Immediate Sit Out in Ring Game

[The MPC]

A player should have the option to sit at a RING game table and not be forced into playing a hand immediately.

For instance, a player is seated at a table and waiting for more players.

Another player joins, but doesn't want to play until it's 3 handed or more.

Currently the player has to sit, be dealt in a hand, and then sit out.

They should be able to claim the seat without being forced into a hand before sitting out.

[Kent Briggs]

That player could simply wait for more seats to be taken before joining. Or you as the admin can setup tables that require more than 2 players to get play going (using the Start Minimum setting).

[The MPC]

While that's true, and I know that, players don't.

So what happens is you have multiple players that don't want to be the 2nd player to sit and it hinders games from starting.

Meanwhile setting the limit to 3 players to start can effect the end of the game when two players might want to play against each other.

If there are only 2 left at the end of the night and the setting is set to 3 and then one of them takes a bathroom break, they can't start up again at 2 players.

[TJ-Cookier]

I totally agree with this feedback. It does slow down ring games from starting. Ideally, I think it should work as follows:

Player selects a seat
they specify how many chips they want to play
Once that menu clears, they are seated at the table with "Ready" and "Wait for BB" buttons and their status appears as "Sitting Out".

If they are ready to play right now, regardless of BB position or number of players, they hit Ready.
If they are happy to play with the current number of players but want to wait for the BB, they hit Wait for BB.

If they want to wait for more players, they just don't do anything yet and the choices remain. Other players at the table will see them as "Sitting Out" They can stay in this state indefinitely as long as the table isn't full. But as soon as the table is full, a timer starts for players in this state. When the timer expires (maybe after 5 minutes), the player is removed from the table if they haven't selected either Ready or Wait for BB. The timer should be set to something long enough to be reasonable for this case: a player sits down to get his seat and then wants to run to the bathroom, grab a drink, whatever the last couple things are before settling in to play. But right after they walk away, boom, the table fills up. This gives them a few minutes to get back and begin playing rather than coming back to find a full table and a waitlist.

I think if it worked as described, then the control that allows you to specify a minimum number of ready players could be removed altogether. This would also address the concern mentioned where a 3 player minimum table gets down to 2 players playing heads up and one of them wants to sit out momentarily but they want to keep playing heads up.

[The MPC]

In addition, players should be able to come in AS the straddle