The Art Of The Deal

There is a fine art to doing a deal at the business end of a tournament, says the Hendon Mob...

By The Hendon Mob 23 April 2007

"Your own state of mind and table presence are important"

This article is written by The Hendon Mob and originally appeared on www.thehendonmob.com

Many tournament poker players like to discuss the ramifications of 'deal making'. We would, however, like to point out that The Hendon Mob do not do deals at the final table, this Pro Tip is simply to help any of you that may wish to make deals but are unsure about how to go about it.

Many are of the view that prize money is too top heavy and that you play a long time to get short-handed and into the money but play for a relatively short period of time where the biggest financial differences are. In the WPC held in Dublin first prize was Euro 250,000, 2nd was Euro 100,000 and third Euro 72,000. Play lasted nearly 15 hours to get to the heads-up stage and then only a further two hours for the small matter of the Euro 150,000 difference. This month's pro tip is not intended to deal with this matter in it's entirety but for those that have no experience of deal making it will show them a basic formula for calculating your worth in any given situation and give you some food for thought about when and why you should, or shouldn't do a deal.

Ok, first let's say that there are four players left in a tournament. Chip positions are 400,000, 200,000, 100,000, 80,000 and the prize money for the top four places are £25,000, £12,000, £9,000 and £5,000. The first thing is that ALL players must agree to a deal being struck. If anyone objects then play MUST go on - two or three players cannot deal amongst themselves and if you believe this to be the case you must inform the tournament director immediately. If all four agree an accepted way to calculate how much each gets would be as follows.

Each player is guaranteed at least £5,000 (no-one can finish lower than fourth) and total prize money is 25 12 9 5= £51,000. Everyone takes £5,000 leaving £31,000 which is divided up as individual chip count divided by total chips.

So:
Player A gets £5,000 (400,000/780,000 x £31,000) = £20,897
Player B gets £5,000 (200,000/780,000 x £31,000) = £12,949
Player C gets £5,000 (100,000/780,000 x £31,000) = £8,974
Player D gets £5,000 ( 80,000/780,000 x £31,000 ) = £8,179

If you are going to make a deal this is generally seen as a fair way of structuring it but you must consider other factors when deciding whether to make a deal at all.

Probably the most important is the situation where other players are trying to creep up the money list especially if they have small stacks. It is easy to pressure these players, even more so if the money is big to them, and their blinds may be easy to steal as they pass in the hope of another player busting out. Your own state of mind and table presence are important and you should ask yourself whether the few opponents left are great players or poor ones? Some players may be more interested in the glory and the trophy and sometimes you can use this to your advantage as well. If you are ever unsure about making a deal but you are happy that you are playing a good game, as good as anyone else, then never be bullied into doing a deal and play on - that way you will never make a bad deal!

www.thehendonmob.com is the home of the original and industry leading poker player tournament results database. It also houses an archive of articles containing poker tips and strategy written by many well known professional players, a very lively poker forum, and, for those just starting out, the best beginners poker guide on the ‘net.