Grounds for a complaint?

I was over at my brother in laws, he had been entered into a new depositors freeroll so I went to watch him play.

After the first 45 min or so he had doubled up was doing ok, despite a lot of people sitting out.

Then he gets put onto a table which was him (3,000ish chips) and Villian (15,000ish chips) and EVERYONE else was sitting out. 500 people? left in MTT and he's faced with a heads up battle with someone with 5 times his chip stack.

Do you think he has grounds for a complaint?

Tell him to complain and post their reply here - I could use a good laugh.

Seriously though, if I was in the WSoP, getting along reasonably well, then got moved to a table with Phil Ivey, Dan Harrington, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu (all with uber-deep stacks), would I have valid grounds for a complaint?

Besides which, he should be happy. Seven sets of blinds for the taking per round and heads up against a player who is most likely a total donk (in freerolls it's usually the biggest donks with the biggest stacks early on) is not exactly a terrifying prospect as long as he's capable of adjusting.

It's totally doable that he can take advantage of Mr. Deepstacks heads-up. I for one would welcome the oppurtunity to pad my stack in this situation. Heads-up, your hand selection opens up dramatically. Played right, he could easily have put himself in a great spot here.

not grounds for complaints at all. It's the players' prerogative (sp?) as to whether or not they sit out, and if a guy's upstacked, then consider it a challenge to take him down.
This guy probably thinks he can bully you into folding every hand so he can steal the blinds, but all you have to do is take a stand with a big ace.
Though it's a pain in the ass that there're so many sitouts at these FRs, there's really nothing you can do except deal with it.
It's not the site's fault, so there really is no grounds for complaint.

Heads up would be great. I've been in that position many times in sit n goes and his stack slowly moved my way. It may look like your defeated already by the chip stack size but take advantage of it. It's just you and him/her.

What you often see is the big stack playing very aggressively to try to buy every pot. What you can do then is let them steal the majority of the pots, and then when you have an above-average hand raise them, so you're still getting 2-3 sets of blinds for each orbit of the blinds.
If they just try to put you all-in every time you play, wait for a decent hand and then take that all-in bet, and stack up off them. Playing at a table with just one or 2 other plays when the rest are sit-outs can be a relatively easy way to build up a decent chip stack.
One thing to be aware of is positional advantages - when there's 2 players and lots of sitouts, sometimes one will have position most of the time, other times you'll have a more even split, and you want to play more strongly when you have position.

Oh my God! He wants to complain about being given the opportunity to be chip leader? Tell him to take up other game then.

The times I've been sat at a table with just one other person heads-up, I've tried to force the other player to just take 2-3 blinds, while I take most of them. When they've started fighting for most pots, I switch to waiting for a reasonable hand, and then play very aggressively, generally letting them buy say one round of blinds before doubling up off them.
It's a lot easier than playing heads-up without sit-outs, because on average both of you will generally be building your stacks, and if you get a few hands you don't like you can wait for a better one with less cost.
As the large stack your aim will be to pinch most of the blinds, and to steadily build your stack. Sometimes you'll push the other player all-in, taking the chance of losing a chunk of your stack, but if the other player is relatively tight, then you probably want to let them take enough pots to build their stack while you take the majority, because if you bust them out then they may be replaced by someone stronger.
When you're the short stack it's harder because the other player can keep pushing you all-in, but you either wait for a really strong hand and try to double up off them, or try to take a reasonable proportion of the blinds uncontested, depending on their style of play.

There's absolutely no reason to complain, though, because it's easier than trying to build a stack when 9 other players are trying to win the pots, and easier than playing normal heads-up, because most of the blinds being played for aren't coming from your stack.

I have to echo the sentiment that it's great being heads up at a table full of sit-outs, even if the guy has 5 times your stack. I've found that it's really not very hard to take advantage of aggressive donks in this situation (and, as someone pointed out, there's a good chance he's a donk, and with that chip stack he is almost definitely going to be aggressive).

In fact, he's encouraged to be even more aggressive, because the sooner he gets your brother out, the sooner he can sit at that table and eat up the blinds all by himself for as long as everyone else sits out.

It sounds like a pretty good opportunity to me.

I was over there again last night and to clarify, he didn't care about the chip leader being at the table, he felt that after 1 full round of blind increases that the people that hadn't played a game should have been removed from the tourny. It was a freeroll that was for the weekly depositors.

I once played a freeroll that was for new depositors only, and I believe the new depositors were automatically entered into the MTT. To make a long story short, I got seated at a table that I was the only one actually playing. All I did was smash the call button as fast as possible and started out in third place in chips. This was clearly an unfair advantage.

The real question is should people that register for freerolls and don't play be removed? I know on Absolute Poker they are removed after 1 blind increase if they are sitting out.

It does give an uneven advantage, because some will be at more active tables than others. However, when you're at a quiet table like that against one or 2 other players, then arguably it introduces more skill compared to luck, because the intelligent, adaptable players will clean up. I've seen plenty of players still play their exact same game even when it's pretty much all sit-outs, to the point of checking down against a sit-out and losing, so I'm then more in favour of leaving them in as it sorts the men from the boys.

Let me say, when I'm in a tourmament and I'm moved to a table with a huge chipstack playing heads up with a bunch of sitouts, I love it... most of the times. You can usually bully him the first few rounds to get the blinds, then when he uses his stack to attack you back off until you see a great flop. Then BAM!, he's no longer the stacked player heads up.

The times I hate this, and with a passion, is when he's an all-in donk that thinks since it's one player that has a tiny fraction of his chips that he can push every freakin hand. Out of the maybe 5 times this has happened, I've been the successor once, because when I finally do have that nice hand it's usually a coin flip that I lose.

One good advantage is that:
It is like heads up, but when your oponant folds, you still get two sets of blinds
So if you get a good hand and he folds, then you dont walk away with nothing

Wouldn't it suck if this rule was implemented, and you ran into traffic the morning of the WSOP Main event?

...so what if eight players at your table decide that they just want to fold every hand until later in the tournament. They let their small blinds go so they don't make any stupid mistakes or get pushed around by the maniacs during the first several rounds of the tournament?

This would be the same as the eight players sitting out. I don't like it either, but sitting out is acceptable at most sites. You just have to learn to play with what are now eight AMAZINGLY tight players (V$PIP = 0%) and one other player with a decent stack.

I kinda like the rule at Absolute Poker, but I also don't mind that sites like Party (where I play) allow sit outs until the stack is depleted.