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Played at a local casino card room $100 buy NL tourney. I bust out just out of the money and got something to eat. I return to play a sit and go and stopped at the final table of the tourney with 4 players left. After a few hands 4th place goes out and there is 3 left. The three players start to talk about splitting 1st 2nd and 3rd place money and stopping the game. the guy with the chip lead said how much he would take and the other two went back and forth till finally they all said OK agreeing to the split and the tourney was called over...Anyone hear of this?...the casino was good with it, I guess so they could end the tourney and get on with a sit and go at that table....seem kinda cheesy to me...any thoughts?

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This is a very common practice at the end of tournaments called making a deal. What they did was perfectly legal and within their rights as players as long as all players agree a deal can actually be made at any point in a tournament but is usually only done at the end. The only tournament I know that do not allow deal making is the WPT ones, the WSOP does. I know Moneymaker actually offered Farha a deal once they were heads up (Farha turned it down, oops).

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I'm not 100% about this but am not sure that the WPT do not allow deals.I believe it is more of a case of not sanctioning deals.If tournament directors get involved in witnessing deal making then they pay out the prize money according to the deal(s) made.The WPT however do not want to get involved in this and will pay first to first place and second to second place etc etc and the players have to divide it up according to any deal they may have made.This is heavily dependant on the honour system between players and there have been (unfortunately) examples of certain players not honouring deals that were made despite them having been witnessed.Personally I do not believe that any tournament organizers have any rights legal or otherwise in preventing players from making deals except where there has been substantial added prize money (possibly and I can't think of too many of these to date) or more specifically where none of the money has been put up by the players themselves (eg freerolls and even these have probably come from juice in other tournaments).When players put up the overwhelming majority of the prize money (if not all of it) they should be free to distribute that money in any way they see fit and as such should be free to make any deals that they wish.Deals are not something that I ever entertain getting involved with - they simply are not for me - but then again there may be a time in the future when I may wish to do some business with a rival at a final table particularly if it happens to be a friend.Then there are times when opponents make you an offer that simply seems too good to be true and you have to take it based on the great terms offered.The only general point or reservation that I have, however, concerning deals is that there should not be any threat to the integrity of the game as in the past there have been examples of players doing a financial deal with the proviso that one of the parties is declared the winner for the purposes of currupting a secondary competition that may involve something like ranking points.This latter point is extremely important as it is in my opinion equivalant to blatant cheating but the bottom line is that any player can make any deal at any time with an opponent as it is impossible to police.

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Well I know that the WPT makes you sign a form saying you will not engage in deal making or otherwise be banned from future WPT events. That is where I came up with that. Can deals be made without the WPT knowing, sure but as you said this can be risky as no one is obligated to hold up their end of the deal once it is made.

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Thanks for the imput, let me add this to my original post the WPT or WSOP would throw up if a big tounrey finished like I saw it finish. Could you imagin 5-6 days of poker and the two last guys standing says "lets chop the prize money and go have a beer". That would be the end to TV poker...

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I don't know about WPT or WSOP, but deal-making (called chopping, if the OP wants to know) is pretty common in many tournaments.Another method that is popular instead of simply splitting the prize money X number of ways is to instead "lock up" a certain amount of money for everyone and play for the rest.e.g. heads up, payout is 2nd gets $400, 1st gets $800. both players will essentially get at least $400 regardless, and the total prize pool between them is $1200. so what they can do is each lock up $500 (adding up to $1000 locked up) and play for the last $200. so instead of $400/$800 payouts, it would be $500/$700.in the above example, the change might not seem like a lot, but when you're playing for $100,000+, the change in payout structure can be significant. it also reduces fluctuation at a professional level.i know negreanu is against it, and i am not yet at the level where the payout differences are significant, but a lot of pros use it as common practice to insure more stable long-term winnings.hope this helps, good luck.

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I've heard of that before, though I've never actually seen anyone make a deal. And I had no idea that Moneymaker asked Farha for one. Where did you hear that?
That deal (attempt) was widely reported. Not just hearsay or anything.Here's one place (among many on the web) where you can read about it:http://www.thegoodgamblingguide.co.uk/spot...onshipfinal.htm
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Thanks for the imput, let me add this to my original post the WPT or WSOP would throw up if a big tounrey finished like I saw it finish. Could you imagin 5-6 days of poker and the two last guys standing says "lets chop the prize money and go have a beer". That would be the end to TV poker...
Hate to break it to you, but this happens all the time. Just cuz you dont see it doesnt mean it didnt happen. Deals are a smart move when the blinds get high relative to stack sizes. for instance, i was playing a 1 table tourney, and it came down to me and one other heads up. We each had about 300 chips (yea i know the structure was brutal), and the blinds were 64-128. That meant the minimum raise would put 3/4s of the chips in play on the table. Clearly at this point there was no skill involved, it was like flipping a coin for $1000. we each took 400, and played it out for the other 200. definitely +EV.
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