[bav]

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I have played in tournaments in Vegas, Turning Stone, and Niagra. In every tournament, after registration was closed, the payouts were published on one of the TVs in the room.

I don't understand how the number of chips in play has anything to do with the amount of dollars in the prizepool.

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I'll take a stab...

So 100 people buy in and they start the tourney with 10 tables. Over the course of the first hour, folks bust out, and more buy in (alternates, or in the rare tourney where they allow you to buy back in as if you were a new player). At the end of the hour, you have 98 players, but there have been somewhere between 1 and 40 folks buying in that first hour. How much money should be in the prize pool?

The answer can be derived from the chip count. Add up the chips. Divide by the starting chip stacks. That's how many players bought in. Multiply by how much went into the prize pool from each player. That better total up right. If the chips say 130 people entered but the prize pool says 128 people entered, someone pocketed 2 buyins.

But if they just willy-nilly add chips to the tables at various points, if the chip count says 130 people entered but the chip stacks say 128 people entered, the tourney staff can just point at the color-ups and say "musta happened there".