Full Tilt now allow deals to be made at the final table

[morlspin]

Automatic Tournament Deals Once players reach the final table of a tournament, Full Tilt Poker’s Automatic Tournament Deals allow those players the option of making a deal for all or part of the remaining prize pool. By choosing either automatic or custom deal structures, players decide how the prize pool is awarded. Types of Deals Players choose from three formats for establishing final payouts when making a deal:

• Independent Chip Modelling (ICM) – The Independent Chip Model (ICM) calculates the probability of each stack finishing in each prize position to determine the true equity for each player and compute the fair payouts
• Chip Ratio – Awards payouts in direct proportion to stack size, except that no payout can exceed the minimum or maximum possible prize (e.g. the top payout cannot exceed the first place prize)
• Custom Deal – The player in control of the deal enters payout amounts into the Custom fields and adjusts until all players agree

Please see below for further details. Making a Deal Players may choose to make a deal when they reach the final table, whether they’ve reached the money or not. Once all players select Make a Deal, the Make a Deal screen will appear and they’ll be able to discuss terms in the dedicated Tournament Deal chat box. The chip leader initially has “control of the deal” and is responsible for selecting deal terms and completing required fields based on input from the other players. Any player may decline the deal at any point in the process by selecting Cancel Deal. Additionally, the chip leader can choose Pass Control of Deal and select another player to enter details into the Make a Deal screen. Play will be paused for up to 20 minutes while a deal is being discussed – only players involved in the deal will be able to participate in the Tournament Deal chat box. If a deal takes longer than 20 minutes to complete, the deal will be cancelled and normal play will resume. Once a deal has been proposed, players can accept or reject the terms. All players involved must select Accept for the deal to be confirmed. Please note that once a deal has been accepted by all players, the conditions are final. Take advantage of Full Tilt Poker’s Automated Tournament Deals and strike a deal the next time you make a final table. ICM: More Details Determining the true value – or “equity” – of each chip stack in a tournament can be a complicated process. One of the best ways to do this accurately is by using the Independent Chip Model (ICM). With this method, the probability of each chip stack finishing in each possible prize position is computed. Those probable finishes are then combined to obtain an accurate approximation of each stack's fair value. In more detail, the values for all players and all positions are computed recursively. The chance of a player finishing first is assumed to be directly proportional to their fraction of the chips. This algorithm works as follows:

• If Sarah has 20% of the chips, her chance of winning the tournament is set at 20%
• Now Sarah's chips are removed from the total, and the values for each of the remaining stacks finishing in 2^nd place are computed
• Similarly, the process is repeated from 3^rd place to last place

Eventually, every possible outcome of the tournament is covered, yielding the full matrix of probabilities for every player finishing in every position. It is an expensive calculation, but Full Tilt Poker programmers have developed the fastest known algorithm to compute these values, thereby making the fairest possible settlement values readily available to our players for tournament deals. Chip Ratio: More Details Five-time WSOP Bracelet Winner, Ph.D., Computer Science: Virtual Network Algorithms In the Chip Ratio method, the payouts are essentially proportional to the size of the chip stacks, with a few exceptions. Compared to the fairer ICM method, Chip Ratio tends to give too much to the larger stacks at the expense of the smaller stacks. The two methods are equivalent for a winner-take-all tournament, but not for tournaments with multiple prizes. In fact, using the straight Chip Ratio method without any restrictions can result in highly imbalanced payouts. To make this a fair and viable option for all players involved, Team Full Tilt’s Chris Ferguson developed a specific algorithm that refined the Chip Ratio method in a way that ensures more balanced payouts. Because of this, no player's payout is allowed to exceed the maximum or minimum possible prize, in full generality. The following examples will make this clearer. Example 1: The highest payout cannot exceed the first place prize, since a player can never do better than finishing first. Example 2: All players are guaranteed of getting at least the amount of the next place prize, since they can never do worse than being the next player eliminated. Note that the next prize could be zero, if the players are not yet "in the money". Example 3: The second highest payout cannot exceed the average of the 1^st place and 2^nd place prizes together. Consider the following chip stacks in single table tournament with prizes of $50, $30, and $20: Player 1: 10000 chips Player 2: 9998 chips Player 3: 1 chip Player 4: 1 chip In effect, the two large stacks will split the 1^st place and 2^nd place prizes, earning about $40 each. The two small stacks will share the 3^rd place prize, earning about $10 each. Without the restrictions, the two large stacks would take the whole prize pool, leaving the two small stacks with almost nothing, even though one of them must finish in 3^rd place. With the restrictions in place, the second highest payout can never exceed $40 (the average of 1^st and 2^nd place), regardless of the stack sizes. Conversely, the second lowest payout can never be below $10 (the average of 3^rd and 4^th place).

[voiceofjoe]

Re: Full Tilt now allow deals to be made at the final table Brand new lobby as well - looks like they're recognising the need for continuous improvements