Friendliness at End of Tournament!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[imported_PocketAces]

I'm new to playing tournaments. Last night I was playing a satellite to a $700,000 tourney on PokerStars, with the last 13 players getting a buy-in to the tourney worth $530. Once we were down to the last 2 tables, consisting of 18 players, something happened that absolutely shocked me.

Play slowed to a trickle, even to the point of players with lots of chips stalling even when they were going to fold. This wasn't once mind you, but was happening virtually every hand. And the players with big stacks stopped playing aggressively, not raising the blinds of the players struggling to stay in. This was fine with me, as I was on a short stack. But it was a surprise, to say the least.

Is this something that commonly happens in tournaments not involving a cash prize? I think if I had had a big stack (and not knowing any "better"), I would have tried to knock out the players with small stacks and acted quickly, just to get things over with. Would that have been out of line?

[dmk]

big stacks will stall so less hands per blind period are played and small stacks get blinded out faster (or forced to play a hand). in general, the shortest stacks will be found trying to fold into the $, and its a race to who gets blinded first

[wegs the wegs]

The big stacks have no reason to play once they are down to a few players left to bust. Why be aggressive and risk, even if its a small risk, their almost certain path into qualifying. This is where you will hear about players with big stacks folding pocket aces. Its a complete opposite strategy to cash tournaments.

[HoldingFolding]

Unfortunately, stalling is an excellent tactic for medium stacks. It's usually HiH, so small stack stalling is counter-productive, but they still seem to do it. This was not friendliness.

[imported_PocketAces]

I can kind of see your points, but let me give you an example of what was happening.

In one hand, I was in the BB, all in for just over 1/2 the BB. The player in the SB had about 10 BB left, and had only about 1/10 of the SB left to call, and he FOLDED! I don't see how it could have possibly been right not to call the bet, knowing he was head-up against an all-in player holding a random hand. It would have been virtually riskless to complete the bet, possibly knock me out, and reduce the number of players by one.

[Firefly]

I think i may have been in that tourney. 5+ rebuys right?

At that point in the tourney, most people have about 2 choices, push or fold (because their stacks are small in relation to the blinds. Larger stacks could probally raise 3xbb and not be that hurt. However, the goal of a satelite is strictly survival. I know i could have accumulated a huge stack, but with some risk. Knowing the flat prize structure, i played only solid hands and coasted to the money.

So this is why the big stacks played less hands, most likely.

[McMelchior]

[ QUOTE ]
I was in the BB, all in for just over 1/2 the BB. The player in the SB had about 10 BB left, and had only about 1/10 of the SB left to call, and he FOLDED

[/ QUOTE ]
Some player misunderstand the game and develop an "our table against the other table(s)" attitude, sometimes even trying to promote it in the chat. Of course this is collusion and cheating, and should not be accepted.

I don't see the example you refer above a "marginal". This player has nothing to lose and something to win by calling the blind. It is the obligation of a player in a tournament NOT to softplay any other player. Folding here is a clear instance of collusion and thereby cheating (even if you didn't ask for it), and if I was seated at the other table and wittnessed it I would strongly consider filing a complaint to support.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

[utmt40]

[ QUOTE ]
In one hand, I was in the BB, all in for just over 1/2 the BB. The player in the SB had about 10 BB left, and had only about 1/10 of the SB left to call, and he FOLDED! I don't see how it could have possibly been right not to call the bet, knowing he was head-up against an all-in player holding a random hand. It would have been virtually riskless to complete the bet, possibly knock me out, and reduce the number of players by one.

[/ QUOTE ]

This player is a moron.

[Stoneii]

McM - surely at the $5 level, you appreciate that quite a lot of players will get deep into the tournie that are still only playing their hands and don't know they should be making certain calls.

I'll hazzard a guess that the guy looked at his 94o in the SB and without even thinking what the pot was offering released his 'crap' hand ?

stoneii

[TwistedEcho]

yeah i was playing a $5 the other day, on of those 2pm tournaments with about 40 or so people, and it only paid 9. When it got down to about 11, our table suddenly started softening up to the shortstack - i guess we'd been quite a chatty table and people 'liked' the shortstack enough they were rooting for him to survive. It got to a point when i raised his blinds, people at the table told me off /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I think in the lower tournaments, people do develop friendships so to speak while playing, and thus don't play to get rid of the shortstacks always. On a few occasions i've seen people say 'hey guys lets all fold when X is in the blind so he makes it'. I usually point out thats cheating and shouldn't be done, but if your table is playing soft to let a small stack get into the money, its often a great time to make big plays and get loads of chips (in a normal tournament situation ofc, not a sat)

[fnurt]

The Stars satellites always end up like this, in my experience. If it seems like an exceedingly stupid process to you, I would have to agree.

After all this time, though, I'm shocked they haven't made them go to hand-to-hand earlier. The stalling is just ridiculous. And even though I don't believe in stalling, if everyone at the other table is stalling, what are you supposed to do?

The most absurd part of it is this notion that each table is a team ("everyone fold to the BB, and we can ALL get a seat!"). Sometimes this comes about because one of the short stacks begs for mercy and the big stacks figure, "why should I run over him when we can just wait for someone to be eliminated at the other table?" But it makes no rational sense.

One of my all-time favorites involved this guy who appointed himself table captain and kept ordering people to raise, fold, etc. - all in capital letters of course - with the goal of letting the whole table qualify. At one point he announces, "I HAVE QQ JUST FOLD" and goes all-in, at which point some big stack calls with Ax and busts him. It was worth the price of admission just to hear his screams of agony.

[plaid]

I've seen the same 'friendliness' in on-line satellite play -- I've even seen a big stack offering his chips to the lesser stacks at the table. Not sure if there's a deeper strategy at work here, eg: he'd rather face a known guy again in the actual event, rather than an unknown from another table.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of delay tactics or chip dumping, simply because I usually want to go to bed. And at one time, I'd gone from middle position to the periphery of getting knocked out, because others where protecting the BB of the short players at the table.