Tournament Table-Break Order - Does It Matter?

Nearly all of us have played in a tournament in which our table is broken, and the players at it randomly redistributed throughout the tournament area. The standard practice is that a floorman will come with seat cards representing the vacancies at other tables, and give one to each player at the table to be broken in some kind of random manner. Then, the players shuffle off to their new seats.



I have a real issue with the manner in which tables are broken. I believe that a list should be clearly displayed in the tournament area with the order in which tables will break. There is one main reason for this: to prevent collusion (cheating) between a particular floorman and a particular player.



Let's suppose that my table is a regular donkfest. Unfortunately, since tables seem to be breaking in my direction, I'm concerned that I'm going to be forced to relocate to one of the many tough tables remaining in the tournament. So, I ask the floorman in charge when my table will break. When I find out that he's planning on breaking my table soon, I slip him a little financial encouragement to let it be a while.



This can work the other way as well, of course. Table draw is one of the most underrated yet vitally important components of luck you will encounter in a tournament. Getting stuck for a long period at a tough table can really diminish your chances of success. There is money at stake here, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch that a player may try to persuade the floorman to alter the table-break order.



Several years ago at a major tournament in Las Vegas, I encountered a pretty extreme case of this by a floorman who was too clueless to realize he was doing something unethical. As the tournament progressed, I noticed that one table was left unbroken far apart from the others. I asked the floorman the reason for this, and he replied that his roommate was at the table and was doing well, and that he didn't want to "jinx" him by forcing him to move.



At this year's World Series of Poker, there was a minor incident that probably compelled me to write this column. Midway through the second day of play in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, I was moved to a new table. Now, there weren't exactly a lot of "soft spots" in the event, but this table had to be the cream of the crop. I asked the floorman in charge what the breaking order was, as it was not posted anywhere in the tournament area. I got the answer I was hoping for: My table was going to be one of the last three to break, meaning that I would be there for a while – hopefully, all night.



Then, something odd happened. A shift change occurred, and the new floorman came to my table to break it. I protested, citing what the previous supervisor had told me. The new man told me he wasn't aware of it, and had decided to break tables in a different order. Naturally, I wound up at a very tough table, possibly the worst in the room.



Of course, the quality of players at my tables isn't the issue here. I simply don't believe that which tables get broken when should be left up to a floorman's whim. When this is the case, the door is opened to all sorts of potential improprieties. I'm not suggesting that anything unethical took place in the H.O.R.S.E. incident; rather, I believe that it was simply an unfortunate lack of communication. But, when the break order isn't made public, the possibility for trouble will always exist. As a footnote, I noticed that shortly after my protest, the swing-shift floorman did in fact write up the breaking order of the remaining tables and post it for all players to see.