pokerstars balancing

[Ironside]

we all know that balancing in a casino is random, and on most sites it is too. but why on earth does pokerstars keep putting the big stacks on 1 table and the short stacks on another.
this is a huge disadvantage to the big stacks who have built there stacks up to find that all though 2nd chip leader in a tourny they face getting kicked out by the chip leader by one wrong placed bet or call

while the shorter stacks find they can get more play than they should and ladder climb while the big stacks battle it out.

[Karabiner]

It's a mystery to me too Ironside.

It happens all the time on Laddies too.

[AdamM]

It's not random in Nottingham. They move the short stack. The effect quite often is that a 'seat of death' will develop as short stack after short stack arrive and make their stand. Daft system.

[snoopy1239]

Walsall take the big blind. Seems to work okay.

What I really couldn't stand about nottingham is that when a table split, you weren't given random seats. Instead people run to the table to stay away from the big blind. Now that is daft.

[AdamM]

I got move recently and there were two seats free. one was next to post BB and the other was the button but sat between two big stacks who were having a verbal battle as I walked over. I elected to have them both to my right and post the BB and I was looked at like an idiot. Good move I thought.

should surely be BB moves and post BB 1st hand at new table (either immediately or sit out til it's due)

Another peculiarity I found at Nottingham was HU at the end of a tourney once It was ruled that the button posted the BB. The card room supervisor and every regular player who was asked agreed that was correct. I didn't make a scene and played it their way and won anyway but goes to show how often the moneys chopped at nottingham if they didn't know how HU worked. I gather it's been sorted out now but it made for an interesting HU match.

[Nightfly]

Another peculiarity I found at Nottingham was HU at the end of a tourney once It was ruled that the button posted the BB. The card room supervisor and every regular player who was asked agreed that was correct. I didn't make a scene and played it their way and won anyway but goes to show how often the moneys chopped at nottingham if they didn't know how HU worked. I gather it's been sorted out now but it made for an interesting HU match.

It is all sorted out now... The button posts the BB!

[tikay]

Well this started as a good point, well made, by Ironside about online table balancing, about which, so far as I can tell, nobody understands the logic. And it's ended up as another criticism of my beloved but beleagured Notts! I shall make a general post about Notts elsewhere on this forum shortly, which I hope will be "balanced", but insofar as Notts moving the short stack, it has to be said, it is rather bizarre.

The table short stack is chosen to be moved at Notts, & as AdamM points out, he can then CHOOSE which seat he takes at the table he is moved to. Given the propensity for poker players to behave like kids, this leads to the most unseemly scramble for the so called "best seat", with grown men often running the length of the card room, pushing & shoving each other, hands full of chips (so that excludes me) to get to the best seat first! Then there follows the regular argument - "I want to sit there" - "but there is no seat there" - "oh yes there is", - "oh no there's not"........

Indeed, I take it one stage further - and you would HAVE to be a Notts regular to understand THIS......

Who, by definition, is the table short stack? The one with the smallest stack, I hear the wise guys say. Don't be silly. Try losing your ENTIRE stack during the rebuys, at the very moment they ask for the short stack to move. Do you move when the hand finishes? Nope! if you rebuy, then you can stay, if someone else "only" has 800! And the guy with 800, of course, does not have the right to rebuy, so he gets moved. How unfair is THAT?
 
Almost every other Casino uses the "Big Blind Must Move" method, &, even better, TELLS the player which seat he has been allocated & at which table. This is pretty uniform right across Europe. Except in Notts.......So why do Notts do it that way? Obvious. Because they always have.

But we will discuss Notts in general in a separate post, & I hope it will address both sides of the argument.

But Ironside's point was about ONLINE table balancing. Anyone know the answer to THAT question?

[redsimon]

PokerStars balancing. I guess its random? But I did notice when I played a lot of tournies there that they would move a "sitting out" player a lot. In fact I tried to get off a tricky table by pressing sit out when I saw during a hand that the tables were about to be balanced. I tried 4 times and it worked 3 times! (The other time another busted and the whole table busted!). Obviously my sample size was/is statistically small but it was freaky.

[tikay]

Thanks Simon, but, & I think you will agree, that does not answer the question. It's like all these idiots who say that online poker is bent because they saw AA get beat twice in one night, it does not prove anything.

I know a guy who works for a major online card room, & I shall write to him today & ask the question.

Watch this space.....

[AdamM]

nightfly, it's good of you to register just to answer my post but in heads up play the button posts the small blind speaks first before the flop. It was argued on the night that was a disadvantage but by speaking first you get first opportunity to pick up the blinds. more advantageous than having the most money in and having to call/raise a bet.

[mikkyT]

It annoys the hell out of me on InterPoker (crypto site so thats the same network as Laddies) ... I lose the will to become a big stack, instead staying middle of the road to bully the short stacks.

[mikkyT]

Another peculiarity I found at Nottingham was HU at the end of a tourney once It was ruled that the button posted the BB. The card room supervisor and every regular player who was asked agreed that was correct. I didn't make a scene and played it their way and won anyway but goes to show how often the moneys chopped at nottingham if they didn't know how HU worked. I gather it's been sorted out now but it made for an interesting HU match.

It is all sorted out now... The button posts the BB!

The button in an idiots game posts the BB! You don't play in idiots games do you?

[owner]

I know that Ladbrokes have openly admitted that they move players to tables based on their stack size. So all the big stacks go together and all the shorts together. I have been moved when table chip leader and running over the table and suddenly find myself on a new table with 5 stacks larger than mine ! This is most annoying when the tourney pays top ten, and you are 5 or 6 handed on the bubble, and you see 5 short stacks passing the blinds on the other table with no big stack to bully them.

The only reason I can see for this is that it was easier for the developers to write software that just took a chip count and moved it to a table with the nearest average. They would stay away from doing it randomly as online sites haven't worked out how do "random" yet

[tikay]

Thanks "owner", & welcome to blonde.


"....Ladbrokes have openly admitted that they move players based upon their stack size...."

Where did they "openly admit" that?

What I am really asking, I guess, is that surely the methodology by which tables are balanced MUST be printed somewhere as part of their (or anyone else's) Tournament Rules. Ladbrokes, or PokerStars, cannot just make it up as they go along, & I am as sure as hell they do not. So we just have to find the bit where they tell us how they do it. I have written to "my man" today asking how PokerStars do it.

[AdamM]

The button in an idiots game posts the BB! You don't play in idiots games do you?

It was the Nottingham Galas Friday 20 PLHE game