December 16, 2008 by bill.buckley.

I was wondering what are the rules at most casinos for when a person is elgible to rebuy.  At a local charity game the rebuy amount was set to anything below the starting amount.  One player prior to a hand had substantially more than the the rebuy amount but during the hand had bet an amount that would put him below the rebuy amount (he remained in the hand).  He then called over the rebuy person and did a rebuy since the amount he had in front of him at this point was less then the rebuy amount (he did not use the rebuy during this hand).  That person also won the hand so depite the fact that he started the hand with more than the rebuy amount and he had more than the rebuy amount after the hand he also got to keep the rebuy that he had gotten giving him a substantial lead.  When the Tournment director was called to rule on this he said it was perfectly acceptable.  In later talks with the TD when questioned wether this was done at casinos he said of course and he has done it before.  This is new to me, I always thought that at most casinos you have to have started a hand (or ended a hand) with less than or equal to the rebuy amount before being eligible for a rebuy and that you could not use your chips in play to reduce your pot to amount that would allow you to rebuy in the middle of a hand.   I know an organizaiton can do what they want in terms of how to determine rebuys (and understand the charity is trying to get as many rebuys to help make money for a good cause) but am just wondering what the most accepted practice was in regards to when a person can rebuy I don’t ever remeber being at a casino where they allowed rebuys to be done his way (of course there are lots of casinos in the world) and I only rarely enter rebuy tournaments. 

Posted in Buy-Ins and Re-Buys, Start Chips, Blind Raising Structure, Tourney Timing, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards, Money & Chips, Tournament Directors, Event Structure & Management | Print | 1 Comment »

November 1, 2008 by remoh.

You are a tournament Director in a 10 table poker room who is holding a 200 person major poker tournament with two Day 1 flights. However due to less than maximum registrations you end up with 150 entrants of which 100 wish to play Day 1A (eg Fri) and only 50 wishing to play Day 1B (eg Sat).

Do you do anything to cater for the imbalance such as possibly reducing the length of both Day1’s  by 1 blind level (60 minute levels) to ensure enough players from Day1B make it to Day 2? 

Do you do nothing? and let the tournament run its course…….for Day 1B at the end of the day from 50 players you may only have 10 left….

Im up for any suggestions or what may have been done in the past…..This is the first time we have run multi Day1 flights in a tournament due to popularity of the game.

TA     Remoh 

Posted in Start Chips, Blind Raising Structure, Tourney Timing, Buy-Ins and Re-Buys, Tournament Personnel, Equipment, & Venues, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards, Buttons & Blinds, Tournament Directors, Event Structure & Management | Print | 4 Comments »

September 9, 2008 by khalade.

Hello All,

My question is pretty simple but I wanted to verify my information before I passed it along.  If a person has begun a tournament or bought into the tournament persay, and they play a few rounds but then have to leave the tournament what happens to their chips?  For example, if they had to respond to an emergency and couldn’t finish out the tournament how should they officially be handled?

Thanks,

Posted in Late Registration, Missing Players Etc, Buy-Ins and Re-Buys, Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Empty Seats, Penalties, Clocks, Ejected Players, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards, Money & Chips | Print | 6 Comments »

July 24, 2008 by vilote.

Hi, this is what happened in a NL tournament with just one re-buy in the three first levels : a player is eliminated and stands up. As usually, the dealer  calls me to let me know that a player is out. I ask the player, who is standing by the table, if he wants to make the re-buy. The player hesitates, and then says “OK, why not” and gets back to his sit.  I have to say that no new hand had been dealt by then.
Two players claimed that that player could not sit back again, since he had already left the table.
I know the crupier should have asked the player before he left the table, but the she was not an experienced one.

Did I make the right decesion?

Thanks in advance.

Posted in Buy-Ins and Re-Buys, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards | Print | 3 Comments »

May 19, 2008 by frenchflush.

I know you will think: “what a big mess” but this situation really happened in a big club (used to host the WPT): the “Aviation Club de France” and during the “Grand Prix de Paris” (link here : http://www.aviationclubdefrance.com/home_uk.html).

OK to make it simple: after a Break they close a table … player A (with 25000) find a ticket sending him to a new place with 50000 … A just seats & start playing … he plays 4 hands during wich he eliminate player X (famous) wich had let’s say 40000 … player A have now 90000 … then player B is coming back (late but it’s his right) from the break and claim for this seat (in fact the organisators really made a mistake with the ticket of A: he should never have been moved to this 50000 place wich really was the place of B) … the three players (together with X) call for the floor (poor man lol) … after half an hour of decisions:   PLAYER X IS DECLARED ELIMINATED (I agree) - PLAYERS A&B ARE SENT TO THEIR ORIGINAL SEATS (25000 & 50000) but on TV nobody understood what became the 40000 of benefits … we understood it was divided between A & B (???) … On my opinion: I WOULD HAVE RETIRED THE 40000 FROM THE TOURNAMENT (X would be eliminated but A could’nt get profit from a move made with another one’s stack!)!

Any idea?

GG

Posted in Incorrect Pot Awards, Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Collusion, Cheating, Etc., Chip Counts of Pot & Opponents Stacks, Chaos: Sloppy Mgmt of Tables & Tournament, Start Chips, Blind Raising Structure, Tourney Timing, Color-Ups & Chip Races, Etiquette, Behavior, Play Procedures & Penalties, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards, Empty Seats, Penalties, Clocks, Ejected Players, Money & Chips | Print | 3 Comments »

April 13, 2008 by yelims.

There is a practice I have seen at a couple of casinos that disturbs me. Opening a new table after the tournament has begun. The casino allows late entries up to the end of the first limit, and has a provision for alternates, can be seated for the first hour. They will make tables 11 handed to accommodate more players, (the normal is ten players to a table) but on occasion, have opened a new table when enough players walked in after the cards are in the air. Is this fair to the players that arrived on time, played through the blinds and possibly busted out already, or had a big chunk out of their stack? This whole table gets in late without posting blinds that would have been played if they where inserted into existing tables. I have searched for a rule on this and have come up blank. IMHO this is not a fair practice. Does anyone have thoughts on this?  

Posted in Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Late Registration, Missing Players Etc, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards, Tournament Directors, Event Structure & Management, Seating & Moving Players, TDA & this forum: Questions, Comments, Suggestions, Uncategorized | Print | 5 Comments »

March 26, 2008 by Deadman.

Hello all,

I have seen a number of posts that ask questions about best methods to handle late arrivals and managing prize pools in regards to on-time attendance, and no-shows. Sometimes these questions are regarding official casino and card room policies, but many times these pertain to home run or private run tournaments (bar leagues, etc). My expertise (if I could call it that) lies in the latter.

As someone who has run home games of one sort or another for 15 years and has been running a successful and consistent monthly tournament for over 4 years (without missing a single month), I thought I would offer a standard we came up with for this that has been wildly successful over the last year or so. It has also relieved a lot of headaches from the lack of method or less developed methods we had used in the past.

1. Although we do have an RSVP list, we do not use a pre-registration method that collects entry fees prior. In the home / private game world, this is not always a trusted method by the players who certainly prefer to pay fees on the day of the game.

2. We switched from a punishment method affecting late arrivals, to a reward method affecting on-time players. This has proven to be a huge success and rarely do we have stragglers anymore (details to follow).

3. We did our best to make most all situations “black-and-white”. This is important in home / private game play where newcomers, guests, and others may feel slighted by special treatment of the regulars, “inner circle”, etc (whether it exists or not).

4. For late arrivals entered, we draw a seat, place chips at the table and blind them as the rounds come. This guarantees everyone is aware of the “place” in the game, their entry in the prize pool, and the accuracy of their chip loss for late arrival.

5. No one is seated without entry into the prize pool (late arrival details to follow). This eliminates the situation of holding a seat for a player, only to find they are a no-show and the prize pool is down one entry fee.

So, how do we do it? Below is our standard rules that have so far managed to accomplish the goals and results above. I hope they are helpful and provide some new ideas to those out there that run regular games and tournaments.

—————–

All players who have ARRIVED (not valid for Call-ins), signed in, PAID their entry fee, and drawn their seating card by 4:45pm will start with $3,000 of no-value tournament chips  (a 25% “on-time bonus” of $600 as a reward for punctuality), and the tournament will start as promptly as possible at or after 5:00pm. 

CALL-IN LATE ARRIVAL PROCEDURE:

In order to be a guaranteed entry and have a seat in the tournament, you must be in attendance and have received your chips.  For anyone running late, we have set up the following CALL-IN procedure.  This will be the CLOSEST and ONLY way that you may have a seat, without being in attendance by the time of the first hand. The first hand will be dealt as close to the 5:00pm start time as tournament directors determine feasible.  If a player has not yet arrived, but wishes to be entered and seated in the tournament, he/she must understand and agree to the following: 

1.  Player must have someone in attendance that is willing and able to cover his/her entrance fee in cash.  This can be any individual, but the entrance fee will not be covered by the “house”.  Player is accepting the responsibility of payment of debt to the individual that covered his/her entrance, regardless of any circumstance or whether the player ever made it to the tournament at all, or in time to play a hand.  This is to be handled between the player and said individual as a personal debt.  The “house” accepts no responsibility or liability to this debt. 

2.  Player must call in to make arrangements at least 10 minutes prior to first hand being dealt. 

3.  Player must be willing to be blinded and folded appropriately until his/her arrival. 

4.  The “house” reserves the right to decline seating for players not in attendance for any number of reasons (e.g. it would require adding another table to the game, already have too many call-in entries, tournament has enough players, etc.). 

5.  Entry and Seating Stipulations:

Being on the reservation list does not guarantee a call-in seat.  Reserved seats are “up for grabs” and are no longer reserved for any player not in attendance by 4:45pm.

Players in attendance (reserved or otherwise) will be seated with priority over call-ins.

A call-in seat is not guaranteed.  Player may lose the seat, for any number of reasons, prior to the first hand being dealt.  Player will not owe any entrance fee in this circumstance and cash will be returned to the individual that covered any such fee. 

6.  Once the first hand is dealt, all call-in seats are guaranteed for life of chip stack and/or tournament. 

Please do note that these rules and the tournament starting time may be STRICTLY followed.  We can offer no breaks for friends, as most of us are friends.

——————

 I hope someone finds this helpful. Questions or comments are welcome.

-Deadman

Posted in Late Registration, Missing Players Etc, Start Chips, Blind Raising Structure, Tourney Timing, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards, Tournament Directors, Event Structure & Management, Seating & Moving Players | Print | No Comments »

February 29, 2008 by Steve Silver.

I am the tournament director at the River Poker Room at the Mountaineer Casino in West Virginia.  I deduct 1 Small Blind and 1 Big Blind for each round the late registering player misses .  This never goes past the third round as thats when registration closes.  I put the missed blinds into the pot on the first hand that the new player is in as dead money.  There are some players that argue with me and want a full stack.  They tell me that the Bellagio gives full stacks even if a player is late.  I told them that I would give a full stack only if the event was sold out and the players in line were ON TIME. They would be seated as alternates.  BUT late players would be blinded off. Any comments?

Thanks

Steve Silver

Posted in Late Registration, Missing Players Etc, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards | Print | 4 Comments »

February 18, 2008 by drneau.

I’ve always been of the opinion that if a paying player has failed to show for a tournament or has to leave during the middle of a tournament, then that player’s chips should remain on the table and that player should be blinded out.

 I’m fully aware that many tournaments subscribe to the “if they aren’t coming back, then remove their chips” method.  My question: Why?

 Why not leave their chips on the table, let them be blinded out and finish where they finish when their chips run out?

 My opinion: If you remove their chips, then they should get their buy-in back.

Thoughts?

Posted in Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards | Print | 2 Comments »

February 6, 2008 by Jodly.

I have raised money from 11 backers to play in a series of tournaments in Vegas.  I will divide a percentage of any money won between the backers.  Obviously  I need to account for taxes.  I thought the way to do this was to file out a form 5754 from the IRS that is used to create multiple W-2G’s for each winner in a gambling activity (apparently used in Lotteries alot).  The IRS even uses a Poker tournament in their example on their website.  Trying to be thorough, I contacted Caesars poker room to find out exactly how they handle form 5754 and they told me they don’t recognise form 5754!  I will just get a w-2G for the whole payout and it’s up to me to deal with the backers however i want.  How is this situation usually handled?  Should i hold out a percentage for taxes?  Can I force Caesars to take a form 5754?

Posted in Registration, Buy-Ins, & Awards | Print | 1 Comment »