Harry Demetrieu Escorted Out of tournament??

[pineapple888]

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Plonk.

*** You are ignoring this user ***

[Koumari Boy]

I am Harry Demetriou and the following are two posts I have made on this matter on the internet at various forums.

I'm not fussed about what any individual may or may not think of me concerning this incident but rest assured when I say that I have the best interests of poker at heart I am being sincere.

However I must say that this incident today was more like the final straw that broke the camels back and that there is a lot more background to all this than first meets the eye.

First Post:
Just a very quick update on the facts surrounding this.

After play had started all tables were made 6 handed.

I was VERY vociferous in my objections and insisted that a high ranking official (tournament director or Jeffrey Pollack) came down to deal with this blatant and significant change in format for an event that was expected to be a full ring game shootout.

I WAS NOT given any warning or a 30 in penalty (and at no time did I use the F word or any foul language but was definitely screaming and shouting about the unfairness of it all).

I asked for a full refund despite having more chips than I started with and despite feeling that I was better suited to a short handed game than most others and highlighted how unfair this was to the ordinary player.

The floor person then told me to shut up and that I could have no refund and that I was now disqualified and called security to evict me from the room.

I then asked again for a senior official to appeal the decision to evict me and to explain the radical change of format.

The tournament staff then claimed they were too busy to deal with my objection at that time but fortunately one of the security guards went and got a high ranking official to see me from the corporate offices around 40 mins later.

I was then refunded my entry fee so at least I got that back but was also offered the chance to be reinstated but felt that it would be unethical for me to support the event in the changed format.

More about this will no doubt follow.

Second Post:
Lets get something else straight.

Whilst I feel that I have some valid grievances over this and other incidents and treatment of myself and the other players, I do absolutely NOBODY any favours by having childish ranting outbursts.

I am a 47 year old and should know better and outbursts such as this negate and obscure my arguments rather than help them.

A controlled response would have been MUCH better but my only excuse is that I had just had a bad 24 hours and a number of things may have contributed to this type of response.

The censorship/removal of live reports on this at CardPlayer and PokerWire, however, is also possibly of greater or at least equal concern.

[Sponger.]

Harry,

The thing that strikes me as weird about this is that you have played in a lot of the events in the WSOP and it probably wouldn't have mattered as to what todays event was cause you would have played it anyways. if you showed up expecting a full ring NL shootout and instead found that a 5k 6max limit event was going on would you have just turned around and left? sure i'd be upset that it wasn't as advertised but i wouldn't have been as livid as you were...

[Rzitup]

I posted my thoughts on the event today at my website www.rzitup.com. I didnt paste it here because it's long (feel free to do so if that works better).

[pineapple888]

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Second Post:
Lets get something else straight.

Whilst I feel that I have some valid grievances over this and other incidents and treatment of myself and the other players, I do absolutely NOBODY any favours by having childish ranting outbursts.

I am a 47 year old and should know better and outbursts such as this negate and obscure my arguments rather than help them.

A controlled response would have been MUCH better but my only excuse is that I had just had a bad 24 hours and a number of things may have contributed to this type of response.

The censorship/removal of live reports on this at CardPlayer and PokerWire, however, is also possibly of greater or at least equal concern.

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Well said, and I think this was the main point of most of us here.

Regarding your intentions of doing what is best for poker, we are all complex beings and there are many factors that go into this sort of incident.

It struck me that there must be more to it then simply a sudden concern over the fate of the other players, and that is obviously the case from your second post.

That is NOT to say you are UNconcerned about the other players, just that there were many other factors as well.

Anyway, I hope some good can come out of this for all the players so that the floor can avoid even the appearance of capricious decisions.

[Kevmath]

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I posted my thoughts on the event today at my website www.rzitup.com. I didnt paste it here because it's long (feel free to do so if that works better).

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Consider it done:

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When they made the announcement that the tournament was starting, we only had three players at the table. The rule at the WSOP is that no table can start dealing until there are at least four players present. Within a minute a fourth player showed up, followed shortly by two more players; we were six handed and playing, although all 10 stacks were being dealt in. During the first hand, the player to my left commented that not only were we six handed, but so were all of the other tables. Many players do show up late, but as I looked around I also noticed that not a single table had more than six players. It was impossible that was a coincidence. I called a floorperson over and asked him why there were so many seats open, and he responded that “all of the seats are sold, we are playing 10 handed”. I had a weird feeling that they had screwed up the computer seat assignment draw. Within a few hands it was apparent that many of the tables were wondering the same thing that we were. There was just no way that many people hadn’t shown up, and all tables were missing exactly four players.

Then an announcement was made for all dealers to put the chip stacks for seats 3, 5, 7 and 9 into the well; we were playing six handed. You could hear the roar roll through the room; every table started talking about it. Why would they change the format of a tournament after it had already started? Nowhere had this tournament been advertised as a ‘Short Handed/6 per table’ event, a distinction that they give to the other tournaments that start with less than 9/10 players per table. It was immediately obvious that everyone was surprised that we were going to be playing six handed.

Within a few hands Tournament Director Jimmy Sommerfeld came on the microphone and clarified the situation. He announced something along the lines of; “apparently everyone doesn’t understand how a Shootout Tournament works. We have 600 players at 100 6 handed tables, everyone that wins their table will get at least double their money back”.

So far this WSOP I have played 11 out of 13 events that I have been in town for (I was in CA for a week). The two events that I skipped were the $1,500 7 Card Stud (I had an important doctors appointment that I had scheduled on that day) and the $2,500 Short Handed/6 per table NL Hold’em event. Why did I skip that event? Because I don’t think I have an edge in a short handed tournament.

Right after Jimmy’s announcement a commotion began brewing on the other side of the room. Harry Demetriou was standing and SCREAMING. He was screaming bloody murder. He was pissed off at the ‘structure change’ and was making sure everyone knew. There were lots of people that were not happy/confused about it, none more than Harry.

I immediately went to find Jimmy Sommerfeld and had the following conversation:

Me: Jimmy, you just made this tournament a shorthanded event and it wasn’t advertised as such. Shootouts are not traditionally short handed to begin with.

Jimmy: How do you do it online?

Me: Tables are loaded 9 or 10 handed, whatever the site uses. This same event in the WSOP last year was done like that also, why did you change it?

Jimmy: They did it wrong last year.

Me: I challenge you to find a single Shootout tournament that was ever done this way. I have played 100’s of Shootouts online, I have played Shootouts at the Bike and Commerce as well as the WSOP, never has a Shootout been done like this.

Jimmy: What’s the difference? Pretend like you already eliminated four players.

Me: I am not a short handed player, there is a big difference, I would like to get a refund, and my stack is still at $2,000.

Jimmy: No refunds, tournament already started.

Me: What if there were 190 players

Jimmy: We wouldn’t play heads-up

Me: What’s the cutoff? How many handed would it be?

Jimmy: 550 was the cutoff. Anything less than that and we would have gone 10 handed and advanced two.

I went back to my table and played the tournament.

The staff of the WSOP has an obligation to run the tournaments in a fair and traditional manner. It isn’t easy playing tournament poker when the rules change from place to place. It also isn’t easy to run them. Of course they are not going to be able to list every situation that will come up or explain every procedure that will be used in a tournament beforehand. They have to wing it with a temporary staff and make do with what they have. But this was different; they HAD changed the structure of the tournament after it already started. There are certain things that are done that are expected, and starting a tournament as a short handed tournament instead of full tables is one of them.

If a tournament is going to be done differently than what is expected, it should be clearly identified.

Mike Sexton said to me during the first break; “If you would have asked all 600 players, before the tournament started, if they thought we would be playing 10 or 6 handed, 599 of them would have said 10”. And he is right.

The precedent has been set in two regards:

* Shootout Tournaments are not short handed.
* Tournaments that start short handed are labeled as such.



Last years WSOP $1,500 Limit and No-Limit Hold’em Shootout started with 450 and 780 players respectively. Both started with 10 handed tables.

Every single Shootout tournament in the history of poker (that I know of) has started with full tables. My challenge to Jimmy stands, I don’t think he could find a Shootout tournament that has ever been spread starting with six handed tables.

Several people have directed me to the tournament rules for this event, which make mention of advancing 100 players from Day 1. Although the rules for this tournament do talk about ‘100 players’, it is far from spelled out that 100 players will indeed advance.

The rules, taken from the WSOP website, state:

* Tournament is limited to 100 tables, (11 Handed Max).
* Players will be seated randomly. Some tables on Day 1 may have 11 players per table.
* Play will continue on Day 1 until a winner is declared at each table. Play will resume on Day 2 at 2:00 PM, July 17, 2006.
* Players (100) on Day 2 will start with $20,000 in Chips.
* Play will continue on Day 2 until a winner is declared at each table.
* The Final Table (10 Players) will resume on Day 3, July 18, 2006 at 2 PM.

The ONLY reference to 100 players is addressed in point four: Players (100) on Day 2 will start with $20,000 in Chips.

It does not say “100 players will advance”. Like many of the other rules for events, they make mention of numbers assuming that the event will sell out. In the rules for the main event, a point states:

* Play will continue on day 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D until there are 800 players left each day.

What if only 3,200 players signed up for the main event? Would they just cancel all of the day 1s? A long shot of course, but it shows the intent of the numbers they used.

Jimmy Sommerfeld told me that if there had been 550 players, all tables would have been 10 handed and 2 players would advance. But with 551 players they would be 5 or 6 handed tables.

What if only 200 players had signed up for this tournament? Do you think they would have paid 50% of the field? Of course not. The reference to 100 players was inserted assuming that the tournament would sell out. By sticking to the number 100, they ended up paying 16.7% of the field. All WSOP tournaments are paying approximately 10% of the field. Why the discrepancy? Because they didn’t anticipate this event not selling out and didn’t think far enough ahead.

Keep in mind that we had played the beginning of the tournament with 10 stacks of chips on the table and everyone thinking that those stacks were going to be played. There is the very real possibility that someone went broke in that time making a play at dead blinds. If they knew the tournament was going to be 6 handed (they shut it off at 600) why did they have the dealers put those stacks out to begin with?

For me there is a major difference in the way that a 6 handed 1-table tournament will play vs. a 10 handed 1-table tournament. When I play online I only play 10 handed 1-table tournaments. I believe that I excel in that format as opposed to the fast paced nature of 6 handed tables. Had this tournament been advertised as a shorthanded event I would not have played.

After I arrived home after busting out of the tournament I found out that Harry (the screaming Harry from above) had been refunded. Imagine that. Here I was a nice guy about the whole situation; I didn’t raise my voice once and dropped the request for a refund after I was denied by Jimmy. I accepted that Harrah’s has the right to change their minds (and the structure of the tournament) and continued on and played. Yet Harry had screamed and yelled and apparently been kicked out…guess who got the refund?

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[Lawman007]

Yeah, Rzitup, just start yelling and screaming like a 3-year old next time, and you'll get your money back, too. LOL

[pineapple888]

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I posted my thoughts on the event today at my website www.rzitup.com. I didnt paste it here because it's long (feel free to do so if that works better).

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Good write-up, lots of details on EXACTLY what happened.

After reading this I think 10-10-6 would have made much more sense.

[Rzitup]

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I posted my thoughts on the event today at my website www.rzitup.com. I didnt paste it here because it's long (feel free to do so if that works better).

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Good write-up, lots of details on EXACTLY what happened.

After reading this I think 10-10-6 would have made much more sense.

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That is what I would have expected with 600 players.

[MicroBob]

Mike, terrific write-up and thanks for sharing here.

This is really terrible what they did.

I think the key point here is that they didn't just change it when you arrived.
they had all those chip-stacks on the table and created a completely different event for the first few minutes that involved all that blind-stealing of the non-existent players.


so it really wasn't even a true 6-handed event.
It was an event where "We'll have dead-blinds for the first few levels because we don't know what's going on....THEN we'll take all those stacks off the tables."


jimmy somerfield's announcement that "apparently everyone doesn't get it" was pretty condescending as best I could read it.


Hard to believe I would be saying this after reading of all the other troubles over there (including used, marked-cards in the $50k HORSE), but I actually didn't realize it was THIS bad.