Still confused by a lot of the arguments in this thread. Unless I'm missing something the bottom line is that ANY restrictions on deal making will surely lead to under the table agreements, which are fraught with potential problems.

The whole putting some money aside for 1st thing doesn't make any sense either. Aren't a high percentage of deals done HU anyway? What's to stop a deal being done 'officially' amongst the FT and then the last two unofficially agreeing to chop whatever's left once they get there. There's only two of them so it wouldn't even be hard to organise! You can argue about the prizepool being 'the players money' or not, but at the end of the day the second it gets paid out it DOES become they players money and they can pre-agree to chop it up how they like.

Everyone has the right to refuse the deal and play for the advertised prizes.

Don't try enforce the unenforceable, concentrate on making sure all deals are negotiated in an open, non-intimidating atmosphere and treat any peer pressure or ganging up on nay-sayers the same way you would treat any other form of collusion.

You say DTD can't enforce the unenforceable and that is fair enough. However, if DTD were to ban deals outright people would not be too enthused about dealing unofficially at all. DTD wouldn't even have to warn customers that unofficial dealing is a no no because how can anyone trust the word of a complete stranger. They will have no control over how parties will pay each other and the lack of trust in an unofficial way of dealing will mean i think people will just settle for the advertised prices and not even think about anything else. In the knowledge that if they are to try and deal they cannot guarantee their money at all.

So DTD do have the power in that they will not be available to sort out any deal so the lure of getting a safe deal is taken away.

Will mean for much better poker viewing on the stream as well.

I agree it would discourage some deals, but people don't play exclusively at DTD and the general culture of deals being a normal and acceptable thing to do throughout the country i think will mean lots still get done unofficially.

Still confused by a lot of the arguments in this thread. Unless I'm missing something the bottom line is that ANY restrictions on deal making will surely lead to under the table agreements, which are fraught with potential problems.

The whole putting some money aside for 1st thing doesn't make any sense either. Aren't a high percentage of deals done HU anyway? What's to stop a deal being done 'officially' amongst the FT and then the last two unofficially agreeing to chop whatever's left once they get there. There's only two of them so it wouldn't even be hard to organise! You can argue about the prizepool being 'the players money' or not, but at the end of the day the second it gets paid out it DOES become they players money and they can pre-agree to chop it up how they like.

Everyone has the right to refuse the deal and play for the advertised prizes.

Don't try enforce the unenforceable, concentrate on making sure all deals are negotiated in an open, non-intimidating atmosphere and treat any peer pressure or ganging up on nay-sayers the same way you would treat any other form of collusion.

I don't understand how you could ever enforce any kind of restrictions on deals. People will simply deal away from the table. By putting any club enforced restrictions, all you will do is make the deals more 'under the table', and thus increase potential for people getting grimmed, misunderstandings and all the other dangers that arise from large amounts of money being passed around under the radar. It is in the interest of the players that all payouts are made officially by the club.

Personally, I think something DTD could take a strong lead in is policing deal negotiations. I make it a policy that I never do a deal for the bubble. It would be great if as soon as I've made my position clear, I could rely on the TD and staff to protect me somewhat from abuse and persistent nagging I sometimes get from other players (tbh I've never made a DTD bubble, so I don't know how good/bad you guys are in these spots, but it's definitely a problem in poker in general). Again this 'policing' wouldn't involve enforcing a chip count deal or preventing someone from willingly taking a deal that may seem bad for them (although maybe if some new person was totally overwhelmed, discretion could be used), but it would prevent people being bullied into taking deals they don't want to, or at least being given a hard time about it.