Balancing Tables

I ran an 17-person tournament tonight and ran into a problem with balancing tables. I followed the usual procedures, replacing the just-busted player with a player from the same position at the other table.

The problem was that 5 people busted out of one table (Table A) before a single player busted out of the other (Table B). As it worked out, the players who were moved to Table A had been among the chip leaders at Table B. This resulted in an incredibly uneven distribution of chips. At one point, the big stack at Table A had more chips than everyone at Table B combined. And most players at Table A weren't exactly short stacked either. It was incredibly unfair to the players from Table B when the tables combined, because they didn't have enough chips to survive. The top 7 finishers all came through Table A (started or were moved there), the next 5 were from Table B and the bottom 5 were the first ones eliminated from Table A.

Does anyone have something set up in their tournaments to avoid this situation? Or is it just the luck of the draw and tough luck if you're at the wrong table?

Any suggestions?

[Slow Play Ray]

unfortunately, that's just the luck of the draw.

[Zetack]

Yeah, I don't see the problem. You have to acquire chips to win, if the players at one table either weren't taking the risks or getting the cards to acquire chips, well that's just poker.

--Zetack

[MrBrightside]

well, I've wondered about this too. I could be taking risks, gambling it up with a table, and one guy gets most of the chips, then BOOM he's moved. Now we have a table with very few chips. We only play 2 or 3 table tourneys. They guys left behind have very little to do.

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
well, I've wondered about this too. I could be taking risks, gambling it up with a table, and one guy gets most of the chips, then BOOM he's moved. Now we have a table with very few chips. We only play 2 or 3 table tourneys. They guys left behind have very little to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well if the guys are so short they should start getting knocked out meaning somebody is going to acquire at least some chips that way and meaning that more chips are going to come over from the other table as the shorties get knocked out.

If that doesnt happen, either they aren't all that short or they are all playing survival poker and don't deserve to acquire chips anyway.

In any case I don't see it as unfair, but if it is, its simply one of the unfairnessess built into the structure of tournament poker and one of the conditions one must be prepared to battle from time to time as a tourney player.

In a rebuy t9ourney I played in, my table had one rebuy the other table had about five. One guy at our table complained bitterly about that because the other table has so many chips in play and several big stacks. I thought that was amusing since he wasn't acquiring many of the chips that were in play. And again, that's simply one of the things that can happen in rebuy play. Not inherently unfair, just a possible tournament condition in my book.

--Zetack

[Lottery Larry]

You should have only had to move 3 people at most from one table to another. Not much you can do about that.

The short-stacked players gain the advantage of a big-stack bully not being around when he's moved, so it isn't ALL negative.

I don't think balancing chips on moves is the best idea- the big stacks never get threatened until the final table that way. I don't think there is a "fair" way.

I just move the seat closest to the right of the button (not necessarily the seat that busted out). It would be rougher IMHO to move from one table UTG to another, when you know nothing about the players and the flow.

[Slacker]

My friend ran into this. He was the chip leader at his table, where there had been like 1 rebuy. He got moved to another table where there had been at least 10 (max 2 rebuys per person...8 person tables).

He went from chip leader at his table to 2nd last at the new table. While not impossible, that's a tough hole to get out of.

Luck of the deal...yep, does it still suck...yep.

[MrBrightside]

right. I haven't tried to balance chip stacks or anything. The one time it happened, I just said "well, that's the breaks"

That is pretty much what happened. It's funny, in the tournaments I've run here there are 2 kinds of players: the ones who will gamble it up and splash money around, and the ones who like to limp in, see a flop, and get out cheap if they don't make their hand (unless they have any kind of draw then they'll call as long as the bet isn't too big, regardless of pot size). We ended up with just about all of the aggressive players at one table, and the big stacks there would swallow up the smaller stacks. Meanwhile, at the other table, nothing really happened until the blinds were so high that people were forced to go all in.

That's what I figured, though, it's the luck of the draw. What I think will help next time is adjusting the length of the rounds so we have more time at the smaller blinds when you play fewer hands (and individuals are dealing so it's slower) vs when it's shorthanded at the end and someone volunteers to deal so the game goes much faster.

-d