Should Late Entries be Allowed in Tournaments?

From time to time in this column, I will be conducting informal surveys and providing comments from answers received on a wide variety of subjects. I recently posted the following two-part question on the RGP Internet poker newsgroup:

1. How long do you think a tournament director should allow players to enter a tournament once it has started?

2. If a player has prepaid for a tournament entry, how long should his chips be left on the table and blinded (anted) off until he gets picked up? In other words, should chips be left on the table until they are gone or should there be a specified time period for a player to show up before his chips get picked up?

Although I received too many replies to list them all in this column, here are a few of the responses I received:

Andy Bloch: Registration should be left open as long as there is someone waiting to register. If registration is going to be open later, it should be for a preset time of about 15 minutes after the start of the tournament, and all players should be made aware of this policy. Any stacks that were set out for possible late sign-ups, but were not needed, should be removed immediately after the registration closes. The amount lost from blinds or antes should be counted in front of the players at the table and the total should be reported to all players so that the total chip count can be verified. The answer to the second part of the question is that unless there are circumstances justifying a refund, the chips must be left until the prepaid player is broke or shows up to play.

Chuck Ferry: Players should be allowed to buy in for the first half-hour or until the end of the first limit. Players should know when the tournament starts. The same answer applies to how long prepaid chips should be left on the table – for a half-hour or until the end of the first limit. It is not fair to the other tournament players for a player not to be there. Take it to the extreme: At one table, all of the seats are prepaid and no one shows up … How long will you let this go?

Payraise: I am a relatively new reader of RGP. However, I do have more than 40 years of experience in the business world and have always placed a premium on promptness, whether it be for a meeting or a reply to a letter or phone call. Once a tournament has started, I believe no additional entries should be allowed, and any player not there to play should have his/her chips picked up immediately. My complete explanation for this is that if a time is stated for a tournament to begin, it is not usually stated as "between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m." The starting time is usually stated very precisely and should be adhered to. If a player lacks the discipline to be prompt, he should pay the penalty.

Author unknown: A player should be able to buy in to a tournament until the last hand of the first round is announced. But then I asked myself while reading this thread, "Can a player take advantage of this?" It seems that a player would have an advantage by getting the tedious limits out of the way and then starting fresh with slightly less than an average stack at a limit that will get him more action on his chips. This is a condition that a player sitting down at the beginning of the tournament would not have. My answer to the second part of the question is that a player should be able to get action on prepaid chips until the last one is placed in the pot.

Ratso 222: If a player is in line to pay, he/she should be allowed to play. Once the player has paid, his chips should be blinded off until they are gone. It becomes a problem when the table becomes shorthanded. I would suggest that the seat be blinded until the table is broken. At that point, the house should have a policy that provides for either a total or partial forfeit of the entry fee minus the juice.

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