Breaking Tables

     Single table home tournaments are simple. No one goes anywhere, you stay at the table until you are knocked out of the tournament. But, when hosting a tournament with two or more tables of players, you will need to keep the tables balanced.

     Once one table has 2 fewer players than another table, it's time to send someone to fill in the spaces at the smaller table.

     It is best to move players from the larger tables to fill holes in the smaller table. I once played a tournament where small tables were busted up completely and every player was moved to fill holes in larger tables. That just took big stacks and sprinkled them all over the room, since the reason the tables shrunk was because a few players ended up with all the chips.

     Once a player is eliminated, a simple way to replace them is to take a player at the larger table who is in the same position to the button as the eliminated player, and move them. This keeps players from suffering things like double big blinds, or getting an advantage such as dealing twice.

     If you're working with several tables (three or more), simply grab a deck of cards to see which table loses a player. Designate each table a color (if you have two to choose from), or a suit. Flip over a card and there, you have a table to take a player from.

     One thing we do for the final table is reseat everyone. We take cards ace through ten, and deal one to each player. They take the corresponding seat.