Author Topic: Rounding Prizes without any leftovers?  (Read 1374 times)

Blind Joe

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 40
    • View Profile
Rounding Prizes without any leftovers?
« on: December 28, 2020, 01:24:40 PM »
Is it possible to round prizes in any way whilst ensuring there isn't any leftovers (either positive or negative)?

I saw this thread from 2009 while searching and whilst it does provide a workaround that involves some intervention by the user I'm wondering if anything has changed in the time since that allows rounding without any leftovers at all.

Until discovering TD I have used "Poker Timer" app on an ipad and rounding, for example, to the nearest 5, never leaves any leftovers. I don't know how it chooses who to round up and who to round down but it allows the user to simply set the rounding amount and know that all the payouts will never be more or less than the total pot.

Corey Cooper

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6216
    • View Profile
Re: Rounding Prizes without any leftovers?
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2020, 01:56:41 PM »
There is no way to round prize amounts and have them add up properly to the prize pool for every prize pool and every prize configuration.  It's just math, and it doesn't work that way for every possible scenario.  Some prize pools and prize configurations will allow the rounding you choose to work perfectly. Other configurations won't work.  To get those to work, you must either NOT round the amounts, or round some amounts up and some down (which still won't always work), or round them down and distribute the remainder.

The TD allows you to choose how you want to round prizes (up, down, nearest) and what to do with whatever remains.  I suspect Poker Timer simply removes this choice.  Which, by the way, may be considered better design for many, as too many options can be off-putting to some.  But others like the ability to specify things exactly the way they want, and that's who the TD has historically catered more towards.

Another option the TD could consider would be to allow the TD to decide how to distribute the leftover amount.  Might be a way to be a little smarter about it, distributing the leftover intelligently, like starting with 1st place but keeping the prize amount rounded after adding [however much] leftover to it, then adding what's left of that to 2nd place while keeping the prize amount rounded, etc, until it is all distributed.

Personally, I like rounding down and just adding any leftover to 1st place.

Blind Joe

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 40
    • View Profile
Re: Rounding Prizes without any leftovers?
« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2020, 03:04:48 PM »
There is no way to round prize amounts and have them add up properly to the prize pool for every prize pool and every prize configuration.  It's just math, and it doesn't work that way for every possible scenario.  Some prize pools and prize configurations will allow the rounding you choose to work perfectly. Other configurations won't work.  To get those to work, you must either NOT round the amounts, or round some amounts up and some down (which still won't always work), or round them down and distribute the remainder.

The TD allows you to choose how you want to round prizes (up, down, nearest) and what to do with whatever remains.  I suspect Poker Timer simply removes this choice.  Which, by the way, may be considered better design for many, as too many options can be off-putting to some.  But others like the ability to specify things exactly the way they want, and that's who the TD has historically catered more towards.

Another option the TD could consider would be to allow the TD to decide how to distribute the leftover amount.  Might be a way to be a little smarter about it, distributing the leftover intelligently, like starting with 1st place but keeping the prize amount rounded after adding [however much] leftover to it, then adding what's left of that to 2nd place while keeping the prize amount rounded, etc, until it is all distributed.

Personally, I like rounding down and just adding any leftover to 1st place.

I think that would be a great option personally, since the workaround is just that with an extra step. It might not be exactly mathematically correct, but neither is any rounding at all.

It seems the only way to absolutely avoid leftovers is to not round at all, and while paying in fractions and even pennies might be fine for casinos or online tournaments, I imagine most home game hosts round to something like 5 or 10, depending on the stakes, so I would definitely be in favour of this being taken care of automatically without having to manually alter winnings after the fact so that the total prizes = total pot.