Author Topic: Dealer button designation  (Read 2719 times)

segundo

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Dealer button designation
« on: October 10, 2006, 03:27:51 PM »
When I have to move players once a player is eliminated I wait until a table balancing suggestion is made by the TD, I then select don’t move anyone, go to Tables tab, place the dealer buttons, and then press the suggest movement button. The problem is people who just were in the blinds get put back into the blinds. This is realy PO. the players. Is there anything I can do to keep this from happening.

Corey Cooper

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Re: Dealer button designation
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2006, 04:48:15 PM »
Once the hand is over (after one or more players bust out), and you wish to set the Dealer Button to assist in player movement, you need to make sure that the Dealer Button is in position for the next hand, not the previously played hand, before telling the TD to suggest movement.

segundo

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Re: Dealer button designation
« Reply #2 on: October 11, 2006, 02:08:27 PM »
Thats what we are doing. But players who just were in the blinds get put back into the blinds.

Corey Cooper

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Re: Dealer button designation
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2006, 03:31:50 PM »
Hmm, well, I'm not sure how that can be, unless you are doing something wrong (hate to say that), but let's go through an example and see if you might be doing something wrong, or I coded the logic incorrectly, or there's something else going on.

See the attached image.  This is a picture of the current tables of a tournament that has gotten down to 16 people.  2 tables of 10 seats each remain.  Tables 1 and 2 had 8 and 9 players, respectively, but someone at table 1 busted out, leaving them 7 and 9 (unbalanced).  Buttons are at 1-1 and 2-5 (I'll use this notation to indicate a table and seat, so 2-5 means table 2 seat 5).  If I continually tell the TD to suggest movement, and cancel the movement each time, I notice that there are only 3 suggestions it ever makes:

Move Ned from 2-2 to 1-10
Move Greg from 2-9 to 1-6
Move Adam from 2-6 to 1-2

Ned was 7 positions to the left of the dealer (at 2-2).  When he is moved to 1-10, he will again be 7 positions to the left of the dealer (remember to count players, not seats, as empty seats don't count).  Greg was 4 positions to the left of the dealer (at 2-9); when moved to 1-6, he'll again be 4 positions to the left of the dealer.  Adam is 1 position to the left of the dealer.

I realize this doesn't encompass all situations, but it shows that the table balancing is doing the right thing.  More accurately, the software is balancing tables according to the way I programmed it to, but I could have started with flawed logic.  But it seems right to me.  If I was about to be in the BB on the next hand, and I had to be moved, why wouldn't I be moved into the BB position at the new table?  Or maybe it's better said this way: if I get moved into the BB position, it's fairest if I would have been in the BB position on the table at which I was previously seated if I hadn't moved.  Which is what is happening here.

By the way, my comment before about making sure that you set the DB for the next hand really is insignificant.  It only matters that the buttons on each table are all set consistently (as in, all set for the current hand, or all set for the next hand).... I believe.

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Re: Dealer button designation
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2006, 10:32:19 AM »
If the tourney is really busy I do skip movements occasionally then move people when it calms down. Could skipping movements then making a large move cause a problem?

Corey Cooper

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Re: Dealer button designation
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2006, 11:25:10 AM »
If any tables are collapsed, then yes.  The software doesn't know anything about "blinds" positions.  I think it's safe to say the vast majority of people are playing Texas Hold 'Em, and the 2 positions to the left of the dealer are the blinds.  These are the only 2 positions that really matter, as you don't want to happen what you are seeing happening, which is going from a BB directly to the BB again.  But then again, if the blinds just passed me, I don't want to be thrown into the seat 3 to the left of the dealer (in which case after only 1 hand I'm back into the blinds), when if I hadn't moved I'd have 2 to 5 more hands before I get back into the blinds.  Plus, there are many other games people play, some with blind positions and some without.

The point is, every seat matters to the balancing algorithm.  As you can see in my last example, it cared about seating players 1 seat from the dealer, 4 seats from the dealer, and even 7 seats from the dealer.  When tables are collapsed, many people are moved, and it's virtually impossible to satisfy more than 1 or 2 positional moves, much less a table full of them.  So when the tables collapse, the software cannot seat everyone correctly with respect to the dealer, so it doesn't even attempt it.  If it did, our discussion would then be about how some people got seated in an appropriate seat (the same number of seats away from the dealer that they were), while others got screwed by being thrown into or at least closer to the blinds.

britnt7

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Re: Dealer button designation
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2006, 11:54:20 AM »
Our rules suggest the player sits out the next hand or two and pass the deal past the player. This makes all of the blinds correct and keeps anyone from hitting the blind back to back if they are moved. You may also miss blinds if they were coming to you before you moved but it's better than having someone PO'd.

Just my 2 cents.
Tim