DEAL OR NO DEAL

[blueace]

Seems I went with the majority. I have done deals in the past, more recently I staunchly declare NO DEALS, although when it came down to it last but 1 ft i crumbled and agreed.
When discussing this new policy the concensus seems to be its unenforceable.

[MANTIS01]

Honestly if poker ever gets to the stage where grown men have to put secret cards into a cloth bag to do a deal it will be very sad and slightly ghey. 

[Speed1214]

 I for one will allways do a deal more so when the prize money is top heavy like most comp. If you don"t want deals done just alter the pay outs with out the big gaps in between, and you will see not many deals even being spoke about.

[Kevish]

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.

[smashedagain]

And lets be honest, if more poker players had balls and said "no fucking deal lets play on" you would not be in this position. you do enough by providing £15 comps for split arses and bottlers as it is

may I remind you of the last Monte Carlo winner Mr Herbert! What was his background?

Plus 'if I owned DTD' I would stop listening to all the whingers and moaners asking can you change this and that... PS, any chance of Yorkshire tea making it's way into the tea cups 

The last monte winner had got the biggest balls in Dtd. Neither him or 2nd place were too bothered about dealing which was a suprise because that was alleged to be the 2nd placed finishers main occupation

[The Camel]

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.

This is a very good post.

[Ant040689]

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.

[Kevish]

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.

[Yian]

Once DTD lay down the law, people will get used to the idea of no deals and once they are on the FT they won't be wishing a deal could have been made because they've known since the start of the tournament that a deal is not allowed. As long as the structures are good, I like the idea of NO DEALS period. However, I don't see why it has to be written in stone as on occasion in the regular evening comps when they do get too crap shooty, its not a big deal if they call the TD over and ask for a deal to be made, which if he sees that there is no play left and average stack is 5-10 bb then he can agree to making a regulated chip count deal. This should be the only occasion, and car park deals should always be a no no.

As for monthly deepstacks and Monte Carlos, they should always be played to the death. Especially from the owner's perspective who should be interested in the PR of the club, chops do not make headlines..."RastaFish Wins 89k!" does <---WTF man?

The night before you return to the club for the final day of a biggie, you don't dream of making the final table and chopping, you dream of shipping every penny. You don't dream of sharing the interview, you planned your speech for you alone. You're thinking about what to do with the advertised 1st place money not 3rd place money.

I've probably made 1 final table from about 50 at DTD, but whatever, I'll argue it for the sake of watching the stream or blog after i bust and come home.

[Chili]

I've thought this over and over and moved my stance from initially liking the no deals set up. After hearing some great arguments for both sides, and looking back on my experiences, I voted for Deals with a % held back for 1st.

Overall I just don't feel comfortable having any options I may have, completely being taken away.  Poker tournaments are so fluid and in any given tourny that I final, I might be open for a deal 2 or 3 way or I may be up for no deal and gamble to win it all.  Its so dependant on so many things (including being staked and state of make up at the time). Might I add that any deals I have done in the past have being entirely my decision and not my backers.

Another reason for my vote is the issue of deals being done on the sly anyway if the NO DEAL policy does go through. I've been playing at DTD since they opened the doors and with the no deal policy they had at the start, people still dealt which still left some players being vulnerable to grimming/pressured/getting a bad deal with the added punishment of not having DTD to oversee or help when these issues arose.

I also don't like the idea of flipping for big sums of money at the end, which isn't so much of a big deal in the smaller comps but in the £300/£500's tourny it could be for a huge amount.

Anyway, being allowed to deal with full backing from DTD and them overseeing and being allowed to punish any bullish tactics from certain individuals surely is a good way to go? Especially if having to save a good amount to play on for for first place then DTD will also have every tourny play out to a winner.

Thats my pennys worth anyhow.  Good luck Rob/Simon, I don't envy you guys with this one.

[Chili]

Just an added thought for what its worth - how about only allowing deals once 5 players are left? That seams to be when deals occur most often from what I see.  Its never been done before but who cares! Thats never stopped you in the past

[tonytats]

I think we should all deal at 100/200 blind level ! As that's as deep as I go then go on the piss with our dish

[Boba Fett]

There is no way you can make deals chip count based only.  Less than half the deals I see are instantly agreed on chip counts, usually its used as a guide before some people try to get a little more and people offer to take a little less to get the deal done.

If a short stack refused because they wouldnt get enough and everyone would have dropped a little to give the shorty more, can you really just not allow it because it isnt exact chip count %?  Same thing for just anyone wanting more than their chip count % where 1 or more of the others might be willing to make up the difference, it either blocks an otherwise workable deal or promotes under the table dealing for the extra.

IMO let people deal for whatever they want and leave some money behind for 1st place to ensure they play it out and there is an official winner.  Maybe just allow any deal for the standard nightly comps too however dealers and TDs should be quickly looking to protect any player that refuses a deal.

[Jon MW]

Honestly if poker ever gets to the stage where grown men have to put secret cards into a cloth bag to do a deal it will be very sad and slightly ghey. 

If players behaved like grown ups about deals then I don't think any of this would be an issue at all.

It's only because a significant proportion of them get greedy/angry/spiteful/vindictive/mardy and/or sulky about it that it becomes a problem.

[Simon Galloway]

Deals based solely on pure chip counts are are very good example of an unfair deal ~ so somewhat ironic if a house rule was ever to enforce an unfair deal in the name of fairness.

A chip-chop deal will always favour the big stacks and penalise the short stacks.  Even using an ICM-chop calculation assumes that all remaining players are of equal ability.  Why shouldn't the deal price in the fact that one of the remaining players is inexperienced/poor and therefore not worth their theo?  That's usually the kind of situation where I would much rather play on.