Chip count deals ?

oj

A question about "chip count" deals used to determine the payout at the end of tournements. Is there a standard mathmatical formula to determine a ratio between chips in play to the remaining real money payout or is it subject to the negotiating skills of the remaining players.

rezdog

depends on the amount of players in tourney, if tourney is 10 or less, try 3 cash prizes, 1st=50% of total pot, 2nd=30%, 3rd=20%. Also look to online poker rooms for tourney pay structures. Pokerstars has pay structure available to be viewed. I used their pay out structure when i hold tourneys. Hope it helps.

ScottyZ

I think the original question is about players making deals before the tournament ends when it gets down to only a few players who are already in the money.

This is discussed in detail in Sklansky's tournament book.

If the tournament is heads-up, and you are assuming the players are of equal skill level, the prize money which is in excess of the prize money which is already guaranteed to the loser should be split in proportion to the tournament chip stacks.

As an example, say the tournament pays $2,000 for 1st place and $1,000 for 2nd place. Each player is guaranteed $1,000 and are playing for the other $1,000. If the tournament chips are T700 to T300, the chip leader should get $1,700 (total) and the other player should get $1,300.

Note that it is the *excess* prize money (i.e. what you are still actually playing for) that is to be split, not the total prize money. If the players in the example here decided to split the *total* prize money, the chip leader would get $2,100 (not a bad deal, since that's higher than 1st prize) and the other guy gets hosed with a mere $900 payout when he was automatically entitled to at least $1,000.

[Hint: If you are the chip leader, and can convince your opponent to (incorrectly) agree to splitting the *total* prize money, then you will always get more money this way.]

When there are 3 or more players, the correct fair deal is difficult to compute. The ratio of chip stacks approach is not necessarily the correct method to use.

ScottyZ