The "Ghost" extra chips in the WSOP ME

[Quiet Lion]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, I think that's clear.

But the current explanation is that lots of stacks were blinded off in the day 1 fiascos, and that those people were later given full stacks to play with, pumping $10k into the poker economy each time this happened. What say you about that?

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About that I say "then why did 1.7M of the extra 2.2M chips appear between 27 and 9 players left?"

And it didn't pump anything into the poker economy since Harrah's did not add that money to the prize pool. It simply diluted the equity of everyone not fortunate enough to be seated at a table with an extra stack.


QL

[AngusThermopyle]

[ QUOTE ]


About that I say "then why did 1.7M of the extra 2.2M chips appear between 27 and 9 players left?"



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Well, which of the 27 did it?
How did they sneak $1.7M into their stack?
How did they know ahead of time they were going to be in a position to sneak the chips in?

[Jacques]

This is nothing new. Added chips have been part of the WSOP since the beginning, you can call it a tradition.

In this case the 2.2M chips comes from more than one source:

1. Players anted off the first day and played again.
2. Players who got chips from previous tourneys
3. Players who got chips from other players in the tourney, this explains why these chips appeared late in the tourney.
4. The chip count is not precise so errors are a contributing factor as well.

[Ortho]

[ QUOTE ]
About that I say "then why did 1.7M of the extra 2.2M chips appear between 27 and 9 players left?"

[/ QUOTE ]

But then why were you arguing the race-off issue in the first place since most of the race-offs would've happened with many more than 27 players left? Why bother doing the math to prove that racing off the $25 chips would've had effect x if you're arguing that there was a discrepancy even accepting that the 27-left chip count (when the $25 chips had been gone for days) was accurate?

Also, what about the "players count their own chips so the counts were inaccurate" argument?

I'm just wondering because these are the two non-cheating theories currently living here.

Also, sorry, my use of the term "poker economy" was dumb. I should've said pumped $10k per player who was blinded off then reincarnated into the chips in play.

[Kevmath]

Richard was questioning the chip counts originally on August 8 when there was 27 left. It seems the easiest way to get that extra 1.7m would be with the 100k mint chips. However, I don't think those were used until the main event itself.

[Quiet Lion]

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But then why were you arguing the race-off issue in the first place since most of the race-offs would've happened with many more than 27 players left?

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Since that was the explanation given by the Harrah's spokesman, it seemed necessary to refute it.

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Also, what about the "players count their own chips so the counts were inaccurate" argument?

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I do not know if there was an official count when it was down to 27, but on the day they played from 27 to nine the reported totals were predominantly at about 500k over the expected amount.

QL

[Ortho]

How can a tournament with an $89M prize pool not know exactly how many chips are in play when there are only 27 players left out of 8700? How can they not know each player's running chip count for each and every hand once there are only 27 left? First prize is 12 million dollars. I understand the possibility of inexactitude when there are 8700 left, but 27 players sit at only 3 tables and there are several outlets doing live updates. At that point, why isn't every single hand a matter of public record?

[Danielih]

No need to dance around the issue. There is a lot of cheating in poker. "Chip movement" simply cannot be stopped the way tournaments are run nowadays. Taking 1000/5000 chips from big stacks and sneaking them into smaller stacks in the middle of the same or a different tournament. Dumping chips to opponents in the form of raise reraise fold. Putting other players into tournaments for the sole purpose of dumping chips.

1) You show up to the World series of poker
2) You pay money to gamble with other people EXCEPT:

3) Harrah's takes a nice chunk of that money for running the tournament AND:
4) Harrahs does not reinvest any signifcant portion of this money in monitoring the integrity of the tournament.

Jeffrey Pollack admits he doesn't know much about poker. What a superb choice for commisioner. Rather than call poker a sport I think it would do more of a service to call poker gambling.

[Rottersod]

[ QUOTE ]
No need to dance around the issue. There is a lot of cheating in poker. "Chip movement" simply cannot be stopped the way tournaments are run nowadays. Taking 1000/5000 chips from big stacks and sneaking them into smaller stacks in the middle of the same or a different tournament. Dumping chips to opponents in the form of raise reraise fold. Putting other players into tournaments for the sole purpose of dumping chips.

1) You show up to the World series of poker
2) You pay money to gamble with other people EXCEPT:

3) Harrah's takes a nice chunk of that money for running the tournament AND:
4) Harrahs does not reinvest any signifcant portion of this money in monitoring the integrity of the tournament.

Jeffrey Pollack admits he doesn't know much about poker. What a superb choice for commisioner. Rather than call poker a sport I think it would do more of a service to call poker gambling.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not talking about chip movement. We're talking about how the final counts of chips don't match the number of players x 10,000. Chipping up can account for some of that and so can blinded out stacks on the first days that were allowed to replay. The more important issue is why aren't there accurate chips counts when the players are down to a manageable number? Is that number 27 or higher? Whatever number it is give us a count and from then on there can be no way to account for extra chips except for chipping up which can easily be controlled.

[Danielih]

microcosm
[ QUOTE ]

We're not talking about chip movement. We're talking about how the final counts of chips don't match the number of players x 10,000. Chipping up can account for some of that and so can blinded out stacks on the first days that were allowed to replay. The more important issue is why aren't there accurate chips counts when the players are down to a manageable number? Is that number 27 or higher? Whatever number it is give us a count and from then on there can be no way to account for extra chips except for chipping up which can easily be controlled.

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