Dead button
When a player, who was supposed to be the small blind, big blind or dealer, on the next hand, leaves the game, then her/his spot on the table is kept open to enable the process of shifting the blinds and buttons in the right order, without making any mistakes.
So if the player who just paid the big blind in the previous hand, and now has to pay the small blind, has left the game then it would simply mean that the small blind may not be paid during that round. Thus the small blind is considered dead for that round.
The same doesn’t happen in the case of the big blind though. If the player who is supposed to pay the big blind, leaves the table, then the person sitting to the left of that seat has to put in the big blind and that simply means that the big blind is always live.
In the case of the dealer button, the format of the small blind is followed and once the dealer-to-be seat becomes empty, then the dealer button is considered dead and the player before the dealer’s seat becomes the final player of the round with the privilege of acting last.
This sort of rules are more prevalent in casinos while in tournaments, such a scenario leads to a number of unequal strategic situations that can occur for the last action and therefore, tracking become quite hard as in the case of a casino where there is no need to track the last action player. Casinos allow such a rule mainly due to the possibility that a replacement player may join at that position, continuing the game as a player who has to deal with the responsibility of that button or small blind.
In tournaments, there are hardly ever any replacements who take up empty seats and therefore, dead buttons are as common as moving buttons in those scenarios. In the case of cash games at online venues, it is generally the moving buttons system that governs play. This is not as popular with the tournament organizers simply because players can leave and enter at any time, abusing their rights in relation to the position of the buttons.
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