unusual tourney split

i just returned from attending a three one day poker tournaments and viewed what i thought to be an unusual situation and wanted comments, opinions, and any other feedback on this post. each of these individual one day tournaments--omaha 8, no limit holdem, and limit holdem, saw their respective prize pools split up at the final table. the first day 4 people chopped the money equally (amazing that 4 people could agree especially poker players on a split), the second day i was lucky enough to chop first and second place money equally after being chip leader with the other player all day and basically busting everyone else together. these are common occurences but the third day's tournament was the one of distinction. when 4 people were left, one "lucky lady" had 95% of the chips with the other 3 barely having enough for the blinds. on a suggestion from an observer the short stacks decided to give, yes give, her the first place money and equally split 2nd, 3rd, and 4th among themselves. has anyone ever heard of this? does it seem like an intelligent decision for anyone other than the chip leader? the prize pool for this final tournament was slightly under 10K if that has any bearing. comments appreciated. thanks--J.Brown

I had a similar situation a few months back. 1st place has a huge lead after winning 2 big hands and busting 3 players. The next 3 of us have barely enough to get through the blinds. The chip leader did not want any deal. I made the suggestion about splitting 2nd-4th and giving 1st his money. It was disappointing since I felt I could outplay the 2 that I split the money with but when the blinds are 800-1500 and you only have 2200 or so it seemed to be the best deal. It was that or flip a coin and hope I survive the blinds and the other 2 bustout.


Ken Poklitar

It is a variance reducing deal. Also the split gives each player, better than 3rd.


Then again, someone had to hit the blinds first.

The chip leader is a small winner on the deal but, as Dirk says, there must be winners and losers among the remaining three.


Many people will tell you that events become a "crap shoot" when blinds are high compared to stack sizes. When all the players involved know how to play a short stack, that may be true to an extent. However, when some players are inexperienced or simply not good enough to know what to do, then an aware player definitely has an edge. There are a lot of ways to decrease your expectation when stacks are very short, many of which feature saying "to hell with it" and just throwing your chips in out of frustration/ignorance, which is what a lot of people do.


As an example, once I was playing three-handed with two guys who were not very good. One of them was complaining loudly about it being a "crap shoot". He allowed me to check a losing hand down when I only had two chips remaining, for some reason known only to himself, and I came back to outlast the third player and then arrange a favourable split for myself.


Andy.