Then we would just agree to pay the bubble bubble.

Now I feel bad for 30th place, he spent 8+ hours playing and didn't get anything =(

I agree, the OP is a little off base. It is her right, particularly since this was the structure that everyone agreed to when they entered. I would also be willing to bet that this was but one of many attempts during the course of the tournament to alter the payout structure from what it was at the start of the tournament.

I believe that this illustrates a problem with the tournament payout structure in general. To make the tournament seem bigger than it really is, the prize money is over-weighted to a few spots at the top. Except for a lucky few, hours are spent with little or nothing to show for it - the bubble being simply the most obvious.

I'm not ever the guy to block this typical "bubble boy" gesture, but in reality, it makes little sense since now the person right before the bubble boy, becomes the bubble boy.

You gotta draw the line somewhere, and it seems like the math that goes into the payout structures is as good a place as any.

That said, this Enright chick sounds like a b****, likely for more reasons than her bubble boy stance...

Given that it's mega high variance, doesn't it make a lot of sense for those who make it to the money plus one to reduce the variance by paying the bubble?. Especially in small stakes tourneys where at the end it's essentially a shovefest of 10-15 BB stacks? Reducing variance is often cited as a legitimate reason for swapping pieces of other people playing in the same tournament and having backers and staking, so don't see why reducing variance in small buyins is so ridiculous.

Obv, getting hostile or even pressing the matter if someone doesn't want to pay the bubble out of line and should be stopped.

Re some other posts, the event in question is a $70 buyin. The person stopping the deal is one of the most famous women poker players of all time. Probably playing with a bunch of local and recreational players, who know who she is. This isn't Bear Jew refusing to pay the button or make a deal in tourney with a $200K first prize. IMO a bit of poker ambassadorship would have been plus EV for poker and for Barbara.

^ If the OP is indicative of the character of the other 28 live donks in the room, ambassadorship is hardly necessary

Fully agree! All tournaments should be chopped before the first hand, so everybody only loses the rake.

And I'm also in favor of paying the button. Those little plastic thingies move quite a bit during each and every tourny. And they don't get paid for it. Don't know why you're blaming stealthmonk for it, but whatever.

Get real! A deal can be made, when all remaining players agree to it.

This, if you can't take the bubble then you shouldn't play tournaments. I love to watch the bubble sweat.

I fault the tournament directors, not sure how Barbara got singled out, but you should always be able to object to a deal without having to identify yourself to the other players.

no, and its not a strategic decision for casual players anyway. they play in $50 tournaments with 20% rake that are run ridiculously fast/short stacked and then want to chop the final table of a 30 man. it makes no sense to me whatsoever for fun or profit. if someone wants to burn money at a game they can't beat for a shot at a score, ok, so get on with it instead of just doing the burning money part.

All of this.

I've been massively berated for refusing a bubble deal before and it's not a pleasant situation to be in, especially as I'd hope I'm not a dick about it. Some TDs are a lot better at dealing with it than others, although I've always been pretty mystified why people do this and get so worked up when they can't pay the bubble.

It's obviously fine to not want to pay the bubble, but if she was nasty about it that was out of line. No one has ever gotten very mad at me for not wanting to pay the bubble even though the bubble is paid almost 100% of the time at the cardroom by my house, because I'm not socially ******ed and by just being a bit funny and jovial but firm in not wanting to pay it everyone seems to be okay with my decision. If your response to people asking about paying the bubble is "NO WHY THE HELL WOULD I WANT TO GIVE MONEY TO SOME IDIOT SHORT STACK LOOK AT ALL MY CHIPS I'M GOING TO DESTROY ALL OF YOU I'M THE GREATEST POKER PLAYER EVARRRR!" then you are an *******. If you just calmly say no and ask the TD to resume the tourney, or make a little joke about having already decided what you were going to buy with 1st place money, some people might get annoyed but the tourney will move on.

Last tourney I played at my local cardroom I got crippled 2 off of the money and once someone else busted they agreed to pay the bubble 2x the buyin even though I had 2 bbs and the average was 18 or so. There's no point getting mad that people want to pay the bubble or anything like that, as long as you are playing at a cardroom where the TD will accept your decision and continue the tourney, it's not going to be -ev for you that they wanted to pay. The people asking to get the bubble paid are the ones whose blinds to pick on from now on in the tourney.

Just an observation on the collusion comments.

I would argue that for the local small buy in tournaments (>$200) this type of collusion is more common than not. All these guys who play almost exclusively with each other, chatting about the wife and kids and bad beats. They paying off of the bubble boy is such a ritual that you look like a three headed alien if you say no.

Why not just give everyone their money back. Maybe payouts should randomly change every hand and not be announced, that would be exciting huh?

You think the guy who busts deserves $ for his time? Then you are saying everyone who cashes deserves to make less for their time(which they will spend more of) and be penalized for making it further than the bubble.

Granted it is a small amount of the total prize pool but if u give that much, why not 170, 180, 500...

I will often chop in home games if others want to but that's so I get invited back, casinos won't bar me for not chopping.

IMO the stupidity here is the 'If one player objects' rule, ffs just put it to a show of hands - majority in favour = pay the bubble and move on.

The other day some guy at my cash game table won a huge pot then got up and left. I was all like "hey why arnt you doing what i want you to do with your money?!?" and he was all like "because im going to do what I want to do with my money!!". what a ****in jerk.

Every time people mention paying the bubble boy, I respond with... "Oh no! I'm so sorry it's the Moops, the correct answer is 'the Moops."

"Given that it's mega high variance, doesn't it make a lot of sense for those who make it to the money plus one to reduce the variance by paying the bubble?. Especially in small stakes tourneys where at the end it's essentially a shovefest of 10-15 BB stacks? Reducing variance is often cited as a legitimate reason for swapping pieces of other people playing in the same tournament and having backers and staking, so don't see why reducing variance in small buyins is so ridiculous. "


Absolutely NOT! It's not my fault if bubble boy was a f**king moron who bet his KK into trup QQ and put himself in that position!!

Anyway, since you want to pay the one who ALMOST made the payouts, perhaps Bodemeister should be awarded the Preakness because you see he almost held on.

This is wrong on so many levels. How about disqualify the chipleader: majority in favour = kick him out and move on.

yet another one to think that majority means democracy means the right thing

I just want to say also that negotiating a new prize structure mid tournament is an unfair advantage and leads to potentially collusive practices by regulars, not to mention the bribing of floor to help get a renegotiation done. I think the practice should be outlawed due to these incentive problems. For example, say, I think I'm playing a tournament which pays out some number of players some % of prize pool. If some majority of players have a secret agreement to change any of the payouts or the number of payouts, the players party to the agreement should make different strategic decisions (i.e. given different implicit ICM considerations) than I should, even if we are of equal poker skill level and therefore gain an unfair advantage.

In practice, things are usually much worse. For example, in the tournament I played where a situation like Barbara's occurred, the majority decided to radically change the prize structure- paying an extra 15% or so of the the remaining field and making the prize structure much more gradual than the initial prize pool. This restructuring resulted in direct benefit to the conservative players on the bubble who were the vocal, belligerent majority in the tournament. Of course they covered this bullying for EV under the guise of "fairness", which is just false.

Now that being said, I'm not opposed to a unanimous decision to change the structure at any point, since there are no incentive problems present in contrast to a majority vote (of any magnitude) in favor of a change in structure.

Nobody mentioned it yet so Im going to have to say it. Barbara Enright is HOT.

props to barbara

love tilting the idiots that get mad when you won't chop!

Bodemeister placed second, winning $200K, give or take.

Your example would make better sense stating that the horse "Teeth of the Dog", the 5th place finisher, would get a cut of the purse, valued at about $1M.

Only the top 4 places made the money.

As for Enright . . . that's just bad karma.

Only read OP, but WTF at eliminating the bubble factor; sorry, but that's one of the times where you can accumulate the most chips. I'm sure someone pointed that out already, but I had to say it. LOL at begging for a bubble safe; too bad some awful player didn't get his buy in back after 8 hours, I'm sure he saved a lot by not playing slots during that time