easier from a game management POV and from putting things up later POV, so I opted for the simplicity. As far as that goes, I never had any issue giving a full stack and that's the easiest of all. Some players didn't like that though.
 
The game we have at my house has rebuys through the first break so I allow players to buy in late all the way up to the end of the rebuys period. I'm not sure this is the best way but if works for us.

this works pretty well for me
I also stopped seating late-comers until they actually arrived..... always had a couple who said they were playing and then show up late unexpectedly.. since I had assigned them seats, the tables would often be out of balance.
 
As both are committed, you could give until the first break, or third blind level etc before their chips are either taken off the table or divided amongst the other players.

If someone says they can't make it until the fifth blind level, I'd be prepared to give them until then. If they haven't even contacted your to say why they're late, they're out at the predetermined time.
...and do you expect them to pay-up the next time you see them if they actually never arrive? If so, what happens does the TD/Home host buck up thier buy-in to cover the payout pool?

-Doug
 
If you commit, a full stack goes on the table and gets blinded down. All stacks come off the table at the first break, unless you have prepaid. If you prepay (or someone agrees to pay for you if you don't show), your stack stays on. You can earn money if your stack makes it past the bubble, but you don't earn points if you are not playing your stack. We play in a points league, so we wanted to discourage people from buying a stack and not showing just to pick up points. This rule applies to leaving early (it only happened once, when an action player didn't realize he showed up for a limit tournament).

If you cancel less than 24 hours before a tournament or no show, you get negative last place points. This encourages giving the hosts time to find a replacement if you have to decommit. Negative last place points is not a super severe penalty, but it does affect chipstacks at the Championship tournament.
I'd like to ask more about your points league and how that works, unless you know of someplace in PCM that talks about that.
I host a NLTHem tourney in our Retirement community and although we play for money, it would be nice to somewhat keep the cash to the players knowledge-only. Having a point system and posting standings on the bulletin board would help make it seem "activity" like. Plus as you said, seeing stats and standings should drive players to want to play and keep coming...not that we have too much trouble with that.

Thanks,
-Doug
 
...to be fair just refund anyone that already paid/can't get there on time....
Are you talking about home games? If so, how do you manage "advance" payment of buy-in fee? Are they close enough to you to hand it to you or do you have some online account setup for them to register and pay before the physical tourney?

-Doug
 
Casinos (around my area at least) changed the rule so that no matter when you show up (assuming registration is still open) you get a full stack. That's the rule I implement as well. I set a time for "registration" to be closed depending on the length of the tournament and assuming you show up before that time is over you get a full stack.
This is exactly what we do. The penalty for late arrival is fewer bigs as the blinds increase. No need to blind off.
 
We have been using the "on-time bonus chips" method for nearly 10 years, with great success. Our typical bonus amount is usually around 15% of starting stack size.
Same here. On time bonus chips work wonders to get people there on time. We have been using about 20%.
 
I'd like to ask more about your points league and how that works, unless you know of someplace in PCM that talks about that.
I host a NLTHem tourney in our Retirement community and although we play for money, it would be nice to somewhat keep the cash to the players knowledge-only. Having a point system and posting standings on the bulletin board would help make it seem "activity" like. Plus as you said, seeing stats and standings should drive players to want to play and keep coming...not that we have too much trouble with that.

Thanks,
-Doug
Lots of ways to do points.

Just decide on a formula. We use Dr. Neau's formula, but you can use whatever you like. Our main league plays once a month for 11 months, points accumulate. In the 12th month, spots 9-17 compete in a one table satellite. The winner joins spots 1-8 in the Championship.

Another league I play in goes every other week for about 9 months and drops the three lowest scores.
 

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