Topic: Poker
Poker tournament deals – why take the money off the top?
By Frode Gjesdal
The other day I was in a poker tournament. Ninety two players had started, which meant the nine last remaining players would be paid. The first prize was some £24,000 while 9th would pay just over £2,000. When we got down to 13 or 14 players somebody (from the table with 40 per cent of the chips in the tournament, incidentally) suggested a deal should be made, taking money off the top two prizes to secure places 10-13 the tournament entry of £750. Everybody agreed, except, as is so often the case, the one Scandinavian at the table - me.
Now I don’t have a problem with deals in principle, but I don’t usually make them. For a number of strategic reasons, which I will not get into here, I think they are a mistake for a person with average or above average chips to agree to. But this is not the point I am trying to make. What I feel was wrong about the deal proposed, and the deals that are normally proposed, is that you should take money off the top prizes to pay for the all the remaining players in the tournament.
Ask yourself this question; who benefits from this deal at this point? Surely most people would agree that the players with short stacks do. They are, after all, more likely than the big stacks to be knocked out before the money. They are also less likely than the players with more chips to go on and win the tournament. If a deal is struck, it secures money for people who are the most likely to finish just off the money or just into the money. Some of the pressure is off.
Well if this is the case, money to pay every remaining player in the tournament should be taken from the smaller prizes not the bigger ones. I don’t see what is fair about asking the chip leader to give up equity to pay for the shorter stacks. If, as I pointed out above, the shorter stacks are the beneficiaries of the deal, then the shorter stacks should pick up the tab, instead of asking the chip leader for a free ride.
