difficult poker rule

An interesting question indeed.
The stack sizes at the beginning of the hand would decide who is second and who is third, but if the stacks are exactly the same (would be quite unlikely I think?) then I have no idea how it really goes. I assume 2nd and 3rd would split the money there. But what if it is a satellite tournament where only first and second gets a ticket to another tourney?

I hope someone wiser will answer this

This is not a stupid question at all, yiazmat.

While it's quite possible to see players at the very beginning of a tournament bust each other out with equal stack sizes in a multiway pot, I think it's extremely rare to witness this in the money ranks. I personally never experienced it, not that I recall, at least.

Here's what the Wikipedia article on Tie (draw) says:

Tournament poker

Ties rarely occur, since multiple simultaneous player eliminations will rank the eliminated players by chip counts. However, if two or more players are eliminated in one hand, and both players started the hand with identical chip counts, the players will be tied in official rankings. It is impossible for poker tournaments to end in a tie (since one player must end up with all the chips), though multiple players may be tied for second (or lower) place.

Note that it doesn't actually say anything about how the payouts are handled, but it seems logical that they would simply split the payouts among the players who tied. It is also possible that some poker rooms may have house rules on this.

I would like to see a hand where this situation has actually happened

As Harrier said, it is quite rare that the players have identical stack sizes.
I think in those cases the hand rankings would decide? So the one with the second best hand would get 2nd place?

So now they should have identical hands and identical stack sizes for this to happen. I have never seen that.

thanks for all the information so far

Most commen is that if only 1 player of the 9 wins that the winner get's 50% if the paid-outs and the 8 remaing players will get a equal part of the remaning 50% if all stacks are equal. if the prize pool was $9. The winner gets $4,50 and the rest of the players $0,56.

Cheers,
SDK1987

The easiest way is to just ask a support team of a needed poker room. I guess, rules may be different depending on the room. You can also organize a home game at PokerStars and check the scenario with your friends.

Originally posted by Ratatuj
You can also organize a home game at PokerStars and check the scenario with your friends.

Couldn't that potentially be interpreted as some form of collusion or chip dumping? I'd be careful.