So, you’ve worked your butt off and made the final table. You’ve been playing for hours and you can’t keep your eyes open. The tournament started at 8pm, its 1am now and you have to go to work in 7 hours. There are 4 of you left and one player suggests that you all chop the prize money and go to sleep. Should you take the offer? Should you make your own offer? Lets analyze the anatomy of a deal.

The simplest type of deal is called a “chip-equity chop.” This is where all the remaining prize money is added up, and you get the percentage of the pool equal to your percentage of total chips in play. This type of chop happens most often when there are 5 or more people still left in the tourney. An example of this type of chop is below (I have only used 4 people for simplicity), assume you are player 3:

Player 1: 37,900
Player 2: 15,800
Player 3: 22,500
Player 4: 50,600
_______________
Total Chips: 200,000

1st place- $5000
2nd place-$2500
3rd place- $1250
4th place- $625
_______________
Total Prize Pool: $9375

You have approx: 11% of all the chips in play, therefore you would be entitled to 11% of the prize pool or $1031.25. So if you were doing a chip equity chop, you wouldn’t even CONSIDER the deal unless it paid you at least that amount.

Another common chop, doesn’t really have a name, but we will call it the “fairness chop.” I have called it thus, because this chop is often done by rough math (as opposed to exact) and is more a question of “does this seem fair?” This chop is often used when there are two or three players left and one has a sizable chip lead. An example of this is below:

Player 1: 14,000
Player 2: 17,000
Player 3: 80,000

1st place- $2,000
2nd place- $1,000
3rd place- $600

In a fairness chop, the chip leader will offer to give up part of his almost guaranteed prize money to end the tourney. In this example, the chip leader might offer to take $1800 and the two of you would take $900 each (splitting the $1800 remaining in the prize pool). The fairness chop can get complicated, however, when all 3 players have different stacks. Lets say that Player 1 had 80k, Player 2 had 10k and Player 3 had 21k. Now, it wouldn’t be “fair” for the bottom 2 players to get the same amount. In this case, the chip leader again suggests that he will take $1800, but the remaining $1800 isn't going to be split up equally, because one of the remaining players has twice the chips of the other. Often the remaining prize money will be divided up using a “rough” chip equity method. Meaning, Player 3 has “roughly” twice the chips of Player 2. This would mean player 3 would take 2/3 of the $200 that Player 1 gave up and Player 2 would take 1/3 of the $200, creating a final deal of :

Player 1: $1800
Player 2: $1133
Player 3: $666

The chip leader didn’t use any particular math to come up with his $200 hit, he simply said “I have a huge chip lead, I'm very likely to win, I don’t want to continue playing, it seems FAIR to offer $200 to stop the tourney.

These are the 2 most common types of chop or deal that you will see at the poker table. Now, just because you are offered a deal doesn’t mean you have to take it. Conversely, you should never feel offended or angry if someone doesn’t want to take a deal that you propose. There are many reasons a player might turn down a seemingly good chop. Particularly good players who are on short stacks, will often refuse deals because they feel their skill level still allows them a shot to win, even if they are significantly outchipped. Also, many sites do not offer a chop option and you should always be careful when making a deal on these types of sites. Players often agree to a deal in the chat box, play out the tournament and then the winner never sends the other players the money. Unfortunately, most sites will do nothing to help you, because they have a policy of no chops. If you want to know the chop policy of your favorite site, shoot their customer service department an email. Ask them if they will enforce a chop that is clearly agreed to in chat. Ask them if they will send a manager to your table to mediate a deal. Remember, even if your opponents agree to the deal, play to win the tourney. It’s a lot easier for you to win and send the other guy his money than to lose and “hope” he sends you yours.

Follow these general guidelines and you should be able to spot a good chop and avoid a bad one. But remember, be weary of agreeing to a chop with any player you don’t know unless you know that chops are enforceable on that particular site. Good luck!