Was this a fair deal?

[Toro]

Last night I was sweating my brother in a PS multi. There were 3 players left and the prizes(rounded off) were 1st 5000, 2nd 3000, 3rd 2000. My brother and another player were tied at T1.2 million and the 3rd player had about 700,000. The player tied with my brother proposed a 3500/3500/3000 split. I thought they were giving too much to the 3rd place guy and they laughed at our counter which was 3800/3800/2400 so they played on.

The 3rd place guy finished 3rd and my brother 2nd so he got 3000, 500 less than if he took the deal. I was upset because I felt that I caused him to lose the 500 but he was happy and said it was worth the risk to go for the gold.

In general, I am not good at deal making and have no idea what the criteria is. Was either of these proposals fair or should it have fallen somewhere in the middle?

[steeser]

I think somewhere in the middle is better. If I were the 3rd place guy, I think it's far better to play than settle on the extra 400 for chopping here. His stack isn't all bad relative to the two of you, depending on the blinds.

Given the deals prescribed, I think both sides made the right move.

[dmk]

Depends on how large the blinds are. If its crapshootish, I'd offer something in between those 2. Otherwise, I'd play on, maybe offer something once it was down to 2.

[AceKQJT]

I think your counter-offer was generous. It was more accurate according to chip count than the 3500/3500/3000.

--Casey

[Toro]

That was our thinking exactly. Wait until it got heads up to make a deal. But there were a bunch of railbirds that seemed to be friends of the other two guys and they kept sticking their nose in and making smart asssed comments.

So when it got down to heads up and it was nearly even in chips, the railbirds who were pisssed at my brother for not making the earlier deal told him not to make a deal. It was very belligerent and surprised me as I have not encountered anything like this before.

[fnurt]

[ QUOTE ]
I think your counter-offer was generous. It was more accurate according to chip count than the 3500/3500/3000.

--Casey

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually a chip count deal would be roughly 3550/3550/2900 which is not far off the original offer at all.

[Beavis68]

Your math is way off, there were 3.1 million chips in play, the short stack had 700K that is 22.5% = prize pool is 10000, that is 2250 for the short stack and 3875 for each of the other two.

[fnurt]

To do a chip count deal, you first pay everyone the amount they are guaranteed (in this case, $2000 for finishing 3rd) and then allocate the remaining prize pool ($4000) according to chip count.

To elaborate, assume that the short stack had 10% of the chips at the table. Should he receive $1000, i.e. less than 3rd place money?

[Peter Harris]

i agree with a previous comment.

3550/3550/2900 is correct, as all players make 3rd place ($2k each), 3rd current gets $900 for his 22.5% of chips, you and 1st as joint equal share the remaining 3.1k $1550 each.

read TPFAP for a similar example.
Regards,
Pete Harris

[schwza]

Does poker stars have some sort of mechanism to make this happen? There's no way I'd let somebody else win and trust that I'd get transfered the money.

[etizzle]

Yeah, as you get farther in the tournament, chips are worth less and less of their value relative to total amount.

An easy example (almost as easy as seeing that the 3rd place guy, if he had 1 chip, could not be paid less than the 2k): Greg Raymer, at the end of the WSOP, had ALL the chips. He did not, however, win all of the money. Fnurt is absolutely right.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
Does poker stars have some sort of mechanism to make this happen? There's no way I'd let somebody else win and trust that I'd get transfered the money.

[/ QUOTE ]

At bigger tournaments, a rep will stop by, and if not, you can email support with something like "URGENT - tournament <number> deal" in the header (is there a specific string they want?). Someone will usually come by in a minute or two and if you all agree to a deal, pokerstars will 'enforce' it by transfering all the money.

You can do the "we're going to each take $2000 and play for the last $1000" thing, if you want.

[Bozeman]

Fair deal:
3530, 3530, 2940

So the original offer was reasonable. I would have tried for 3600. 3800 is way off.

(by the independent chip method, which slightly favors the small stack, you get 3519)

Craig

[AceKQJT]

You're absolutely correct. I quickly calculated based on chip count vs. prize pool, without taking 3rd prize minimum into account...my bad.

--Casey /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Toro]

Thank you. This makes perfect sense and will be my model from now on.

[Bozeman]

This chip count method presented by fnurt (McEvoy method), favors big stacks. For example, if stacks are 8,1,1 with payouts of 50%,30%,20%, the big stack would get .2+.8*.4=52%, which is greater than 1st place.

Craig