The idea is refills must be repaid by the player from his bank, and there should be some reasonable and realistic interest charged for outstanding debts.

This would solve SEVERAL inherent problems with a play money tournament.

By basing rank and play money total from the real net gains of the player you would have a more accurate picture of the contestants.

This would discourage folks from making foolish bets by making a refill actually COST something.

This would naturally discourage players from wading into high stakes tables to go all in with 1500 over and over.

I am sure it would be hard to implement. ;)

Maybe the new formula for calculate the player rank can do :
Winnings - Losses - (number of refill * 1500)

me and my 135 refills don't like this :D

On the other hand, I am sure those players who come into the bigger tables and go all in add to the money that the higher players have.

By restricting refills, you are actually restricting the amount of money that the higher players will get.

Of course this upsets some of the conservative rocks who like to see a cheap flop but in the long run, lots of average players doing refills is a good thing.

I have no problem with small stacks playing the big tables. I do it myself. My contention is this would make the game more like a real money as the initial $1500 would actually COST something. Then the Top Players would be more accurate when tabulated.

In the end I don't think it would change the order of things much as the guy who spent 35k to earn 1 million will still be ahead of the guy who spent 1.5k to earn 500 thousand.

Just an idea.

You are right that this might also make the total chipstacks a little less massive, but I dont think by much. Play money is play money and we are all going to throw it around as if it was worth... well nothing. ;)