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!Several comments:
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.
- 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.
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?
Do you have any statistics that predate your early bonuses?