Open Face Chinese Tournament rules

Started by D.C., March 18, 2013, 06:10:06 PM

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D.C.

Hello all,

Has anyone here run OFC tournaments?
After PCA my clintes keep asking for a OFC tourney, but I can't seem to find the answer to a few problems that I've seen players not agreeng about during PCA.

Some questions:

How do you treat an absent player (ran to the restroom, for example)?
What do you penalize for exposing your card out of turn?
Can a player win more chips than you have left, e.g., if you only have 10 chips and wins 15 points?
How do you pay if you only have 5 chips and you owe the other players 12. Who do you prioritize on paying?

Any thoughts?

thanks,
D.C.
Devanir "D.C." Campos
Brazilian Series of Poker Tournament Director

K-Lo

#1
We are trying one out on a small scale for a bar league.  

I understand that there was some initial proposals to deal with these situations by PStars staff, but I am not sure whether they were tweaked during actual play.  Until we get further information, we will probably stick with those initial proposals, namely:

Quote
How do you treat an absent player (ran to the restroom, for example)?

If the player is absent at the beginning of his hand - ie. before he has looked his hand, he will forfeit 3 points to each player and his hand will be dead. If he leaves after the hand has begun, his hand will be considered fouled (6 points to each player plus any applicable royalties) unless all the vacant spots are in the same line (I.e. there are no more choices to be made as to where subsequent cards will go).

I would like to see that a player must be present at the table in order to verify the payouts or collect, but this is not a rule.  Also, I am not certain what PCA did when dealing with absent hands, but we plan to simply turn those cards face-up in turn, in front of the absentee player (but the cards are not set).

Quote
What do you penalize for exposing your card out of turn?

I believe they prescribed a penalty of one point per player.  It is not clear whether this is assessed immediately or taken into account at the end of the hand.  

I personally think such a penalty should be at the discretion of the tournament director, to be assessed at the end of the hand, after all payouts have been complete. For repeat offences, for example, the player could sit out one hand, which is essentially a 9 point penalty.  This would be consistent with the rule for exposing cards under TDA.

Quote
Can a player win more chips than you have left, e.g., if you only have 10 chips and wins 15 points?

We will be playing that you can, at best, double up your initial starting stack (I.e. at the beginning of the hand) through each player.  That is, if you started with 10 chips at the beginning of the hand, you can win at most 10 chips from any given opponent (max +30) even if you have gained or lost chips by paying out other opponents.  As a further example, if you started with 10 chips, and you need to collect a net of 6 points, 10 points, and 14 points from each opponent respectively, you will only get 6+10+10 chips since you would not be entitled to collect the full 14 points from the third opponent. This is consistent with how poker payouts work generally.  

Quote
How do you pay if you only have 5 chips and you owe the other players 12. Who do you prioritize on paying?

The first person left of the button must settle all payouts first, and he does so with his opponents starting with his left and going clockwise.  For example, if I am the first player after the button, I pay out the person to my left first.  If I only have 5 chips and I owe my opponent 6, I am out, even if I would have collected sufficient chips from the other opponents to compensate for the shortfall.  I must pay out each opponent in order, in full.


Tristan

Tristan
@TristanWilberg on Twitter

D.C.

Hey K-Lo,

Thanks for the answer. It really solves all problems  ;D

All the best,
DC
Devanir "D.C." Campos
Brazilian Series of Poker Tournament Director

K-Lo

Good luck with it.  I'd be interested in hearing your experiences if you do run one.

One of the things that I have been thinking about, is whether it makes sense to deal the cards of the fourth hand face-up to a vacant seat whenever play is three-handed.  It's not done this way currently, as most will simply deal three sets of hands instead of four, but the nature of the game does change when one-quarter of the cards on the deck will remain hidden even at the completion of the hand.  I am toying with the idea of implementing this - the vacant seat will still receive cards and the button in three- handed situations.  We could even extend this to heads-up situations.

Any thoughts on this?

Tristan

I think that is a great idea.  I'm thinking they would need to be exposed in proper order though, correct?
Tristan
@TristanWilberg on Twitter

K-Lo

Yes, they would be turned face up, in turn.

One of the interesting things that I have had to deal with is when the dealer accidentally exposes a card.  This potentially gives other players at an advantage, but it does not seem right to reshuffle or give the player some sort of option... We make him keep the card, but I am wondering whether there may be a better solution...?

K-Lo

An update on our tournament... It went very smoothly, no glitches.  We didn't implement the idea of turning the cards of the fourth hand face up, and although some players complained that the game was different when they could not see the contents of the fourth hand, I think it was fine.

A few clarifications in terms of procedure that we employed:

1.  We chose to move, for the purposes of balancing tables, the first position left of the button.  I.e. move the person that is left of the button on the first table to the same spot of the new table, or a worse position. 
2.  We use a "moving button"; I.e. there is no need for a 'dead button' if the button is moving to a position where a player has busted since there are no blinds. 
3.  The button will move to its correct position before any new players from broken tables are seated.  This means that a player from a broken table will not be seated on the button.
4. In general, if a player has not released a card from their hand, they can still change the position of their card.  If they have released the card, but a subsequent player has not yet revealed any of their cards for the same round, we would generally allow the player to change the position of their card.
5.  In the initial setting of the 5 cards, if a player wishes to leave the bottom row empty, he must make a declaration to this effect.  Otherwise, the cards that the player sets down as the "lowest" row is always deemed to be the bottom row (this is to prevent the angle of potentially later claiming that the bottom row cards were actually the middle row cards).
6. We played down to a final table of 5, where we redraw for seats, and the button sits out.  The upside is that we do not have to play one table of 2 and one table of 3.  The downside is that the player on the button who sits out has no chance of busting on this hand, which some may argue is somewhat unfair.  However, the final table of 5 seemed to work fine.

Tristan

Quote from: K-Lo on April 24, 2013, 05:03:21 PM
5.  In the initial setting of the 5 cards, if a player wishes to leave the bottom row empty, he must make a declaration to this effect.  Otherwise, the cards that the player sets down as the "lowest" row is always deemed to be the bottom row (this is to prevent the angle of potentially later claiming that the bottom row cards were actually the middle row cards).

Great point, I didn't think of this potential issue.
Tristan
@TristanWilberg on Twitter

K-Lo

#9
The Open Face Chinese Poker tournament structure at this year's WSOP has just come out.

There's an interesting clarification in their rules - not sure if this is standard now or not elsewhere -

"Paying out:  If a table is three-handed or four-handed, players pay the player to the left of the button first.  In the case of short stacks, chips that are won are separated, and the remaining chips are used for comparing against the remaining players.  For example, if a player has 10 points worth of chips, and he scoops the player to the left of the button, but gets scooped by the next player, he'll get 6 points from the first player, but only have 4 points worth of chips that haven't gotten action.  He/she pays off those 4 points, but still has 12 points worth of chips after the hand is over".

This seems a bit strange to me.  If the player has 6 chips and the first opponent fouls, he is basically insured against having to pay out to all other opponents, since his 6 chips are already accounted for.  So basically, when the stacks are short, a lot of time you'll only be concerned with how well you do only against the first opponent (i.e. a heads-up situation, ignoring all other players, even at a 'full table').  

Is it me, or is this odd?    Doesn't it make more sense to say that if you started the hand with 6 chips, you can only gain or lose a maximum of 6 chips from/to each player, but you must still compare hands with each player (in order)?

UPDATE:  Ok.  It appears that they did it this way in Monaco as well:  http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/ept/2013/ept9-monaco-new-tweaks-to-open-face-chin-133340.html.

The effect of this is that a player may at best double-up in the hand.  Although I appreciate that they don't want a person to luck out by making a huge hand and winning more than what his stack permits, it does not make sense.  If you are up against 2 opponents, you should be able to double-up at best, but against 3 or 4 opponents, you should be able to triple up or quadruple up, just as in any poker game. 

What they are doing is not correct, IMO.

Tristan

I haven't thought about this a lot yet, but I would have to agree that it does not seem proper.
Tristan
@TristanWilberg on Twitter

K-Lo

Just thought I'd update this thread having played a few of these in LV during the WSOP season...

So, most of the venues are using the payout system described earlier. The reasoning behind this is that a player should not be entitled to double up through an opponent when that same opponent would not be able to win the player's chips if the player was forced to pay out all of the opponents before him and busts. 

I'm still not sure I am fully convinced of the reasons for setting the rule in such a way such that, in the example, if a player win 6 points from the first opponent, those 6 points AND the 6 points that he has been paid by the first opponent should be completed insulated from being paid out (essentially guaranteeing that the player will not be eliminated regardless of the hands of the opponents to follow). In any event, it looks like this is what is being adopted on a wider scale.

The other interesting rule "change" is that royalties between two players on the same line do not cancel each other out.  For example, if I make quads at the bottom and you also make quads at the bottom, I will still pay you a 10 point royalty for your quads if your hand beats mine, and vice-versa.  In cash games, these royalties would cancel each other out; in tournaments, presumably they do not cancel in order to speed things up. The argument is that if I make a full house and you make a flush on the bottom line, you should not get any credit for your flush as far as royalties are concerned because you have the inferior hand. I don't really like this as it changes the nature of what a "royalty" is traditionally given for (the type of hand rather than exact rank of the hand) -- we'll see if this rule gets adopted more broadly after this year but it seems like it is going that way.