Passing the button to the next player is right until a chair between the button and
the blinds empties. Then it pulls the whole blind order forward a place. Measured,
four-handed, button on Ben, blinds Cal and Dee, with Cal cashing out:
tool: button Dee, small blind Ann, big blind Ben
correct: dead button on Cal's chair, small blind Dee, big blind Ann
Ann is never asked for the big blind she owes, and Ben pays one a full orbit early.
That is a real big blind out of a real stack, and it happens every time somebody
stands up out of the blinds — which in a cash game is constantly. It is also the
kind of thing the dealer gets blamed for, because the tool is the thing everyone at
the table is reading position off.
The dead button rule holds the rotation to the seats for one hand instead of to the
players. The button follows the small blind round, which at a table with nobody
missing is the same next-player-along it always was; when that player has gone the
button rests on their empty chair for a hand, and when the big blind has gone no
small blind is posted. Either way the big blind advances exactly one player, which
is the whole point of it.
Worked out from who actually posted last hand rather than from the seating as it
stands, because by the time the question is asked the people it turns on are the
ones who have left. Heads-up is exempt — the button is the small blind there and
there is no position to leave dead — as is a table too sparse to have a rotation to
hold to, and a dealer who moves the button or names a blind by hand overrules it.
Both dead positions are said out loud rather than left to look like a fault: the
deal prompt explains them in a sentence, and the dead button goes hollow and dashed
so the felt agrees with the words.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015bnp7xKUPFFSpwkYNFaPgb
