Strategic Adjustments When Players Don't Show Up

[Dynasty]

I recently played in an online freeroll tournament for a change of pace. It was a 300 player tournament.

When the action started, it became obvious that four players didn't show up to play. Here's how the seating arrangement was.

Seat 1: missing
Seat 2: missing
Seat 3: missing
Seat 4: player
Seat 5: player
Seat 6: player
Seat 7: player
Seat 8: ME
Seat 9: missing
Seat 10: player

So, it seems that I had just about the best possible situation. I would almost always have position on four of the five players who are actually playing. And, I would have easy blind stealing opportunities when the action gets folded to me.

Basically, we were playing a six-player table with four dead players slowly bleeding their chips away. It should be easy to build your stack.

But, it took over an hour for the four missing players to get eliminated. As a result, about half the field of players in the tournament had also been eliminated. That meant our table was short on chips compared to the rest of the field.

What adjustments would you have made beyond the obvious?

[MicroBob]

the empire WSOP VIP freerolls are typically like this.
Since there was one tonight and it had around 300 players I'm guessing this might be the one you're referring to.

Actually...many other empire freerolls are similar to this when you have to register 72 hours in advance.


6 players on your table is actually kind of a lot (if you indeed were on empire).
Usually 3-5 players is common.

I've seen tables where only 1 person was there and he just took as many blinds as quickly as possible.

I've also seen a table where NOBODY was there. The blinds just kept getting passed around. It was pretty hilarious.

The table was a fairly high number though so it got broken-up with the first 20 or 30 minutes.


Anyway, I have played in a few of these tournament...getting either great position (on the button for 4 or 5 hands in a row) or lousy position (UTG 4 or 5x in a row).


The strategy involved is indeed kind of interesting.


I remember having a discussion about these types of situations with David Ross somewhere in the forums a few months ago.