OT: Hold'Em Home Tourneys Question

[AnalBumCover]

For those familiar with Hold'Em tournaments played at home or at a casino:

1) When breaking down a table (from 3 to 2, for example), how do you determine which table to break down, and where to place the players? Does the same apply for breaking down tables from 2 to 1 as well?

2) When rebalancing tables (moving one player to another table), how are those determined (who moves and where to place him/her)?

3) How do you handle blinds/button for the next hand when a player is lost: On the big blind? On the small blind?

4) In tournament play, is the minimum bet on the turn/river double the big blind?

Thanks,
ABC

[SirFozzie]

1) You choose a table that will come closest to filling the holes in the other tables.. say you have tables that seat 8, if you have a table that has 6 and two tables that have 5 left.. you will break down one of the five tables (chosen randomly), and use those five to fill the two holes in the first table and the three holes in the second table.

2) You do this by "Carding" players. Each player draws a card, in the example above, the two players that draw the highest cards would go to the first table, the other three to the 2nd table (they would fill the empty seats according to the rank of their cards). A tie in high card is broken by suits based on the following order: spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.

3) From Paradise Poker (this is how I think it's done at all tournaments) In Texas Hold'em tournaments, if a player who is the small blind is eliminated, the button does not move. This ensures the big blind is not missed by the next player in order. If a player who is the big blind is eliminated, the button moves and one player receives the benefit of not posting the big blind for that round. All players have an equal opportunity to benefit from this scenario.

4) Here's the situation (thanks to Online Poker Rules) for Limit Holdem.. I'm not sure for No-Limit Holdem, but I do think that the same rules apply as to mininum bet,

A round of betting is finished when all players have acted, and contributed equally to the pot. There can be at most three raises per hand.
- During the first two betting rounds all bets and raises are equal to the table minimum bet.
- During the last two betting rounds, all bets and raises are equal to the table maximum bet.

[QuikSand]

I don't think I really disagree with SF on these, but...

1) I think the best way to handle this is to spell it out in advance, and then have everything determined randomly. If you are going to have three tables, state up front which table will be contracted when the total pool gets to a specified level... and after that you randomly assign seating. (I don't like leaving it up to "whichever table works best" - just too subjective)

2) (Not sure SF answered the exact question you were asking here) Any random method works okay. I think it also works well to state up front that the smallest stack from the high table will be moved - that rule is unambiguous.

3) Simple rule is - keep the big blind moving one step every deal. Sometimes that means the same person has to re-deal, sometimes that means that there is no small blind... but the big blind should advance by one person every hand.

4) Up to you. The WSOP is becoming the standard for lots of no-limit home games (I'm assuming that you are playing no limit here), and their rule is that the minimum bet is always just the big blind (it doesn't double). I tend to agree with this -- the double stakes for the last two bets makes a lot more sense in a limit game than in a no-limit game.

[AnalBumCover]

Thanks guys. Yes QuikSand, we do play no-limit in our tournaments. This is how we've handled each situation:

1) Choose one table at random to break down, and randomly fill in the empty spots. However, once we get to the final table, we take a break and rearrange all seats at random. The betting level restarts at time zero (i.e. take the full alloted time before upping the blinds again). As for randomly rearranging the seats, I'm not sure if this is the norm.

2) From the table we take one player, we choose the one whom the button just passed during the last hand played... and situate him in the empty seat closest to where the button had just passed.

3) Never really came across the situation where the big blind was eliminated, which is why I posed the question. But I like Quik's rule where no big blind is moving one step at all times, even if no small blind is posted.

4) We double the big blind on turn/river, however I've noticed in all online tourneys I've played (and in WSOP), minimum bet is always big blind. I want to move in that direction.

[robbgmaier]

FWIW, at poker stars, the button moves to the next player still alive, no matter what happens on the previous hand. That means if you are next in the big blind, and one of the two players on your right gets eliminiated, then you miss the big blind and go to the small blind. If they both get eliminated, you miss them both and become the button. I slightly prefer this method, since I think holding the button twice in a row skews things far more than missing a blind does, but it doesn't keep me up nights.

also at poker stars, the minimum bet in NL is always the big blind

[QuikSand]

I don't have knowledge about how online sites manage the "difficult" button situations - but conceptually, it seems to me that they might be bound by programming decisions that don't apply in real life.

In practice, the big blind is supposed to represent an equally-shared burden of providing the initial seed of the game. Ensuring that each person sees that BB exactly once per turn around the table serves everyone's interests of fairness, I think. If that occasionally means one person has to deal twice in a row (the second time on behalf of a missing person, essentially) I still think it's worth that sacrifice to have the fairest possible system.

Especially when you are late in a tournament, and the esclating blinds become a big deal to people with fairly few chips -- it would be grossly unfair to have the big blind just "skip over" a player as it moves around the table. So, that's essentially why I think the best judgment is not to focus on "where is the button?" but rather to focus on "where is the big blind?" and place the button accordingly.

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Especially when you are late in a tournament, and the esclating blinds become a big deal to people with fairly few chips -- it would be grossly unfair to have the big blind just "skip over" a player as it moves around the table. So, that's essentially why I think the best judgment is not to focus on "where is the button?" but rather to focus on "where is the big blind?" and place the button accordingly.

True. In the case of three players reduced to two, we use the rule: Whoever owes the big blind next must pay it, even if it means moving the button. The button is always the small blind and is the first to act before the flop. Big blind will act first after the flop.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by AnalBumCover

The button is always the small blind and is the first to act before the flop. Big blind will act first after the flop.

Did you possibly reverse/misstate this?

When down to two, I have always played that the button is the big blind, of course. The player to the left of the button is the small blind, and the next player is the big -- here, that is back to the button.

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Did you possibly reverse/misstate this?

When down to two, I have always played that the button is the big blind, of course. The player to the left of the button is the small blind, and the next player is the big -- here, that is back to the button.

When playing heads up, this is the only exception to the rule.

[edit] I believe it is standard among all Hold'em games, but I have not verified that.

[robbgmaier]

button/small blind is how the WPT/pokerstars events are run, only ones I have knowledge of.