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There has been some discussion of players leaving a table after one bad round, and losing only 1% of their stakes by doing so.
I just came up with an idea that would clearly fix this "problem," if it is a problem, and also double as a solution for a possible tournament exploit.
What if there was a separate pot, a table pot, that both players paid into at the start of the table. We each walk in with 100 chips, we each put 10 in the table pot, and then push 1 chip into the pot for this round.
The table pot goes to the last player at the table who still has chips left. Leave early, and your opponent gets those 20 chips. Play until you're down to 0, and your opponent gets those 20 chips. Play until your opponent is down to 0, and you get them. Or if your opponent leaves, you get them.
10 is just an example---we could tweak this percentage to modulate the effect on player leaving behavior.
Obviously, this would change the game a lot, and there's no precedent for this from Poker. Knowing when to walk away is important, and this would discourage walking away, which I don't necessarily like.
Well... I don't know... I mean, losing some chips to your opponent discourages walking away too, because you could win them back (though this is a fallacy). The most attractive time to walk away is when you only have one chip at risk.
It might also encourage drag-out play (using your full 60 seconds for each move, trying to bait your opponent into leaving). And it obviously unfairly punishes dropped connections---or legitimate "I've got to run, the stove's on fire" moments.
Thoughts?
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I like this idea because most of the time people drop out after the first round and they get a low number....atleast that's my interpretation. But this also is maybe a strategy/tactic that was intended by Jason or that alot of people like. Texas Hold em is the same with blinds and most people drop out before the actual ante.
I dont know where exactly I stand though, sometimes it is hard to find a game because of the state of the game right now which makes it a bummer when someone drops out right away.
It could be worth trying just to see how it works though.
Seth
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Do you find that people join YOUR game, that you've been waiting on, and then drop out?
Because if it happens when you join THEIR game, they may have it waiting the the background, and then either notice you join and don't want to play anymore, or maybe even are AFK (which would have them time out on move 1 and effectively leave).
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I had a similar idea. What about using this side pot for the house profit instead of a rake?
You go in contributing let's say 5 coins each and that goes into the side pot. For every round, a number of coins proportional to the round winnings (with a minimum of 1 coin) moves from the side pot to the house. The proportion is set up so that if one player is wiped out, the rest of the pot will be released to the house. In the event that a player leaves before the side pot is exhausted, the player who stayed gets the remaining amount as a reward. The side pot becomes a non-issue after 10 rounds and neither drag-out play nor the incentive to "win back" the side pot are problems.
It would thwart the leavers and the exploiters as well as making the tribute clearer. You go in knowing what you'll pay to the house instead of seeing coins fly out of your winnings seemingly at random. Even after reading the tribute thread again, it's still a bit confusing how it works.
My concern with having this side pot entirely as reward is that it will incentive all-ins too much (e.g. if I wager 90 coins, I have the potential to win 120% of that instead of 100% on any other bet).
And it obviously unfairly punishes dropped connections---or legitimate "I've got to run, the stove's on fire" moments.
Yea. Not only emergencies, but also having a limited block of time to play. Let's say I have 30 minutes. I can wait on a game, but what happens when the first person shows up after 25 minutes of waiting? And now I'm scrambling to win back the side pot?
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Well, yeah, the whole rake could be taken up front. Like each player starts with 95 coins instead of 100. That's supported in current server code (just not turned on now).
Still, this would harm players who have "I REALLY NEED TO LEAVE" moments.
I don't know about co-mingling the side pot and the up-front rake. I want to make it easy to understand.
Even easier than the current rake (coins flying at random, from the player's perspective) is just: 1 coin per round, every round. So you'd still see them fly away, but they would ALWAYS fly away, instead of at random.
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If you got a reward of more than 1-3 coins for being the last in, I'd expect to
see people trying to bore their opponents into leaving by refusing to bet
anything and leaving it until the last moment to move.
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Well, what I'm saying is that the reward would dwindle every turn because it's going to the house one coin at a time. And if the game goes on for a reasonable length of time, this side pot thing is completely irrelevant. It's only abnormally short games that need fixing.
I suppose someone trying that "boring contest" strategy could make every round last, what, 8 minutes? Ouch! Then again, someone who is trying not to bet anything is going to lose out to someone who is willing to bet on the first betting round (so only 2 minutes per round) and that should quickly offset any expected gains from the side pot. Who knows what people will do though!
I actually think 3 coins would be a reasonable number (if a 3% of the whole buy-in rake is acceptable). So what if you have to quit on the first round because someone is at the door? You lose 4 coins instead of 1 (you always lose 1). Doesn't seem that bad for the annoyance you are causing the other player.
I don't know about co-mingling the side pot and the up-front rake. I want to make it easy to understand.
I can see that, but is it any worse than the current situation in which your winnings and rake are sometimes but not always connected?
Even easier than the current rake (coins flying at random, from the player's perspective) is just: 1 coin per round, every round. So you'd still see them fly away, but they would ALWAYS fly away, instead of at random.
1 coin per round rake? That would drastically influence the way you bet. If no one raised, the winner wouldn't even win anything? Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
Last edited by jere (2014-12-17 02:41:04)
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Lots of interesting options. I have definitely had games where I end up with less than 20 coins left which I feel leaves me with very little betting influence and I usually leave at that point to reset back to 100. Not sure how I'd feel about being pressured to stay in to bust by a side pot punishment.
Something I think could help focus this discussion is some actual benchmark goals for how often players should be folding, when they should be leaving, etc so that the design has some specific goals.
Right now I feel like a player should (real life intrusions aside) play at least 3 rounds (even if they simply fold all 3 on first round) before leaving a game.
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I like the idea of the table rake coming out of the side pot first. Make the side pot 3 coins each - the same as turning down 3 hands in a row. Don't change the rules for the rake (when it starts, etc). I think that after 6 reasonably sized hands it's no big deal for someone to leave. We don't need to play all the way to the conclusion.
Last edited by Gilvado (2014-12-17 17:45:30)
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I can't understand why you would want to penalise people for leaving the table. I went back and looked for the thread you referred to (it's Anticlimax) but I didn't see any explanation given there. There's no good reason for leaving and recreating the game after losing 1 coin, so in practice I can't see how it would be a problem. If people don't want to play any more, then why not let them quit. I certainly want to be able to leave whenever I want. For example I've had games drag on for an hour and still be around the 90 vs 90 mark; as well as frequently wanting to play for a few minutes inbetween other tasks.
On the other hand if you're only talking about tournament play I guess nevermind.
Last edited by .. (2014-12-18 10:10:06)
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The point of penalizing people for leaving is to punish abusers who leave constantly after getting a bad first number. What happens is because of the anonymity of the game, I can't avoid playing with a player who is abusing that system. Right now I can avoid the games they create to a small extent by avoiding that stake amount when there is only a couple players online. There's nothing stopping someone from constantly joining my games, getting a bad number, then leaving. What good reason is there for providing barely any downside to this?
I was simply proposing an additional coin penalty if someone leaves after picking a single number but before betting. As it stands right now, someone can leave at that point and only lose their 1 coin ante. If a player lost an additional coin, that's trivial to someone who has to leave a game due to real world issues, but doubles the cost for someone abusing the system. Ideally in a non-tournament setting, the penalty would only apply for leaving after picking your first number. That means no penalty (except the usual 1 coin ante) for leaving a game just after a round ends which should solve your issue of drag on games (a single round can only last X minutes max because of timeouts).
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Well, mzo, I don't want the solution here to be too specific. Leaving after you get a bad first number is one problem, but what about leaving after two numbers? This was also somewhat motivated by the tournament "search for co-conspirator" problem with leaving tables at will.
But really, mzo, if someone leaves a table after their first pick, you've won a coin from them for nothing. Annoying, but not exactly good for them. It's really the nature of this kind of game---they're in for the ante, but beyond that, they risk nothing. Same in poker. "Know when to walk away." That means you can walk away at any time.
I now realized that just setting a table rake (players starting with 95 chips instead of 100) doesn't totally solve the tournament table-hopping-searching problem, because a player who leaves a table early punishes the other "innocent" player too. Yeah, I'm down 5% by leaving, but I'm trying to accomplish something by leaving (search out my cooperating partner), where you're just down 5% for nothing.
So, Jere's solution is perfect here.
Still, I don't know if "last player at the table gets it" is right. What if, on round 1, we both bet 20 chips, and I win. Now our stacks are 75, 115. I decide to leave. Then you get the 10 table-pot chips, and leave with 85?
It's almost like it should go to the winner only if the loser leaves....
Or... automatically go to the winner of the first round.... what about that? But that's just a forced-high-ante on the first round. Essentially, it diminishes the skillful potential of round 1. Folding is GOOD, but this would discourage folding.
So, instead of this being a reward for holding out, or a reward for winning, what if it's just anti-leave insurance that goes back to each player if they stay X rounds.
You start with 95 chips, and after each round, you get one more chip, until you get your original 100 back. If you leave, you're remaining insurance chips could simply be lost, while your opponent gets theirs back (or your opponent could get both).
Still, this is complication that would need explaining to players.
I'm still leaning toward treating this as a non-problem for non-tournament games. For tournament games, a fixed table-start rake handles it, with the unfortunate side-effect of punishing the innocent player too.
There's probably a simple, server-side fix here for tournaments... like, if your opponent leaves and neither person is back to 100 chips, then the remaining opponent gets their portion of the table rake back. This could happen invisibly and just show up in the post-game outcome screen (for the rare cases where it needs to happen in a tournament---the rest of the time in the tournament, players would just be starting with 95 chips and playing as usual).
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