First time playing in local friendly tournament. Tournament has no rake, friendly & very bad players.

Official Payout is
1st - $610
2nd - $295

Player 1 - 5% chips
Player 2 - 30% Chips
Player 3 - 30% Chips
Hero - 35% Chips (Me)

Players start to discuss a bubble deal, Player 1 (5% chips) suggest both 3rd and 4th place should be paid, Player 2 & 3 both agree that only 3rd place should be paid and we should play down to 4th. Being friendly, I say that I am ok with anything near ICM.

The very next hand, three way all in between hero player 1 and player 3. I bust both players.

So now,

Player 1 - Busted 4th
Player 2 - 30%
Player 3 - Busted 3rd
Hero - 70%

At this point, player 3 states that he should get money for busting 3rd. Most of the regulars agree. Player 1 disagrees and said that clearly no deal has been made. The house comes over and said it is my call to make and usually 3rd place (bubble) always gets some money and this double bust out has never happened before.

After discussions, I ended up reluctantly agreeing (not wanting to piss anyone off at a friendly, no rake game) to giving 3rd $60 out of the prize pool. I also ended up making a deal to take $500 to not play it out with the remaining player.

Just curious, what your thoughts are on this? Does this happen at your friendly tournaments? Would you have agreed to give 3rd place money.

Only if the deal is made BEFORE 3rd place busts.

It kind of sounds like you agreed with player 2 and 3 the way you worded it.

^slightly that but the choice was given to you, and you made it, soooo...?

if you plan on getting paid for 3rd ever in the future, then who cares? if youd rather take another 150 away one night, then man up.

It happens. If you want to play there again and it's as bad as you say (and plus no rake) ofc you should pay it.

You left it too vague, if anything lesson learned and be sure to be state what you are agreeing to during deal talks. Think you made the fine choice to give him money since you are new, plus rake free/soft game so you def want to be welcomed back.

This reminds me of the Armenian Mike fiasco. Mike looking for free equity much like 3rd place here, and floor says "its up to you" since the games run around him. Just think that ruling is a little weird...

Definitely need to be clear with locals and regs. If you had been the one to bust third, I doubt you would have gotten a penny.

Yeah exactly, I watched that too and was thinking the exact thing when this was happening. The floor made it up to me and it was a very awkward spot.

My understanding was that no deal was explicitly agreed to, and most times when agreeing to a deal the play would pause and everyone would explicitly have to agree for it.

This very obviously shouldn't qualify as a deal and opens a can of angleshooting worms that should stay closed. To avoid this in the future, be clear and say "so we have no deal right now" after any deal talk before the next hand is dealt. Their intentions were probably not to angle you for 60$ and you should probably let it go if you think this wasn't intentional. But if you had busted in 3rd you wouldn't have even asked and it's not entirely clear they would've given you 3rd place money.

Also what a ****ty floor person to put the responsibility on you and give a total non-argument like "3rd place usually gets something". Both of those things are the opposite of what a floor should be doing.