Rules question: button placement in tournament elimination

[zaxxon23]

Hi. I've played lots of pokerstars tournaments over the past few months, and have witnessed many times where if a player gets knocked out, and the button is before them, the button then goes on to the next player after.

Today, I ventured into the wierd and wacky world of free bar tournaments, and had an argument with the players about this situation. A person before the button got knocked out, and after, the dealer button stayed in the same place to "preserve the blinds". I've never seen this before, and it is I guess due to my ignorance of offline poker.

Apparently, pokerstars uses a foward-moving dealer rule because it makes it easier to do online tournaments. Does this mean that in non-online tournaments it is common and legal for someone to get the buck twice if a player in front of them is knocked out?

Thanks for any information.

[jeffonline]

It’s called a dead dealer, when the small blind gets knocked out, the seat is vacant and the small blind still passes to the next player but because the dealer button can not be passed to the new small blind, the dealer position remains vacant and it becomes a dead dealer, normally the previous dealer deals again. Yes this is to preserve the blinds, keep in mind that the previous small blind is now the dead dealer. The button actually passes to the dead dealer position. Without a dealer someone has deal the hand, The dead dealers position does not receive any cards.

[zaxxon23]

Thank you for the information. I have a few more questions. How does this apply to ring games? I'm pretty sure (although not 100%) that pokerstars uses the same forward dealer rule with ring games. What is the common situation offline if someone leaves the table creating a similiar situation? Is the dead dealer rule the most common? Or does it vary according to different house rules?

Thank you

[MasterShake]

Foxwoods uses a dead button for ring games as well. The placement of the big blind is the key element in live games. No player can be the big blind twice in a row ever. No player can miss his turn as the big blind, ever. The button and small blind are placed acordingly in order to preserve those facts, even if it means there is no small blind for that hand.

[raisebot]

There's 2 variations, and depending on house rules, neither can be considered wrong.

Both variations mostly apply to cash games only, generally in tournaments, the "dead button" rule will apply.

Dead button rule is just as the name implies. Should the small blind on a given hand be knocked out, the next hand will have a "dead button", so the next player before the button has last position to act yet again. There's still a small blind and big blind, paid for by the same people that would've paid anyway if the player didn't just get knocked out.

Some houses use the "forward moving button" rule instead, where there's never a dead small blind, and never a dead button. The button will move to the next seated player every single hand, and the small blind and big blind will always follow. If the small blind walks away before he pays his small blind, he will receive a missed small blind button, and the next player (who would've had to pay a big blind), instead now gets a break, and only pays a small blind instead, and the next player pays the big blind.