[LearnedfromTV]

At first glance the concept has merit. If you are chip leader with 35000 chips and three others at your table have 25000, do you really want to take a 50/50 with a guy who has 10000? Straight 50/50, for argument's sake. It would seem that the chips you would gain have less value than the chips you would lose.

On the other hand, those 10000 chips you add might be temporarily extraneous, but ten rounds down the line they won't be, when stacks and blinds are larger and they make the difference between having 5K or 15K left when you lose a big pot in a spot where you had no choice.

Unless your stack is so large that you are sure to have a big stack at the final table without having to show a hand down (you have 8-10% of the chips already with 50 left and can comfortably steal a couple times an orbit), I don't think your stack is comfortable enough to say that the extra chips don't help you. The blinds rise too fast in online tournaments for this to be true.

Just as in the regular Gigabet Dilemma, there may be a fine line (like 52/48 or something) where, theoretically, the chips you gain are worth less than the chips you would lose. But 45K intimidates more than 35K and guarantees big stack status for longer, so there are factors that argue the extra chips are worth as much as the chips you would lose.