tl;dr
I am really surprised as how this thread went so deep on topics like dynamics, momentum and confidence when trying to analyze whether Brandon's claim is justified.
We see two main things in the interview (among the whining and wild accusations); one is Brandon making the claim that the WSOP made a bad ad-hoc ruling on the situation, the second is Brandon reasoning this claim by saying that a different ruling would have led to a completely different outcome, namely him winning the bracelet. This argumentation is of course BS, it's an uncertain outcome, and it's completely unfeasible to reasonably estimate what factors play a role of how the outcome is determined. It's ridiculous to take it for a fact that he would've won 100%.
So what he is actually saying is that the ruling gave him a disadvantage, and therefore cost him some EV in money and some EV in winning the bracelet (which comes along with reputational effects). Well, that's also kinda tough to assess, obviously; regardless of whether some ppl (including Brandon) think they can accurately predict the effects of momentum etc, there are still too many unknown, uncertain factors determining the outcome to ever make something meaningful out of it.
Instead, this isn't about whether or not Brandon lost EV due to this ruling. That is just an ex-post view on things, and this sort of logic doesn't help us (or him) to determine whether or not the ruling was indeed "bad" (which would make Brandon's claim justified). Instead, this is about how a poker tournament should be conducted by the responsible officials, and therefore about the best solution the TD should have taken in this spot regarding the ruling.
Let's have a look at this specific game: we have two poker players that played a tournament with a set schedule, played all the way through the designated end with only both of them left, the tournament isn't played out yet and the casino closes. This means they need to continue on another day, which comes along with a cost for them. One component of that cost is that they need to provide more time than initially thought to play it out and get a return on their investments. This cost is already realized and the WSOP can't do anything about that (or probably makes clear somewhere that this may happen and it's not their duty to compensate players in this case), and players need to accept that, since they almost always have no better option (playing it out is very mostly likely better for them than to quit).
The second component of the cost is the newly introduced uncertainty of when the tournament is going to continue, that is the uncertainty of how much time will pass to the end, and what (possibly uncertain) events might happen during that time frame, affecting their opportunity cost. This means, that the introduced cost from the view of the players isn't constant, it's increasing in time (neglecting certain preferences for later play). More on that later.
The last player, which has all the bargaining power in the game (i.e. makes the ruling and solves the game), is the TD. It is safe to assume that the objective function of the TD is to find the "fairest" solution for both players (neglecting that the WSOP might have interests that are not (evenly) aligned with the players, e.g. they might favor a ruling where both players can buy into the ME because of the additional rake paid, but that seems unlikely).
We can already tell by now what a potentially optimal solution to this game is (as other ITT have suggested already), namely the TD (or WSOP in general) should not allow any bargaining at all, and instead set a pre-determined rule for this kind of situation. This doesn't completely eliminate the uncertainty for players (they still are unsure how long play takes after restart), but it's certainly less uncertainty since the pre-determined rule is common knowledge to the players, i.e. they know at the very beginning that there is a % that the tournament may be one day longer than scheduled, and this day will start at x. Therefore, a pre-set rule is strictly better than an ad-hoc ruling. This rule can look like "Play is set to continue the next day." or even like "Play is set to continue the next day, unless at least one player wants to play a tournament of the same schedule which starts on the next day. In this case, play resumes one day after the respective player(s) get(s) eliminated from the respective tournament)." Or w/e.
Now, let's look at another potential solution, that is introduce a new stage in the game and let the players cooperate (or bargain) over the new starting time. Let's assume that if players successfully cooperate in the bargaining game, their outcomes (or EV) are both strictly greater than their outcome when a pre-set rule is in place, making cooperation a better solution than a pre-set rule (which is a fair assumption). Sweet, but the problem is that the bargaining game can also fail, what now? Well, how about a pre-set rule? We already determined above that this is better than an ad-hoc ruling; so that means that the combination of a bargaining game and pre-set rule that gets effective in case bargaining fails is a potentially optimal solution, and therefore a good ruling - game solved. Take this as a lesson: if you let people bargain, makes sure to have a plan in case bargaining fails, or get ready for a bitch fight.
Now, what the WSOP did was let them bargain, fail, and then rule ad-hoc because they didn't have a pre-set rule in place. Okay, we're on the spot, what do we do as the TD, how do we find the best starting time that is the most "fair" to both players? Let's go back to players' objectives, they want to reduce their cost of time (and therefore opportunity cost), and their uncertainty. Well, if we assume absolutely no knowledge about the players opportunity cost and their preferences (e.g. when do they want to resume play due to momentum considerations), the best solution (also mentioned by others ITT) is clearly to resume play ASAP as this reduces the expected additional time and opportunity cost of both players. (Note that we as the TD should in theory not care about players preferences regarding poker-related strategic issues anyway.)
Now, the approach the WSOP TD took is different; he went to talk to the players and estimate how their respective cost function is shaped, i.e. he wanted to acquire knowledge about the players' cost, and base the ad-hoc ruling on his estimate. This introduces a new game, in which the two players play against each other in order to achieve their preferred solution (we already know they won't cooperate). What are the problems with this game? It's incredibly hard for the TD to find a fair solution to this game because (1) the players have no incentives to not lie about their opportunity cost and therefore their signal will simply reflect their strategic preferences (e.g. Brandon could have said that he needed to back home in two days due to a business meeting which offers him some EV that is greater than Jon's EV of playing the ME) and (2) even if players won't lie it's just incredibly hard to find a fair solution given that the TD will never be able to correctly estimate the players' opportunity cost (what if Jon played the ME for 4 days, and during this time frame Brandon did indeed lose some EV because something happened and he wasn't where he was supposed to be? more extreme, what if somebody gets sick and Brandon needs to fly out, does he blind out?). The game also introduces a potential adverse effect on the TD/WSOP: every player (esp the eventual loser) is likely to not be satisfied by the ad-hoc ruling, therefore creating some adverse reputational effects. + discussing with toolboxes just sucks.
Clearly, making an ad-hoc ruling after bargaining of all involved parties is a bad ruling. Linking the new starting time to an uncertain outcome is even worse. Brandon is right in criticizing that ruling - his reasoning and his attitude/behavior are really bad, though, and not helping him at all in getting the WSOP to make better rulings/rules in the future. His attitude and his self-view as THE usual victim probably didn't help him playing well, too. Self-fulfilling prophecies FTW.
Last edited by samooth; 10-04-2012 at 11:55 PM.
Reason: lotsa typos
