Please note, when it comes to table balancing in tournament - the system tries to choose a player who has been moved less than others, or to choose a sitting out player.
There are two different times a player may be moved in a tournament. A single player may be moved by himself to correct a table imbalance, or an entire table may be "broken up" and distributed to the empty seats at other tables.
When a player is chosen to be moved individually (such as one table has only 7 players, while others have nine), we try to minimize the number of moves. If possible, the system tries to choose a player who has been moved less than others, or to choose a sitting out player.
A table break happens as soon as enough empty seats are available to eliminate one table from play. If your table is chosen to be broken, the re-seating algorithm is as it would be in a brick and mortar room. It is completely random, as if seat cards were thrown face down in the middle of the table.
While this does mean that it may be possible to move right back into the blinds having just paid them, it also means you can move from "under the gun" to a late position. All players are subject to the same random chance in such a move.
Once the player to be moved is chosen, we try to find a seat available for that player that has a relative position to the button close to the one that the player was at previously.
In summary, there are two fundamental goals that the table balancing system achieves, and they are:
a) to maintain blind position
b) to distribute movement evenly between players.
Please also be aware of our tournament rule #16 which states:
"As players are eliminated from the tournament, the software will “break” tables to fill available empty seats. The re-seating of players at broken tables is performed randomly and, although rare, may result in a player having to post multiple big blinds in a row."
Sometimes players may need to pay more blinds than usual, but at other times they will also avoid the blinds more often than they might otherwise expect. Overall however, we have received very positive feedback since implementing this system.
For full details of our tournament rules, please visit the PokerStars website:
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/rules/
We trust this clarifies how players are moved in our tournaments, and we wish you the best of luck at the tables.