Poker Handicapping?

[AaronBrown]

Now I see what you're asking a little better. My earlier answer would make sense for a casino running a tournament that wanted to organize betting on the winner. Handicapping makes a better horserace.

The trick is to come up with a scheme that not only makes the money more even, but keeps the game good. Buying in for a lower amount means a bad player's recreational Poker costs him less money, but it doesn't help his chances of winning. Now I see why you wanted to give some players extra chips. But I still don't like that idea because I think it only helps initially. I like a handicap that operates steadily throughout the tournament. Also, I like a handicap that encourages better play. If you have a chip advantage over a better player, it makes sense to try to finish him off before he gets even. That's not much of a game.

I also don't like the idea of allowing discounted rebuys, because that doesn't encourage good play. I'd like a system that helped the bad players when they were doing well. Discounted rebuys help them when they're doing badly, it almost encouraged bad play. I like a system where if they can improve a little bit, they can get the added boost they need to have a chance at winning. This not only keeps them playing, it keeps them interested in the game.

The best idea I can think of at the moment would be to award extra chips each time the blinds go up. So the bad players still have to survive, but if they do, they can get an advantage. That might be too complicated, I'm not sure.

You could use the kind of scheme you outlined. Four times out of the money gets you one blinds every time the blinds are raised, each time out of the money after that gives you an extra big blind. Eventually the worst player will get to the point that he can win the tournament as long as he can survive to the first blind increase.

No, because there's no basis as to say if player A is better than player B who's better than player C.

If that happened, all the good players would act dumb, and say they lucked out.

Poker has a built-in handicap to even the playing field...its called sucking out.

[elmo]

Antes of x% of the BB for good players seems better than larger blinds. x could vary based on skill

Aaron's idea seems interesting. But why not surrender these extra chips instead of having them play live? This way it doesn't affect the play of the hand; it is only a constant extra pressure on the better players' stacks.

I also think the tiered buy-in is a good idea. It should be structured so that the EV for every player is 0 over the long run. This would mean that if a bad player would only win 1/50 tournaments, then this player would have to break even after playing 50 tournaments. If each first-place finish is worth $100, then this player should only pay $2 per tournament, instead of the normal buy-in. The better players would have to pay more in order to keep the prize pool the same for every tournament. If another player wins 1/5 tournaments, then she would have to pay $20 per tournament. If the top player wins 1/2 tournaments, then she would have to pay $50 entry.

The entry fees would be based on a "fair share" of wins. You would have to keep a running total of how many wins each player has booked (you should probably award "points" to each place). Say you have 8 players. In each tournament, last place gets 0 points, second-last gets 1 point, ... , first place gets 7 points. This means 28 points are up for grabs in each tournament. Once you've played 1 tournament per player, you can start modifying the buy-ins according to who's ahead in points. You would keep updating the points every tournament. You could either use a moving sum (only use the most recent tournaments to calculate the handicaps) or use the overall totals.

I'm sure this idea could be improved, but it's a start.

I think poker has too big of a luck factor to be handicapped like other sports. Look at the last few years of the WSOP main event. I don't understand why you want to give the worst players a better chance of winning. Do you not like money?

[AaronBrown]

[ QUOTE ]
Aaron's idea seems interesting. But why not surrender these extra chips instead of having them play live? This way it doesn't affect the play of the hand; it is only a constant extra pressure on the better players' stacks.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think giving money away violates the spirit of Poker in a way that unequal live bets does not. Making a player post larger blinds is a mathematical disadvantage, but he's not actually paying money to someone else to play. That's got nothing to do with practicality or fun, it's just a prejudice on my part.

Equalizing the contribution to the payoff pool goes too far. If the game went on forever, everyone would have to break even. I don't just mean everyone would have an equal chance, I mean the shares would be forced to equality. Handicapping should make the expected value of the next tournament equal, not undo the outcomes of previous tournaments. So if you're going to do things this way, you should only make partial adjustments.

Aaron: If the players are posting larger blinds, then how does this affect the other players at the table? If the first round is 10-20 blinds and a top player posts a T40 big blind, then do the other players have to call 40 to see a flop? Doing so would alter the game for the remainder of the players. I was suggesting surrendering the extra chips into the pot (ie post T20 blind and surrender T20 to the pot).

The easiest way to implement the equal pool would of course be to have a $0 entry fee for every player. In any case, you could have a less radical structure for the buy-ins so that the EV for the better players is better than 0, but not as high as if the buy-ins were equal. Maybe another option would be to allow consistent losers to have a half-price rebuy, or offer every player a rebuy at their handicapped buy-in (with the original buy-in being equal for all players). Actually, I think this is the best option.

[Guernica4000]

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... Do you not like money?

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I do like money and that is one of the reasons I brought up this post. I feel that eventually our game will dry up since many of the regular players that played every week have slowed down or stopped coming all together. So now where we used to have a regular weekly game with 20 to 30 players it is a regular game with 12 to 18 players and some weeks we have problems getting 10.

When we do get 10 it is with (maybe one or two exceptions) a game between the top money winners and the only players that are now the true regulars.

I think it is important not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

I have implemented a couple of fun ways for others to get some money back. Only one of these is used per tournament and it is announced before the tourney starts.

1) Best losing. Simple rule: You record the hand (5 cards) you had when you got knocked out. The best one for the night wins a free entry to the next tournament. (Best losing hand stops when the money spots are reached) (cost $60 from the pool)

2) Mystery bounties. All players are giving a sealed envelop that they must hand over when someone knocks them out. The player that knock then out opens the envelop and keeps the money in them. The envelopes have anywhere from $1 to $50 in them and they are distributed randomly. (Cost $100 from the pool)

3) Lucky spot: At the end of the night a random number is drawn and the player that finished in the position wins a free entry to the next tournament. Money spots are not eligible. (Cost $60 from the pool)

Not necessary “handicapping” as much as it is splitting the wealth but deep down I still think that there should be a mathematical way to even the playing field with a group of regular players.

[Hass]

Ok sir I have got a reason that no one has thought of that would make handicapping a poor way of running a tournament. I am a golf pro in Arizona and know very well how a golf handicap works. the problem that we all have with using handicaps are "sandbaggers" - (people who play bad or put bad scores in the computer so they have a high handicap, then come tournament time they play below their handicap and take home all of the money). You do not want all of your good players to start sandbagging in tournaments to get extra strokes (or in your case chips) because it will cause too much friction between the players. I see it every day at the club with the members.

My segestion is to make other side bets to give the bad players something else they can win other than 1st place. We do bounties and everyone seems to like that. We also do player of the year, well actually semester(college students) and that is fun, we post the standings on the wall before every tournament. I had another idea but no one liked it, was to pay the first person that gets out $1 from every player, so with 30 players the 1st out would walk away with $29. these little thinks make other parts other than winning the tournament fun for the fish.

say you have a $25 buy-in, just make it $30 and take $3 for the bounty and $2 for player of the year or month or whatever suits your schedule, keep it safe somewhere and make a points system for the player of the year.

Dont know what you think of this idea but works out great at my home game. oh ya and HANDICAPPING = FRIEND FIGHT!!!!

later,
HASS

Good point with the handicap sandbagging. If you don't figure to come first, you should plan on doing as poorly as possible.