Are seat re-assignments random in multi-table tournaments?

Question

During multi-table tournaments, players are re-assigned to other tables in order to keep minimum number of tables and to have them as balanced as possible. Are there any rules as to which table to break down or which player at a particular table to move ?

In online poker moving players is particularly easy, for obvious reasons. From what I've seen, the players are re-arranged in such a way that the difference between the smallest and largest table is 1 player at most. This seems logical. But it doesn't explain which players to re-assign.

In live play, the re-assignments can get very tricky, especially if it's a large field. Are there any usual tricks that the tournament staff uses to achieve this ? The good thing about live tournaments, though, is that they usually take many more hours; this will help with re-assignments.

PS: I played in a live tournament once where the player who was re-assigned was always the one in the cut-off seat. It's good to have a rule about this to avoid problems about who to move, but I doubt it's standard practice to move the guy in the cut-off.

Answer 1

In most live tournaments, tables break according to a preset pattern, so that the tables can be reused for other games. For this reason, experienced players often adjust their playing style based on the table they are seated at. If they are at a table that breaks quickly, they know that they do not have time to build strong reads, and must instead take advantage of other factors. Conversely if they are at a table that will not break for a long time, they may work to establish a particular table image, and to build (and exploit) reads on other players. Online tournaments can follow this rule, but definitely do not have to do so.

There is no set rule for how the seat assignments will occur when a player is moved - it varies from one casino to the next. Very seldom are they in any way random though, especially in live events. Instead, they follow whatever rules the casino deems optimal for gameflow and fairness.

Answer 2

I don't have much experience in that, but as much as I noticed, In both online and live tournaments, the re-assignment process is according to the betting structure in the table that the players should be assigned to.

for example, If a manager want to re-assign player to another table, and in the new table the player will be the big blind, he will choose the player that should be the big blind in the "old" table (or the one after him).

The managers tries to keep on fairness in this case.

of course there are exceptions, but this is (as much as I know), the general idea.