Format???
To the organizers, I'm not sure I understand your reasoning for the unorthodox tournament format. If the format is out of necessity to satisfy rules that each player has an equal chance of winning, you have missed the boat. Take this example with 3 players.
Round 1
Player A - 1st place
Player B - 3rd place
Player C - 10th place
Round 2
Player A - 2nd place
Player B - 1st place
Player C - 9th place
Entering Round 3 it's a statistical impossibility that Player C could win the tournament.
If you are permitted to operate with these probabilities, perhaps you should re-examine your format and look at bringing in the more traditional 'freeze out'. Or perhaps removing players who were eliminated in a round from participating in future rounds. Players who move through to the next round could all start with the same amount of chips, to satisfy the rule of each player having an equal chance.
Regardless I think the organizers need to seek better legal advice.
Cheers
Round 1
Player A - 1st place
Player B - 3rd place
Player C - 10th place
Round 2
Player A - 2nd place
Player B - 1st place
Player C - 9th place
Entering Round 3 it's a statistical impossibility that Player C could win the tournament.
If you are permitted to operate with these probabilities, perhaps you should re-examine your format and look at bringing in the more traditional 'freeze out'. Or perhaps removing players who were eliminated in a round from participating in future rounds. Players who move through to the next round could all start with the same amount of chips, to satisfy the rule of each player having an equal chance.
Regardless I think the organizers need to seek better legal advice.
Cheers
Comments
You are correct in stating that Player C, in your example, has no chance of winning a final prize. But how do we know that at the start of the tournament? That outcome is impossible to foresee, or prevent.
As far as legal and licensing requirements are concerned, each player must be entitled to the same chances everyone else is. Thus, every player must be able to play an equal number of games, regardless of their chance of winning after one or two rounds are played. I can't have 50% play 3 games, and 50% play 2 games.
BUT:
I have had further conversations with the city (a couple weeks ago), and I challenged them about the 'fair chance' clause. What if everyone understands that there is an elimination format, and only those that perform well will have a chance to make it to the final round? Everyone enters the tournament with the same chance to make the final round, but only those that perform well will make the 'cut'. Preliminary talks have suggested that this would be possible. I have not received a solid confirmation on this yet... I am dealing with the city....
I am hoping that we have a decision on this before it is too late. I am required to have a letter drafted by the city to approve our event. If I don't get that letter in time, the event will have to be cancelled. I already have the original format drafted, so we may be stuck with the original format for the first event. Plus, the website will have the current format outlined, and once we start accepting registrations, it could be a logistical nightmare to change the format mid-stride.
Crossing my fingers.
First, the obvious. I can't imagine any poker tournament format where all players are guaranteed to play the same number of *hands*. So I doubt a single hand of poker should be called a "game".
My interpretation is that the entire tournament could count as one "game". Why? Well, the most important thing is that there is technically no money riding on the outcome of any specific hand in a tournament (although there may be lots of EV or something like that), except possibly hands which may be the last hand of the tournament. You could define everything from the first hand of the tournament to the last hand of the tournament as a "game" of poker, since it's all of that stuff that determines who gets paid which prizes (whatever the tournament format is).
I don't really understand how breaking the tournament into various freezout rounds is fundamentally different from having one freezout tournament.
I can only imagine how difficult it must be to explain this kind of stuff to non-poker players...
Anyway, I wish you the best in organizing this tournament, and I'm sure a lot of poker players (including me) appreciate your efforts.
ScottyZ
Or alternatively, what if all players who know that they have no chance of winning a prize simply decide to leave early?
Is there some incentive (like a sub-prize or something) to do well (or play at all) in the last round if you have already been mathematically eliminated from the overall prizes?
Still, OS Kid hits the nail right on the head with this one. Not only does chip dumping make a lot of sense in cases like he suggested, but it's also one of the hardest forms of collusion in tournament play to detect.
ScottyZ
All we can hope for is there will be fair play amongst all the tables.
There is incentive to play, even if it is a mathematical improbability that they will place 'in the money'. We will have prizes for things like, best hand of the event, worst hand of the event, first quads, etc....
We will have 4 pit bosses and two (myself included) directors monitoring players, dealers etc... There will be one pitboss per 5 tables. We have also employeed 4 security staff for any assistance. There will be on-duty police officers aswell, just for good measure.
I wish we could have the perfect tournament, but that all depends on the players. I have done what I can to ensure that it will be as fair, fun, and profitable for the charity as I can.
Also note that every round will randomly seat people at upto 20 tables. This seating will not be available until minutes before the round is to begin. The chances that buddies will end up side by side at the same table to make arrangements is slim. That doesn't remove the possibility of prior arrangements. But then the player would have to make several agreements with every 'buddy' at the event, and all his buddies have to agree... With that in mind, what if he lands at a table, and his buddy has a better chance of winning than he does?
There are many more scenarios that can be outlined, but the fact of the matter is:
Lets all have fun, play fair, and raise some money for Charity.
Even though ideally no chip dumping is obviously the best case, as a player in a standard freezeout, there is a built-in consequence if your opponent dumps his chips. The chip dumper is eliminated from the tournament (or at least loses a substanital amount of chips). So do I really care (as a player) if a good player and a bad player enter a tournament, and the bad player dumps all of his chips to the good player? Not really, because there are now 2 buy-ins in the prize pool for one player who now has twice as many chips. The reason the chip dumping fails, is that in a large tournament doubling the skilled player's stack does *not* (and it's not even close) double the skilled player's probability of winning the tournament. Therefore, this doesn't make up for the fact that this team paid 2 tournament entry fees.
In the the final round of the KW tournament format, you are giving chips to players who are mathematically *eliminated*. That's far too much incentive (more precicely, there are no built-in consequences) to dump chips to a friend (or anyone). Another problem is essentially "random" chip dumping. Often you'll see bad player simply move all-in for no reason when they decide they have little (or no) chance of winning.
And as I mentioned before, chip dumping is almost impossible to detect. Even assuming we get to see the players hole cards (intelligent chip dumpers can avoid this), who can tell the difference between a good bluff, a good picking off of a bluff, and chip dumping?
Money is at stake here, and some people will try to win that money at all costs. If you are going to assume that players will play fairly, unfortunately those who do will be ultimately be left hung out to dry by those who don't.
A cynical viewpoint? I Yes. A realistic viewpoint? Yes.
Why do I care so much about not giving players easy opportunities to cheat? Because I'm the kind who will get hung out to dry. 8)
ScottyZ
I am open to any ideas on a penalty for such activity, and state it in the rules prior to the event. Suggestions?
Until the night of the event, we won't know how many people are 'out' by the second round... It is a mathematical probability, that everyone is tied after the second round. The worst casescenario is 50% of the entrants are completely eliminated. It is likely to be somewhere in the middle of both examples - and the chances are (best case) 1 in 4 (professor can correct me if i am wrong here) that a player who is mathematically out is sitting at a table with a buddy who could win (assuming this player has 19 buddies, all sitting at a seperate table who are in on the cheat).
Is it really that big of a concern?
NOTE:
I am still waiting on the city to approve our other format (elimination).
What is a freeze-out?
A typical penalty for a tournament is either a time penalty or disqualification depending on the severity.
Time penalties are given for less severe infractions for things like showing your hole cards, talking about your hole cards, unacceptable concuct, or similar things. A time penalty consists of sitting out of the tournament for either a fixed length of time or a specific number of hands (examples: 10 or 15 minutes, or one full orbit of hands). A player sitting out automatically has a dead hand, and must post all blinds or antes while sitting out.
Disqualification would be applied to a more severe offence (or possibly a large number of continuing minor offences), such as any form of collusion, including chip dumping, intentionally showing your hole cards to a partner, signalling a partner, trapping and jamming a 3rd party; or other major offences such as grossly abusive conduct, holding back cards, intentionally marking cards, bringing outside chips into the tournament.
I would hope not, but my main concern is with players who do turn out to be mathematically eliminated realizing that they might try to at least do something "useful" with their chips, like pass them to a friend. I would bet that many players may not even be *aware* that this is even a form of cheating.
I am wondering if the other format which you are calling elimination is actually the same thing as a freeze-out. (Like a tomAto vs tomaaaato thing) Can you describe the other format? (if it's different than a freeze-out)
ScottyZ
All players will play 2 rounds, and after two rounds we will have the top 50 (just for a number) all move into the final round. Results are tallied at the end of the third round (same point system as in the previous rounds), and combined with each players points from previous rounds.
This format has its own problems. What if we seat 5 people (randomly) who are the top 5 positions, at the same table? To fix this, we could assign seats by 'rank after second round'. This will even things out a bit, but make it a more manual process than I would like (require more time between rounds just to organize the seating).
The other option is to take the top 10 from rounds 1 and 2 results and have them all play for the top 10 prizes at one table. First out gets 10th, etc... The top places not in the final round will decide positions 11th and lower.
Concerns? Suggestions?
What you are really acknowledging by cutting to the top 50 is that the other players have little or no change to win a prize. This makes sense to me.
As I understand it, the original format has exactly the same problem. In some sense, the original format is *worse* from this point of view. What if (in the original format) the first place player overall is seated with 9 other players who are mathematically eliminated? The prospects for collusion are clear. Of course, the situation need not be so extreme, but the idea is the same.
This makes a lot more sense to me than the other two formats. I like the idea of the final round starting with a number of players equal to the number of prizes.
However, you are still getting the same chip dumping problem in this case, although now it occurs when people who perform poorly in Round 1 (e.g. if you are last place at your table, and score 0 points or whatever) could already be matematically eliminated at the beginning of Round 2.
The real difficulty in terms of chip dumping arises because of the independence of the rounds. If you score poorly in one specific round, your prospects can be so poor (or you may be mathematically eliminated) that success in the future rounds has little or no value to you, therefore, there it does you no harm to lose your chips in the later rounds. Intelligent unethical players will pick up on this, and that's why the risk of chip dumping is far greater in these sorts of formats compared to the more standard poker tournament formats.
ScottyZ
Yes.
I agree.
The top 10 after two rounds is ideal. And yes, the final round would have the same number of players in it as there are substantial prizes.
I disagree with your 'same chip dumping problem'. 1) There is a better chance after one round that they are still in it than if they did poorly in two rounds. 2) Even the players who finished in first at their table in Round 1 will still be concerned about doing well in round2, as will people who didn't do well in Round1 - because they know they could catch a winner from round 1. Granted, someone who finishes last in round1 has to win a table in Round 2 just to tie. This should motivate them to try that much harder in round two, not toss their chips.
There are thousands of possibilities mathematically, and hundreds of different types of players. Even a Casino can't protect from this, so I can't be too concerned about it. Regardless of the format, cheating, collusion and unfair play will always appear - trying to minimize it is the key. I am limited in what we are allowed to do and trying to work it the best way possible. You all have been a great help. Thank you.[/quote]