MTT's...Which site is correct?

I play mostly on Stars and Party, but their MTT’s differ and I would like to know what is the correct way.

1. On Party with 250 tables and your on table 240, you will be moved when 110 people are out as Party breaks their tables from 250 to 1 in numerical order. (MTT’s on Party are all 10 player)
On Stars, table 240 could be final table.

I have different feelings for both versions.

On Party, I know when I start on a low table number, I will be at this table for a good chunk of the tourney. But if I was at a high number, I know I’m going to move around a lot, and not get many reads.
Can be good and bad.
Good when moving- more chips available at new table due to someone getting knocked out.
Bad when moving- cause I’m the new guy.
Good when not moving- hoping to set table to your type of play.
Bad when not moving- having a very tight table, so no new chips coming, as nobody getting knocked out.

On Stars- Just play my game not knowing, when or if, I’m going to move.

2. Small Blind difference.

On Party, if the BB is taken out of tourney, the UTG player is the sole blind (BB) on the next hand and there is no SB.

On Stars, the UTG player becomes the SB and miss’s paying the BB. This has saved my ass when blinds are big on many occasions.

So as title says- which site is correct if you where playing live?

Each site can set their own rules, move you as they see fit, and do the blinds as they desire. There is no correct or incorrect way.

Live I believe the dead blind is correct. Stars however says on their site that they use a forward moving button so that no one has the advantage of being button twice in a row. Both are fine as long as it's consistent and everyone playing knows the rule.

In terms of breaking tables Stars is the way it works live I believe, and the one that makes the most sense. The table that loses the last person would be the one to break.

This is also interesting for cash because on Stars I believe if the person leaves after posting the SB the person who was UTG gets to just post SB and UTG+1 is now BB, whereas on FTP it has no SB and gives old UTG BB and then next hand UTG is SB and UTG+1 is BB. I think that is how it is done live but again Stars prefers to not give someone the advantage of the button twice (as after the dead SB there is then a dead button which effectively gives the previous button the button again) whereas FTP simply prefers to not give someone the advantage of skipping the BB. Pretty sure live they use the FTP method of a dead blind.

Warning: I feel a kinda long post coming on.

Breaking tables:

I find it kinda weird that Party breaks their tables in that way.

In live tournaments, tables break in a pre-set order but the players aren't told what that order is.

There are some practical considerations in live tournaments that mean you can often guess if your table's going to break early - typically, it's if you're sitting at a cash game table that's been converted just for the tournament, or if it's in an external location (the tables out the front of restaurants or in function rooms at last year's wsop, for example). But in theory you don't know when your table's breaking. Stars obviously follows this procedure or something pretty close to it, with the added bonus that there's no such thing as a converted or poorly located table in an online tournament so the breaking order really can be random.

At certain stages of live tournaments (usually at the end of the day in a multi-day tournament, or when there's only a few tables left) there's often a complete redraw for seats too, so everyone gets moved around. Even the feature tables can be broken like that. To the best of my knowledge online sites don't bother with this.

Also, even if you're on a table that's not due to break for some time, you can still be moved to balance another table. This should happen online too (I know it does on FTP), where your table isn't broken but one player is still moved.

So yeah... I really can't see why Party would do that when effectively you're right, it gives some players the unfair advantage of getting better reads on their opponents.

Dead blinds:

Almost every live tournament will follow the Party system of using a dead blind / button. You rationalise it this way: the big blind always moves to the next seat, and if either the button or the small blind ends up in a seat that's just been vacated, it's just declared dead.

AFAIK, not allowing dead blinds / buttons is actually pretty rare - I'm kinda surprised to hear Stars do it that way. There's nothing stopping live games from using the rule FWIW, and I'm sure someone does it somewhere, but I guess it's easier online where it's automated. I know as a dealer that explaining the dead button system is hard enough. Trying to explain to players (especially novices) why blinds are jumping all over the place and why someone got to miss out on paying a big blind would be just nightmarish.

As long as the rules (on these and whatever other points you care to name) are applied consistently, it'll all come out in the wash. You'll benefit from knowing the table breaking order or missing your big blind as often as you'll be penalised by it. It's interesting to hear what they've chosen to be unconventional about though.

Here's the justification by Stars:

PokerStars uses a "forward moving button" rule in its tournaments. According to this rule, no player ever receives the button twice in a row; at the completion of every hand, the button is moved clockwise to the small blind. The implication of this rule is that when players are eliminated, there may be players who get a reprieve from one or both blinds. The forward moving button is common practice in online poker due to the technicalities involved in adjusting the blinds after players are eliminated. Since these are basically random occurrences, no player will receive any long-term advantage, and the rule is necessarily fair for all players.

Click to expand...

Not sure I really buy that. It shouldn't be that hard to include dead blinds and such in the programming (and obviously Party/FTP do it), but on the other hand they're right about it having no advantage or disadvantage to anyone as long as it is consistent.

i prefere stars mtt's and i also really like UB's mtt, called bounty or sniper giving you a small portion of the prize pool for every player you knock out