Deals

[Thunder]

Can someone please explain why any one, when down to the final 3, would make a deal and what a typical breakdown would be?

I am assuming that the weighting is more even but that only detracts away from the eventual winner and, surely, removes a lot of competitiveness amongst the players.

[pankfish]

You take the all of the remaining prize money and divide it up based on chip counts. As for why anyone would do it, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't. It guarantees you more money than you are currently guaranteed.

As for wanting to keep it competitive, you can always leave some money in the middle for the eventual winner. Some tournaments like the sunday millions require that you leave some in the middle.

[Chopper]

it keeps me from finally grabbing AA w/ the chip lead and getting cracked...forcing me to push my friggin AXo on the next hand and going completely busto by some stupid 33. thereby, taking 3rd instead of 1st with the previous gigantic chip lead.

[taipan168]

Say you get to HU in the PS Sunday Million where first prize is $212K and second prize is $107K. Even if you are the 3:1 chip leader, do you want to play heads up for $105K swing when losing a couple of flips could easily bundle you out in second place?

[shazbox]

I even chopped slightly less than I should have with my chip lead, but I was getting tired and didn't wanna risk it.

[nickthefool]

I remember seeing one time in the stars sunday million, there was one guy who was a big chip leader (he had about 75% of the chips i think) and they chopped 4-handed. Not sure exactly how it worked, but he would have got more than the first prize had he won - that's a reason to deal!

He ended up coming 2nd, though, but still got the biggest prize.

[Silly String]

You take the all of the remaining prize money and divide it up based on chip counts.

Never do this unless you are the chip leader. The end of any tournament is often determined by luck not skill due to the rapidly rising blinds. As a non-chip leader player, you are better off striking a deal that has the leader giving up some of their prize money. The chip leader is not going to win more often than his proportion of chips in the long run.

[spoonitnow]

The idea is to lower variance while keeping expectation approximately the same.

It's the same reason you see people "running it twice" so many times in high stakes cash games.

[biondino]

There are mathematical formulae for working out a fair chop - I'm afraid I don't know what they are but if you need to know I'm sure someone can provide a link.

[Thunder]

Thx for the explanation but how do you do a chop online, when I assume everything is automated and is predetermined?


"I remember seeing one time in the stars sunday million, there was one guy who was a big chip leader (he had about 75% of the chips i think) and they chopped 4-handed. Not sure exactly how it worked, but he would have got more than the first prize had he won - that's a reason to deal!"

How did that happen? I can't understand how, even with a chop, a 2nd place finish can win more than who came 1st.

[drmcboy]

online, you email support and they come to the table. You usually get the money you would have had pre-chop and then they adjust it.

@ the sunday mil, this week payouts were:

278k
140k
100k
79k

For a total of 597k

say you have 35% of the chips in play. Everyone else at the table is even and has a total BR of 5k and the idea of placing 4th rather than second and losing 60k is just not acceptable.

So they decide that they will give you 175k right now (your equity is about 208k but remember, you may still get 79k instead) and each take 100k, and play for the rest. That (100+100+100+175=475) leaves 125k or so for the winner. So if the winner is not you, they get 225k and more than you, but if you win, you'd get you 175k plus the 125k(more than you would have won playing straight). This would, in pure $$ terms, be a terrible deal for the shorties, but you can understand how someone who qualified for 10 bucks would take it - they get 100k instead of 79k for sure with a reasonable chance at 125k more

[taipan168]

Thx for the explanation but how do you do a chop online, when I assume everything is automated and is predetermined?

In the big Stars tourneys like the Sunday Million, they have their staff watch the FT and they stop the action if everybody agrees to at least try to negotiate a deal. The players then negotiate over a deal, Stars confirms them and once it is agreed, payouts are made automatically by Stars according to the deal.

I think you can chop other tournaments but you have to e-mail support to get them stop the tourney.

"I remember seeing one time in the stars sunday million, there was one guy who was a big chip leader (he had about 75% of the chips i think) and they chopped 4-handed. Not sure exactly how it worked, but he would have got more than the first prize had he won - that's a reason to deal!"

How did that happen? I can't understand how, even with a chop, a 2nd place finish can win more than who came 1st.

Not sure how this can happen. The chip leader always has to trade off a little bit of money from 1st place otherwise why would the others deal? Also, in the Sunday Million, $30K has to be left for the ultimate winner of the tourney.

[bjsaust]

Not neccessarily. To take an extreme example, using the numbers drmcboy used above, lets say the chip leader has 90% of the chips and there are two remaining players with 5% each. They may negotiate a deal whereby chip leader gets the full first prize (not giving up any) but the shorties get $120k each. Thats $20k more 'guaranteed' than they did before the deal, but they giveup a longshot at 1st.

Of course I think the millions are one of the "cant chop the entire remaining prizepool" tournies, so it wouldnt work exactly like that, but you get the idea. If the shorties think its worth it to guarantee themselves a better payout than the risk of being the next person out, the chip leader can be in a position to negotiate strongly.