Suppose I start a tournament with three full tables. 27 players.

Two players at 1 table get knocked out. You say it's inherently unfair to play 9-9-7.

But if we move a player we take chips from one table and move them to another. If the starting stack is 10k and we move a player who had 13k from table 1 to table 3 in order to balance

We now have chip counts
Table 1 - 77k
Table 2 - 90k
Table 3 - 103k

And avg stacks

Table 1 - 9625
Table 2 - 10000
Table 3 - 12875

Why do you find this to be fair?

The problem is what they determine to be unfair is actually fair. It just happens that they don't like it. I 100% guarantee I have never had a player at the 9 handed table asking me if I was going to move a player to the 7 handed table. Ever.

Well I sure hope they do because by rule they are supposed to be moving a player in that situation. With only 2 tables remaining we are required to keep them balanced within 1 player difference. More than 2 tables we are required to keep them balanced within 2 player difference.

Or it becomes 9-9-6 and we move a player... I think the reason they made the rule the way they did is because being forced to move is not something players generally like and in a 9-9-7 situation if I move a player and now have 9-8-8 then the old 9 handed table loses a player and now they have 7 and they have become the short handed table in a matter of 2 hands possibly. We would be moving players around way too often.

Correct and if this bothers you that much to play 7 handed when one of the other tables is 9 handed then maybe you need a new hobby.

Again, by rule this should never happen and I promise that that isn't what he is saying.

And by the end of one tournament you will have trained them all to complain as soon as they lose a player, solving nothing. A good compromise has already been established by the TDA when they made the rule that dictates when and how we balance tables. Why you want us to go against those rules is your own personal preference. I'm sorry they didn't agree with you.

What you do in the early stages of the tournament is quite irrelevant. And nowadays with late entries those two seats will be filled quickly by alternates or new players. I'm talking about situations where there are 25 players left and you might be paying 18 places and you decide that 9-9-7 works out better for you than 9-8-8...and you provide no further explanation other than the rules say I don't have to balance the tables so I'm not going to.

Suit, players at the nine player table will not ask you to send a player to the seven player table because they realize they are at an advantage by keeping things as they are.

If single ante tourneys are going to be a thing, I think you really would need to re-evaluate your stance in a 9-9-7 situation.

Basically I'm just saying that balancing tables will lead to fewer complaints and better tips, but I realize rulz is rulz.

I'm confused ... is your answer now that tables don't have to be balanced by the number of players to be fair?

Do you now agree that tables unbalanced by the number of players is not inherently unfair?

If you want to balance them early on that's great. But if you don't, its not a big deal since blinds are low and antes haven't even started. I don't see anything inherently wrong with going 70 miles an hour either when you're on an interstate highway. The same thought does not apply in a school zone. Just saying balancing tables especially late gives the appearance of fairness and I would think that's what you would want. If not, so be it.

So then you now agree with us? Because I'm pretty sure that's what everyone was saying.

I agree with your first post that the importance of balancing depends upon the stage of the tournament if that's what you mean. Absolutely.

Exactly what is that advantage?

The advantage as you know is that your stack will survive a card-dead stretch longer at the table with more players. It can be the difference between cashing and not cashing. Of course you can contend that you're playing to win and not min-cash and blah blah blah...but its not really your business or concern about another player's motives for their tournament play.

But that is truly only an issue for extreme short stacks near a bubble when there is an extreme short stack at another table.

In other words your extrapolating a very limited specific circumstance to the general and it doesn't hold true for the general.

No. You don't have to be right on the bubble or have a very short stack for this to be relevant. Your stack is going to survive multiple preflop folds better at the nine-handed table than the seven-handed one. There's not much question about that is there? You see more hands per orbit and the play is likely slower because two additional players are acting each hand. In a single ante tourney its even more exaggerated. Why do you believe the players at the nine-handed tables aren't whining and asking to be moved to a shorter table?

If it's 8/6/6, you would just pull a player from the 8-handed table and make it 7/7/6 [Which makes it balanced]. As for which table would get it, I think the WSOP would put them on the table that isn't next to break. I'd have to brush up on the supervisor procedures for that scenario though. If it's a tournament with a super fast structure, you can typically get away with not needing to balance much since you will probably hit 18 player before the player is even moved. If we are talking about a deeply structured main event, however, balancing within one late in a tournament will usually end up happening.

In general I think it is important to balance tables at the start of a tourney so that everyone can start playing. It amazes me that paying customers have to wait a random amount of time to start playing in a tournament based on whether other paying customers decide to sit down or not. I think it should be mandatory for players who have bought in to have their stacks blinded off and count towards the minimum number of players at a table.

FW is the only house I have played tourneys in that balances at buy in time. So if they need to start a new table they will pull a player from each of the already started tables until they have enough for the new table. I am very happy that they are doing this even when I am one of the players pulled. Its usually close to the start of the tourney and the table I am being moved to is made up of players who are all new to the table so no edge there.

Another thing that hasn't really been discussed is the unfairness created by moving a player off of a table. This is true especially after several hours of play when everybody gets to know everybody else at the table. So I think this is part of the reason why TDs prefer to minimize the number of players moved during a tournament (a TD explained this to me once). That and the fact that after a few hours (in most tourneys) they will generally be breaking tables somewhat frequently until near the end of the tourney so short tables will get filled up fairly regularly. The exception is obviously at the start of a tourney if more than one player gets felted. That table could be short two people for a while. But if there are rebuys this problem sort of goes away because the available seats for rebuys are those at tables where there have been busted players and TDs generally fill tables with multiple open seats first.

TDs don't care about your belief that it is unfair to be moved to a table where you don't know anyone. That is just part of the game. It's not unfair ... They don't know how you play either so it evens out.

But moving players is disruptive and should not be done unnecessarily. It's inefficient and serves no purpose.

If a poker room is regularly having the problem of starting the tournament and having tables with to few players .... The problem is they are selling seats on to many tables or selling to many seats at the available tables. All they have to do is sell from a smaller pool. Now if it happens rarely that is variance if it happens often it is poor planning.

In my experience this is not always true. Some TD's do care if for no other reason than that they don't want to deal with unhappy customers.

And it is unfair in the sense that almost everyone else has gotten a chance to know players at their table and you are playing blind once you move. The fact that the other players don't know how you play affects them only when you are playing a hand. The opposite isn't true. You are affected every time you play a hand.

It is for this reason that I prefer in the beginning and middle of tournaments to play down two players rather than have players moved.
The purpose it serves is to balance tables. It doesn't have to be done in a situation where the table is down 2 players, but towards the end of a tournament in fairness it does serve a purpose to balance even then. When close to the money or in the money, pay jumps can be hit more easily the more players you have at the table. I would argue that having fewer people at the table does benefit the best players at the table, but for the majority of players it is a disadvantage.

I hope they are listening...

But one of the biggest problems I find is random. Some players buy in and don't sit down. Sometimes its because they don't like to play 4 or 5 handed. Sometimes they are just getting a bite to eat. But whatever the reason, I think that their stacks should be set up and blinded off. And they should be counted as part of the minimum needed to start.

Some rooms know that they get a lot of entrants after the start of the tournament. The Borgota is one that comes to mind. I wish that they would redistribute players at the start so they can start playing. In a way this is good because at FW latecomers are typically seated together if they didn't plan for enough tables, and latecomers are typically better than average...

Sandman, what's troubling about this conversation is that you appear willing to comply with the letter of the law (rule) but you really don't buy in to the spirit of the rule. In other words, you are okay with balancing to within two when there are three tables left, but you don't want to balance within one when you have the opportunity because you don't see it as important.

The whole point of balancing the tables is to attempt to equalize the pace of play. That is exaggerated when it gets to the bubble and td's order tables to play hand for hand. Let's say you're paying top 20 and down to three tables with 8,7 and 6 players respectively. Please tell me that before you enter hand for hand play that you would balance the tables to 7 players each. Doing so ensures that players folding preflop will blind off at equal rates. Not doing so ensures that they will not. And as you know, hand for hand situations can last quite a while.


The point is that balancing tables even when you are several players short of the bubble indicates that you realize that pace of play can vary from table to table and you are at least doing what you can to equalize it.

So you think that the spirit of a rule that says balance within two ... Is that tables should be balanced within 1?

When its late in the tourney and you've got three tables at 9-9-7 or 8-7-6 absolutely. You would expect players to act in good faith by not stalling in an effort to limp into the money. Players have the same expectation of you, to attempt to equalize the pace of play because that's the right thing to do for all players in the tourney.

But we have already established that rules deal with that. When the rule says balance within 1 then balance within 1.

Fair enough. But if you're saying that you would enter hand for hand on the bubble at 9-9-7 (for 24 places) or 8-7-6 (for 20 payouts) and justify doing it because of the rules, that's very scary...and reinforces the point that you're not in agreement with the concept behind balancing tables. Happy Thanksgiving anyway!

Ultimately, I'm just not convinced that this is necessary.

Well don't you think if this is what the rule meant, then the rule would say this? Seems to me like you should be advocating for making an adjustment to the rule rather than trying to tell everyone that the rule means something other than what it says.