Fair Deal Rejected has Ironic Result

[Toro]

Thanks to some responses I received last week to a post I made regarding deal making, I now have an idea on how to evaluate whether a proposed deal at the end of a tourney is fair or not.

So last night, I log onto Pokerstars to watch the end of the $215 NL Tourney and they are down to 4 players. I will refer to them as A,B,C & D. The chip counts were approximately as follows: A 50%, B 25%, C 12.5% and D 12.5%. The scheduled prizes(rounded off) were: 1st 78K, 2nd 46K, 3rd 30K and 4th 22K.

Player C who had just made a nice comeback after almost being knocked out starts clamoring for a deal. They all agree to stop the tourney and discuss. The Poker room manager provided a split based on a chip count spread sheet. The proposal was approximately as follows: A=66K, B=44K, C=33K and D=33K.

A,B & D agreed almost immediately but C who clamored for the deal balked. He countered with something where he got a lot more and they all refused. They tried to point out to him that he was going to get 3K more than 3rd money but he didn't like it.

So they played on. The next to get knocked out was Player B who I thought was getting the best offer on the original deal. He was going to get 44K almost 2nd money but now only got 22K, a loss of 22K.

Next out was Player A. He got 30K, a loss of 36K compared to the deal and 45K if he could have actually won it. Immediately after player A went out, Player C who now had a 60/40 chip lead proposed a new deal with player C getting 69K and Player D 55K, considerably more than either of them would have recieved from the original deal which i thought was very fair.

I thought that it was ironic that the player who I thought was making a bad decision ended up smelling like a rose.

[steeser]

I watched that too and it was painful to watch. And another thing, how can the leader not respond the second time they were trying to deal (with 3 players)? A simple, "No deal" would have sufficed, but instead no response at all.

The guy who got the most really got a good deal at the end, even getting an extra 1K when they split the differences.

It was very ironic.

It was also funny that he wanted more than 4th place when he was barely 50K ahead of him, then they were down to 3 with him being a smaller stack and he wanted an even split.

[esknights]

Yeah, I watched that too. When player C (why can't we use the names; they are listed on PS) only had 50k more in chips and wanted 9K more in prized money it was laughable. I'm suprised the other players didn't get more upset with him. Then when C had over a million, A had about 1.7 million and D had 1.3 million he wanted an even split. He was very selfish and acted like an ass, but it all worked out for him. Getting AA and KK all in against A also helped his cause.

[UMTerp]

I watched that too, he did look like an ass, but when I thought about more it afterwards, I couldn't really blame him. We're talking THOUSANDS of dollars here. And even in the final deal, he got about $3K more than he should have (by chip count).

FWIW, I didn't think he was a very good player either (obviously you need to have some talent to win that tournament, but check this out): I happened to be watching his table with about 100 players left. He had an average stack, about 40K. He open-raises for 3x BB (10K or so), someone pushes him all-in, and another player calls behind. He thinks for a while, then calls. When the hand were revealed he had 9h8h(!!!). He was up against AQ or something, and the 3rd player in had AA. After the board was dealt, JMSig had a straight flush and tripled up. Good final table though. ThaiTiger, PokerMillion, and Riverloser are all excellent players.

[Toro]

That was excruciating when JMSig(yeah, why not use their screen names) was pleading for a second deal and Thaitiger would not respond. Finally Lee Jones cut in and said "I think Thai just wants to play poker and we need to respect that". I too thought Thaitiger should have just responded "no deals".

[Toro]

Yeah, calling all your chips with the suited connector was a bad play but you got to give him credit for the way he sucked in Thaitiger when he had AA vs. Thaitiger's 88. Thaitiger had established a pattern of re-raising all-in whenever his opponents made a small raise.

If I remember correctly, Thaitiger made it 120,000, folded to JMSig who re-raised the minimum. Thaitiger then re-raised all-in which was his "pattern" and had his stack severely damaged on this critical hand.

Maybe I'm giving JMSig too much credit since Thaitiger didn't have to fall into the trap, but the trap was nonetheless nicely set.

[DOTTT]

Once Jm made that mini raise all I could think was KK or AA, anyone else? Anyway just a question but how would you guys play your 88 after that mini raise?

[WinBig]

I thought JMSig made a bad decision rejecting the first deal which was very fair. At that point he was the short stack along with another player but felt that he should get additional money for giving up his "chance" to win $70K! It was pointed out to him that he would have to finish 1st or 2nd in order to win more money than was being offered to him but that fell on deaf ears.

I thought the chip leader made a few bad plays against him that allowed him to get back into the tourney. The chip leader called an all-in by JMsig with A8 offsuit and JMSig held A9 offsuit. The key hand though was when JMSig had about a million in chips and came in for a raise of only 2xBB. I don't recall seeing him make this sort of raise prior to that hand - he either raised more or went all-in. The chip leader re-raised and JMSig pushed all-in. The chip leader called with pocket 88 and was crippled after that hand. It wasn't long before the chip leader was gone.

Truly the worst outcome I could imagine. I really wanted to see JMSig finish 4th and lose out on $15K but it didn't happen that way.

[Toro]

Of course, just call and see if you can nail the set. But Thaitiger had been playing for about 7 hours, through all those many hands and had been successful time after time to get the other players to laydown their hands just about everytime he made the all-in raise. I just think he got lulled to sleep and just made a bad mistake at the worst time. Or maybe he didn't think, just made a reactionary bet without taking the proper time to reason it out. As I recall. the all-in bet was made immediately so he couldn't really have thought about it.

[salty]

I was watching that table too and it seemed to me that at the start of the deal Thaitiger couldnt write english and was writing the way a Thai might speak,then he appeared to get much better and the phonetic spelling went out the window.....anyone else think he was faking?

I wanted jm to lose too but when i got up today I thought maybe he was right,I didnt get the consulting the bankroll statement he made (anyone?)but I think why not play for all the money,22K (4th)is a fair chunk of change for a few hours work why not go for it.