When Deal Making Goes Bad

You would think that some things are so obvious that they don't need to be stated. Like don't be a scumbag. I don't play a ton of sit and go's, but when I do I will chop some of them. Not once have I emailed support for them to assist with a sit and go chop, and not once have I had a problem with someone ripping me off. But it does happen, although not frequently, it seems.

I am much more reticent to chop without support assistance in a multi-table tournament because the money at stake is much greater. Still, I will chop with someone I know without support and trust them to live up to whatever the agreement is. I have manually chopped without assistance some of the biggest online tournaments around. I chopped one satellite for a live seat to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure with a guy I know and trusted him to send me the cash, and he did. I chopped a $109 buy in with rebuys tournament where the top two prizes totaled some $35,000 and trusted my opponent to send me the cash I was due. He also trusted me obviously.

The other side of this can be as ugly a portrait of humanity as there is. I once saw Gank work out a 4-way chop in a large no limit holdem tournament. Then one guy sat back in while others remained sitting out, stole some blinds, and said he had changed his mind and wasn't going to chop after all.

And if you think this is an isolated incident with a true scumbag, think again. It happened to me this week, on PokerStars. Down to three players, we all agreed to sit out, then agreed to a chop. While waiting for support to come to execute the deal, one player sat back in and took blinds from yours truly and Jackal69, which were quite high and therefore significant. Our stacks were all pretty even before that, but the offender, TangoTom, had a measurable though not insurmountable lead after his thievery. I ended up third, and it cost me $600 I would have had under the agreement.

Maybe I am na've, but there is no amount of money that is worth losing my integrity. Apparently, not everyone thinks that way.

I have a few recommendations for what to do about this. First, let as many people know about it as you can, by telling people at the tables as well as by posting here or on other sites with poker blogs and discussion areas frequented by players, like pocketfives.com. Hopefully, this will get back to the thief. Maybe they will realize what they did and not do it again, or maybe they will be so harassed they will walk away and not come back.

Finally, don't stop making deals, because they make good sense a lot of times. Maybe you could protect yourself by sitting out but staying alert and being ready to sit back in in a flash if someone else does, rather than stepping away to get a drink or whatever.

Jeff Henry

note by gank: Jeff Henry is a talented multiple table tournaement player both online and offline.