Played the £40 d/c freeze-out on Wednesday at the Isle, thought their alternate policy was a little odd. You can buy-in up to the first three levels (first hour), but you"re first hand regardless of which level you enter, you"re required to put in 1500 chips or a quarter of your stack. Seems a bit harsh to me, particularly because they don"t actually tell you this when you buy-in. Also, in any tourny anyone can buy an extra 1000 chips for £5. So on this occasion the alternates lose 500 on the first hand if they splash out £5 for the extra 1000.
I"m sure this is unreasonable. You"re already at a disadvantage as you"re coming in at a higher level and below the average chips. It also creates one disproportionately large pot with 1700 in there before you see your cards rather than 300, assuming the guy comes in at the 100/200 level, which obviously gives the player who happens to wake up with a hand a bit of an advantage.
