Final table deal making

Is it worth doing? Anyone do it? How do you work out a fair deal?

I don't play many multi-table tourneys, but a couple of months ago I had nothing better to do on a Saturday morning so entered a $1 buy-in event at Party, with 790 or so entrants. Somehow I got to the final table and there was a deal-making box where you could vote on whether to make a deal or not. Having only about the 7th biggest stack at this point I clicked Yes, as did a few other people. As it panned out I knocked a few of the other stacks out in quick succession and found myself heads-up with two thirds of the chips. At this point the other guy decides he wants to make a deal. Never having really thought about it before I agreed. Partly because heads-up can be a bit random, and partly because it was very difficult to work out how many chips to bet, or how much your opponent has just bet when you have about ten million in front of you. (They should do some kind of currency depreciation at the end of tourneys when the zeros become too long, like the Mexicans creating the Nuevo Peso, to make things clearer imo.)

Can't remember the exact numbers but with no deal it would be something like $180 for 1st and $120 for 2nd place, and we agreed to split something like $160-$140.

I also went away in official 1st place, but it didn't feel quite as good as I suspect it would have done if I'd won it "properly" rather than with a deal.

Why bother chopping a $1 tourney?

I'd chop if there were thousands on the line and blinds were big if I was given the option and I thought I was well matched with my opponent(s) skill wise - I'm not fond of flipping coins for a huge sum of money. But in a $1 tourney I don't think it would even cross my mind at all.

Well, i used to be very opposed to it, but now i think in most situations it is the best move, though I would be less likely to do it heads up, as my track record is pretty good heads up, and i personally think it just makes less sense. Here is a 4 player chop i made in a $2 tournie on pokerstars awhile back (i know it's crazy dorkus, for such a small buy in, but i didn't suggest it, and everyone wanted to do it, so i went along):

-------------Official------New
Player--------Payout-----Payout
========= ======== ======
Shingleman #1 $ 351.14 $ 230.69
sirbin2000 #2 $ 221.09 $ 186.49
nateofdeath #3 $ 136.99 $ 214.12
Silvermama #4 $ 100.58 $ 178.50

I was 2nd in chips at the time we made the deal, and we were offered the 'New Payout' based on our chip possition at the time. So, as you can see, by making the deal, myself and the chip leader were guarenteed about a 2nd place pay out, which was over twice as much as we would have gotten for finishing in 4th place. The guys in 3rd and 4th also got themselves better then 3rd place money for making the chop. Personally i think this deal was good for all of us, better for some perhaps, but still a smart move for all. We all gave up the possibility of the slightly bigger payout to guarentee ourselves a comfortable one. btw, I know the guy who won was also the chip leader at the time we made the deal, so one might think it wasn't such a good move for him, but our actual order of finish was ultimatly meaningless considering how many hands we sat out waiting for the administrator, and how pointless the play at the end of the tournament was considering all we were playing for was tournament leader board points. Who knows how we would have finished up had we not done the chop.

So personally, i'm usually not going to bring it up, but in many situations i really think it's the smartest move to make. If you can, let the support staff suggest a deal for you and go from there. But base your decision on how profitable the deal will be for you, and how well you'd need to do to win more.

-n

I agree with dorkus at $1.00 making a deal, nope lets play.. I am here to play and that is it.. I have invested a whole $1.00 to split .. not even if I was the short stack with 200 in chips and there was 2 of us left..

Either elimate me or nothing plain and simple.

Depends which site you are on. On PartyPoker you end up making a deal and the tournament will end. On PokerStars I believe you make a deal for a portion of the money and play for the rest. At least thats what they do in the million dollar guarunteed. In your case I prob would of played for first, but like Dorkus said If it were for thousands then it would be a call of how you feel your skills rate against your opponent. If you think you can take him then go for it, but if you have any doubt then I think you should make a deal. That goes for multi way deals also.

Thanks for the input.

OK so my example was only a $1 tourney, but I don't think it should make a difference whether it's a $1 or a $1000 buy-in. It's like saying you should play your AK differently depending on the stakes... I'm just wanting to work out what the optimal strategy is. Why's flipping coins for thousands of dollars any different to flipping coins for sixty? $60 might be pocket money for some, but it's not insignificant in the stakes I'm playing at the moment.

The only reason I can think of why you would not want to chop in a $1 tourney would be because you value the kudos of playing and winning 1st place to be worth more than the cost of the risk of dropping $60 to second. Which is fair enough.

I think it should. Would you rather flip a coin for $10 or $50,000?

..and it also makes a difference because of the relative skill levels of the players making the deal. Would you prefer to take a chop that assumes the skill levels of all players is equal with 4 $1 tourney players or 4 $1000 tourney players?

I kind of disagree with you here Dorkus. I think you're right, stakes matter, but not on an absolute scale but a relative one -- maybe a $1 tourney is not much to you, but it makes a big difference to Bombjack's bankroll? Whereas for 000's of $ you might make a deal, but others wouldn't care even at those stakes.

Agreed with Beriac. It's all relative. To someone in the early stages of attempting to build their bankroll from 24 cents they won in a freeroll, every dollar is likely to make a huge difference to them, whether in terms of the money itself or the accomplishment.

where's einstein when ya need him

I agree with it depends on a lot of things including your own comfort. The one thing to remember is that if a deal is asked for you do not have to accept and the tourney goes on.

I have seen guys in a few card rooms in Dallas after a deal was proctored that were like "I wish there was a no-deal or no-chop rule." There is don't agree to it.

I was thinking, a good way to work out a favourable deal heads-up would be to
1. Estimate your % chance of winning
2. Multiply this % by the difference between prizes for 1st and 2nd
3. Add this to 2nd place prize to get the amount you should receive

So if I thought I was 75% to win in the above example, I would need 0.75*(180-120)+120 = $165 to make a deal.

Another way of looking at it, which gives the same results, would be to say the expected winnings are 75%*180 + 25%*120 = $165.

Could also do it this way for a multi-way chop, just multiply your estimate of chances of placing in each of the remaining places by the prize money for that place. E.g. If 1st 2nd and 3rd prizes are 200, 150 and 100 respectively and I think I have a 20% chance of 1st, 50% of 2nd, and 30% of 3rd, I'd need 0.2*200+0.5*150+0.3*100 = 145 to chop.

How you work out these percentages is the question... anyone know of any statistics relating the number of chips to probabilities of ending positions in NL Holdem?