Let's begin with two simple questions. The first is, "Could it benefit a player to show up late for a tournament, if he starts with the same amount of chips as a player who shows up on time?" Most people would say no. A late starter misses out on the chance to take advantage of a maniac who is throwing away his chips early. He doesn't get to see how the players at his table play while the limits are small, so that he can make better reads and decisions later. Yet, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and some other extremely successful players often arrive late. Is there something we're not considering? I can think of two reasons why a late arrival might be advantageous. First, a lot of tournament days last 14 or more hours, and getting an extra hour's sleep might make you much tougher late at night when the decisions really matter. Second, most players come to a tournament planning to play as well as they can - and they do for an hour or two. Then, a bad beat puts them on tilt or boredom sets in, so they decide to do something to create action. The late-arriving player gets there when the game has loosened up.
All right, there might be some advantages to showing up late if you got to start with the same amount of chips, but you don't. They take your blinds and antes (if applicable). The tardy player starts with fewer chips. Surely, this more than offsets the advantage of arriving late, if there is one.
Now, the second simple question is, "Could it benefit a player to register (sign up) late?" Here, I think the answer is clearly yes. Usually, someone who enters a tournament early does so at least a day in advance, hoping to avoid a big line later. But he commits himself to playing, even if he doesn't sleep well or feel well. Someone who registers late might even make his decision based on who has been knocked out and who has accumulated a lot of chips. If a lot of stars are gone and some weakies have all of the money, it is clearly much better. I don't think people do this very often, but if you're having trouble deciding if it is worth it to play, that might be the clincher.
I'm not convinced that someone who registers early and shows up late should suffer too big a penalty. Maybe he finds the early rounds boring. Maybe he couldn't get away from work early or had car trouble. Someone who registers late and starts late should have at least as big a penalty, and probably a bigger one than someone who registers early and arrives late.
I hate to rehash all of the idiocies perpetrated at this year's
World Series of Poker, but what happened in the no-limit deuce-to-seven tournament with rebuys is so far beyond belief that I have to recap it. Players were allowed to register anytime during the three-hour rebuy period. Stacks without players posted blinds from the start of the tournament. Since there was a fast structure, these stacks declined fairly quickly. Preregistered latecomers, including Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Amir Vahedi, started with anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 gone from their $10,000 starting stacks. An unclaimed stack was picked up from our table during the second or third hour, with $7,200 left. Then, a late registrant showed up for that seat. The floorman started him off with $9,000. Everyone thought this was ludicrous, and a lot of us protested the ruling. After a series of conferences between the floormen and tournament directors, a decision was made to start him with $8,200, which was someone's idea of three rounds of antes and blinds. I can only hope that the rules on which this decision were based will be changed.
Any logical penalty for latecomers should follow the guideline that there is some penalty for people who register early and show up late. (Perhaps a three-round penalty is suitable for these players. But, after three rounds, stop taking their antes and blinds until the end of the entry period.) Anyone who registers after the start of the tournament should be penalized more than this amount. (Perhaps the same penalty as above plus the cost of one or two additional rounds would be fair.) Thus, the player who has the most chance to benefit from his late start would be penalized the most.
I also have a radical suggestion. Let everyone start with a full stack if they arrive while registration is still open. My guess is that this procedure would lead to a vast increase in the number of latecomers, and would indicate that many (most?) players believe tournaments start too slowly and/or require too many hours of play per day. I know that the players eliminated always complain about the structure. The most common complaint is that there isn't enough play. But given a finite amount of time for any event, it always has seemed to me that play should be expanded at or near the money and shortened at the early levels. Perhaps tournaments with a series of events like the
WSOP might try running two events with the same buy-in but different structures, so that players could select the tournaments with the structures they prefer.
Steve "Zee" Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A - Nice Guy Eddie's on Houston and Doc Holliday's on 9th Street in New York City.
