Player has to leave home tourney: His $$$?

ACG2x · #1 05-28-2007, 12:38 PM

Playing last night in an 8 person home tournament. Low stakes, decent players though despite the lack of $$$ available to win.

Two players are college kids, both pretty decent. Our first game ends around 8:00 PM, one of the kids who drove the other one has to leave at 11:00 PM to work. From what we understood, he could not be late or call in.

So they say if we do a slightly accelerated blind structure, they'd play. I'll call the one who drove (and has to leave for work) Player 1 and the other one Player 2.

The game goes on for a while and Player 1 is eliminated when his 7-7 goes up against 8-8 and cannot improve. It is around 9:45 PM right now and he is the second person out. I have no idea how Player 2 thinks we're finishing by 11:00 PM.

Anyways, the game goes on and it gets closer and closer to 11:00 PM. Player 2 starts making very loose calls and raises (such as calling an all in on the turn with a 9-5 os on a board of 9-4-2-A when he had no other draws besides the wheel against a tight player who had been betting the whole way).

It gets to be 11:00 and Player 1 tells Player 2 he has to leave, period. Player 2 just shrugs and says he has to go. Nobody else could really give him a ride because he lived over an hour from where all of us were.

He gets up and walks out and goes with Player 1 who is already in his car waiting. We don't even get a chance to say anything to him about his chips or anything.

The TD (host) makes the decision to divide up his chips evenly amongst the remaining players and absorb them. Now the question of his money.

Technically he wasn't eliminated and still had an average stack, however during the last half hour he did make some wild raises and calls hoping to get it down to the top 2 (who got paid).

Since it wasn't an emergency and was something within his control (aka he knew he had to leave at 11:00 PM regardless), would you even consider refunding his money and playing for one buy-in less? Why or why not?

Both of these guys are in our regular ring game circle and we see them often.

Taso · #2 05-28-2007, 01:16 PM

Nope, wouldn't refund at all.

pfapfap · #3 05-28-2007, 01:18 PM

Why not just let his stack dwindle naturally? Why the heck would he get his buyin back? They knew what they were getting into when they signed up.

dkgojackets · #4 05-28-2007, 01:28 PM

dividing his chips of evenly hurts those who had bigger stacks. He doesnt seem to care about the buyin, and I dont see any reason why his stack shouldn't be blinded off.

UMTerp · #5 05-28-2007, 01:31 PM

If it's really just a "friendly home tournament", take his buy-in out of the prize pool out of the prize pool and give it back to him next time you see him.

If it's anymore serious than that (there are people still playing that aren't regulars that might object, etc.), tough luck for him.

Doesn't seem like a big deal regardless since he voluntarily left without bringing up money.

And as far as his chips, just blind them off naturally.

Precept2 · #6 05-28-2007, 02:08 PM

Since he didn't bring up the issue of his buy-in, he clearly isn't worried about that. So I'd say no on the refund issue.

As for his chips, just pull his chips off the table. Dividing his chips amongst the remaining players is unfair to the big stacks, but blinding him off is a pain in the butt.

chillrob · #7 05-28-2007, 05:02 PM

I don't think blinding someone off is ever good, because it gives the people in a position to steal his BB a big advantage. I also think just take his chips off the table.

ohgeetee · #8 05-28-2007, 05:09 PM

take the chips off the table and money stays in the prize pool. not even close.

pismeyer · #9 05-28-2007, 07:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Why not just let his stack dwindle naturally? Why the heck would he get his buyin back? They knew what they were getting into when they signed up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. Let the stack blind away. If he had an average stack there is a chance he could finish in money, depending on your payout of course.

P [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

PhatPots · #10 05-28-2007, 09:24 PM

I would say it depends on how many chips he had left. If he was a short stack, say less than 1/2 of everyone else I would refund his money.

Whether you decide to or not is really more of a function of how strict your game is with respect the rules.

If I were in player 2's shoes, he should just have to eat the loss. (eg. "thanks for the game guys, cheers.")