The "Ghost" extra chips in the WSOP ME

[burningyen]

One possible (I won't say probable) explanation for the last-minute jump in chip counts: the chips were added due to the blinded-off stacks, but accurate stack counts weren't available until the number of players dropped below 27. I continue to find this all seriously troubling, though.

[NoahSD]

[ QUOTE ]
It simply diluted the equity of everyone not fortunate enough to be seated at a table with an extra stack.

[/ QUOTE ]

This also sucks, but not nearly as much as the fact that some screw up caused a ton of chips to get added.

[cogger]

I wonder what espn would say to that.

Anyway what needs to happen is for players to turn to another $10k major event online. Besides the 10K buyin thats not meet the inflated cost of 1973. about 50k is right. The new HORSE event will be the M.E. for future wsop play.

[TruePoker CEO]

Look, a lot of people paid $10,000 for a tournament on a level playing field.

If NONE of those people care enough to ask the Nevada Gaming control Board to investigate this allegation of cheating/collusion/incompentnet management, why should anyone on 2+2 care ?

[Ortho]

I totally agree. There is much more oversight than this in a bridge tournament, and if you become world champion of bridge, they let you keep the change from the pizza.

I simply can't think of anything anywhere in the world where there is $80 million floating around and no can be arsed to worry about the details like what day are we playing, what exactly are the rules, where did those extra 2 million chips come from, etc. There appears to be more concern with security in a high school math final, and that the people who put up (holds pinky) ten thousand dollars dont seem all that concerned is astounding.

[Quicksilvre]

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder what espn would say to that.

Anyway what needs to happen is for players to turn to another $10k major event online. Besides the 10K buyin thats not meet the inflated cost of 1973. about 50k is right. The new HORSE event will be the M.E. for future wsop play.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not the issue here. If you want to talk about the HORSE event being the new ME or about upping the buy-in, do that in the appropriate threads.

I am somewhat skeptical about the idea of smuggling in chips from other events, due to the fact that the biggest jump came with three tables left. The smallest chip in play at the time was $5,000. Getting to a level in a prelim where there are enough $5,000 chips around to get one off the table without anyone noticing suggests that you're going to have at least a high money finish. Not only does removing chips at that point reduce your chances of winning more, you run the risk of getting caught and getting beat up. Yes, I realize that plenty of players stuck $5 or a $25 chips into their posckets as momentos, but taking $5,000 off the table would arouse some suspicion.

Now, because there was this great disparity, and the fact that Harrah's is Harrah's, I'm not going to totally discredit the chips-from-prelims theory, but I think that's less of a reach to assume that someone messed up some chip counts along the way. Remember all of the people on Day 1 who supposedly had $3 chips, and the guy who wrote $26,000 on his chip count bag and wound up with a reported total of 226,000?

Either way, it's worth investigating even if no one from the ME complains. I still think it's just a mistake, but $2 million worth of chips is a BIG mistake.

[mchllbrt]

[ QUOTE ]
... There is much more oversight than this in a bridge tournament, and if you become world champion of bridge, they let you keep the change from the pizza.


[/ QUOTE ]

ROFL (I'm a bridge player too).

The disparity between the two types of tournaments has always amazed me. I guess it reminds me of the maxim:

“Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”

(and yes, I'm an academic too -- so I'm also not going to attribute that, since it seems to be in dispute!)

[murph0110]

Inside the WSOP: Disgruntled Supervisor Speaks Out

from: http://taopoker.blogspot.com/



I've been involved in an email exchange with a suit from Harrah's who descrbes him/herself as a disgruntled supervisor. Here's the latest email that I got. I asked them if they could confirm the rumor that Jamie Gold tipped the dealers $1 million as he promised. I aslo asked about their theory on the WSOP extra chips controversy.

Pauly,

I have not talked to anyone that could confirm a tip or not from Mr Gold. But the dealers get their final toke checks on Thursday so I will know before then. I find it interesting that you knew the figure quoted without asking. If he did, man did I pick the wrong side of the coin to work this year. Oh well, I can count on the good karma for being there til the end. I'll have to keep you posted on this.

As far as the extra chips. I don't buy the skimming off the top theory. For only one reason. The paperwork involved for the Harrah's corp is staggering. The single table satellite mgr, received a report with 114 (114 is not a typo) errors from the auditing dept after one night for example. Every form, count, registration etc was reviewed by 4-5 people. Just witnessing the payout procedure should be enough to convince one of that. Getting paid was such a pain in the ass, it took 4 people to get you to the window. And at bubble time and right after... forget about it...

The final chip counts for the daily final tables varied from short as much as 60k to over as much as 40k. The chip control was one area where there was little or no control. But with the number of events, chips, days, entries, etc I' not sure of a good way to control them better so they don't get introduced later. The easy solution is different chips for the Main Event, but that is so easy, it would never happen.

There was never more than a 10k chip out except for late in the main event, so it would take 400 5k or 2,000 1k chips to alter the count as much as it was. And that amount of missing chips would for sure turn up in the balancing of the chips on hand vs those in play at any given time. You always lose some chips as souvenirs but not that many. Matter of fact, some have been on eBay already.

Color ups, and dealer mistakes are for sure part of it. There was not a night where the color up didn't get [censored] up somehow, usually by the same 2 people. Even by myself once. Even with the dealers watching every move as I required it is an easy mistake to make at times. Or a shift supe would not do a scheduled color up, "because it would give the players less chips to play with." Duh! no [censored], kinda the point. Less chips = more gamble. But it also leaves more chips on the tables for possible theft or whatever.

But then, the same man added a stack on the 2nd day of a tournament at the [censored] World Series of Poker, and then did it again later and kept his job, sigh. But given that I had several dealers replaced with others because they could not count or cut chips, counting mistakes were common.

I think there were a lot of dead or unpaid stacks that were left in play and blinded off. The control for that was poor as well. I'm not positive that all 10 stacks at every table on every first day were accounted for in the final tally of stacks vs 10k received. this is something that could have been ignored or just plain covered up, don't know which one.

Profit mongers they are for sure....... I wish them luck finding quality people with out some changes for next year.

Disgrunted Supervisor

I admire this person's courage to tell their side of the story. Thanks for all your input.

By the way... I'm looking for WSOP dealers who would like to anonymously share their horror stories. Please shoot me an email and I'll publish those too.

posted by Pauly at 8/16/2006 03:43:00 AM | Comments (10)

[EvilDrSluggo]

This was mentioned on the live PPV broadcast, explained as the result of the process of racing off lower denomination chips at various points in the tournament.

[AngusThermopyle]

[ QUOTE ]
This was mentioned on the live PPV broadcast, explained as the result of the process of racing off lower denomination chips at various points in the tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

And if you read any of the above posts, you will know that racing off chips adds only a tiny amount of chips, not even close to the overage.