One of our home game hosts has posted an upcoming, low buy in, NLHE tournament with an unusual twist. The player that wins the hand also wins the button.

As an example, if the person 2 positions to your right happens to go on a heater & wins 3 hands in a row, you get unlucky & are paying the big blind 3 times in a row. If you are short stacked late in the contest and sweating the approaching blinds - the person on your left wins the pot and the button jumps over you.

This sounds like a very interesting concept. Has anyone played in a game using it?

I wonder how it might work as a wacky twist to a cash game?

Thoughts? We will use you input & explore it further on an upcoming episode of the Top Pair Home Game Podcast (www.toppair.net)

Oh man, I would expect aggressive, savvy players to ramp it up even more, trying to hold onto the button. I would have to be Jeremiah Johnson, or check-raise in the right spots.

I've played a tournament like this and it is a lot of fun. It forces the blinds to defend and play back at late position raisers. The tournament provides a great lesson in the importance of position in NLHE.

Our structure was good, so players were deep enough to make moves. Lots of opens in the HJ and CO positions with a lot of 3 and 4 bets preflop from the BTN and the blinds.

I'd recommend giving it a shot, at least for the experience. It proved to be lots of fun.

As a way to water down the unfairness (to the person 2 left of the aggressive chip leader) how about having no blinds just antes.

that person just has to stop being a nit!!

This sounds like an intriguing idea.

I might try this, as well. I can think of a couple of people who don't enjoy tournaments who might be willing to play this structure.

It's not "unfairness". It's the structure of the tournament. Adjust.

I like it, but I might have a hard time selling it to the NLHE-bots that I tourney with.

I won't do it, because Wesrwood would play more aggressively (if that's possible).

its interesting but players may pick up on trying to ditch the short stack. Players could learn to fold hands just to force the short stack to put in a BB.

A couple of years ago they ran a tournament like this at TI in vegas. They did it as a special event for March Madness. They called it Make It - Take It.

Here is a link to a discussion of that tournament http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/v...p=83245#p83244

Sounds like a fun change to the norm. Don't know if I would like to play it all the time but certainly once or twice for a change.

This sounds like fun. Playing with just antes would give the button an even bigger advantage because he'd act last preflop.

Very good point. You could instead incorporate a new draw for seats mid-way through the tournament, maybe an hour into a 3 or 4 hour tournament.

The host just further clarified his structure. Instead of re-doing all player positions, the winner of the hand is given a "Winner's Button" that allows them to act last. Regular button + blinds rotate clockwise one position per hand as normal but the winner of the prior hand, with his "Winner's Button" gets skipped over in the action & is given the opportunity to act last.

I guess this is a twist being used in some casinos & cardrooms and is full explained at this web site; http://www.positionpoker.com/rules.html

Wow, more complicated, but it is not quite so positionally tilted.

What about the other streets? How does that work?

From the linked site:

Thanks. That link looked too much like a FAQ, so I didn't click it.

you could also go the other way, and the winner becomes the dealer+1 the next hand, with perhaps only one blind. That would dampen the impact of having the aggro guy on your left.

So pre-flop, he is either in post-button position, or he plays the BB if he is on the BB. Not bad. On every other street, he is post-button.

Actually, this takes care of the blind problem, as the dealer button could be anywhere on the table vs the winner button. And if the same player wins five hands in a row, the blinds are moving as usual, so no one gets stuck paying every one of them.

So...not bad at all.

What's the ruling on split pots?

They share the amount in the pot between the winning players? Am i missing something?

yes

In SOME of the medium high level tournaments they give split pots entirely to the OOP winner. This rule is obviously flawed on so many levels but that could be what he was refering to.

Nobody gets a winner button