Another Color-Up whoopsie or...?

[MaverickUSC]

Friday, 08th of June 2007 08:15 PM
(Michael Cheser reporting)

Matt Brady is white hot mad right now. Just before the dinner break, the tournament staff colored up the 500 chips from the table. When Brady returned from break, he had about 335K in his stack, but the staff informed him that a mistake was made during the color-up process and that they had inadvertently given him 75K too much. So they proceeded to remove 75K from Matt's stack and he went ballistic! According to his plea, he had been moved to that table shortly before the break and he had 280K at the time. He then proceeded to win a series of pots prior to the dinner break. "Everybody here knows I had more than 300K. I wouldn't make this $%!# up!" The tournament staff assured him that they had checked the video and done a chip audit, and that his current stack of about 260K is correct. Brady is sitting there stewing now.

I was there when this happened. He said that ten minutes before break he moved tables with 280k and then won every pot he entered before the break.

Devo

[sirtimo]

I think by now it would be prudent to sit and watch your chips when a color up happens, making an accurate count before and after so this crap cant happen to you.

[MrTimCaum]

late on day 1 of event #12, when we were on the money bubble, the floor went around asking one player at each table to buy up the green chips. i racked up 4 and 2/5ths racks of green and waited around during break for the floor to come over and give me 1k chips. the floor counts my rack and says to the dealer "21k!" and i start laughing my ass off.

the floor looked at me like i had lost my mind. all i could do was say "i wouldn't be able to live with myself if i took an extra 10k chips that i didnt deserve." the floor and the dealer still had no idea what i was talking about. after ~two minutes of my sarcastic needling, they finally figured it out.

i then said "no wonder there were several million chips extra in play last year during the main event" and the floor kinda threatened me with "i can take these chips away from you if i wanted" and i just rolled my eyes and walked away for my break.

[censored] idiots

[MrFizzbin]

Do what Raymer does.

Count Chips before leaving, count them on arrival before play.

If "wow I have too much" Give them back

(because you may not like the adjustment if they catch their mistake.)

If "WHY ARE MY FRACKING CHIPS MISSING !!" give them Hell.

Its just like not protecting you hand during play, it stands to reason you must protect you stacks just as vigorously during breaks.

Everybody loves to blame Harrahs for this crap but its no different than a dealer mucking cards inadvertently during a hand, it a human error that cost you money. To some degree you must make a modest effort to prevent it, so yeah bad Harrahs for messing up, but also bad player for not counting.

[tourney guy]

[ QUOTE ]
Do what Raymer does.

Count Chips before leaving, count them on arrival before play.

If "wow I have too much" Give them back

(because you may not like the adjustment if they catch their mistake.)

If "WHY ARE MY FRACKING CHIPS MISSING !!" give them Hell.

Its just like not protecting you hand during play, it stands to reason you must protect you stacks just as vigorously during breaks.

Everybody loves to blame Harrahs for this crap but its no different than a dealer mucking cards inadvertently during a hand, it a human error that cost you money. To some degree you must make a modest effort to prevent it, so yeah bad Harrahs for messing up, but also bad player for not counting.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem with the procedure that I can see from watching is that the Directors are not observing/supervising the color up.

Whenever a tournament gets to the money, whenever I played in one, you could always see the TD there observing, if not actually performing, the color up.

In 2005 one could see Johnny Grooms doing the final table color ups.

In 2004, no doubt Matt Savage did the same.

Years prior, no doubt Jack McClelland was visible during the process.

Last 2 years, no TD to be found. Which would be ok, except the floor staff beneath the TD has no idea what chips are worth, and has not been properly trained to know or even care.

When the players are playing for the money, the head cheese should be there making sure the procedures are done perfectly.

[JackOfSpeed]

During Event #3, the floor guy who is the TD for Celebrity Poker (you know, the really dorky one, "ONNE AND TWOO HUNDRED DOLLER BLINDS, SHUFFEL UP AND DEEEEL") tried to change two of my racks of 50,000 chips (100,000 total) into 20,000. I might have let this slip by for a few minutes before noticing (I was counting up my 1,000s and getting ready to go on break), but luckily Michael Binger notices this guy's mistake and points it out. The worse part is, the Celebrity Poker floordude isn't apologetic at all; he even proceeds to act kind of huffy that someone had the nerve to correct him.

Bottom line, the Raymer strategy as outlined above makes a lot of sense.

[MicroBob]

You would think they could hire a few people who can competently color-up chips when the customer is paying that much for a tournament.

If this was some $5 tournament at a bar or something where the person running it doesn't know much of what he's doing then these are honest mistakes and it's no big deal.

For a $3k or $5k (or god-forbid, $50k HORSE event) I don't think it's too much to ask that they actually have some kind of clue on ho to color-up.

Yes, the player needs to protect himself here.
But that's only because he has to know ahead of time that the WSOP staff will consistently make some pretty inexcuseable screw-ups.

I think some of these screw-ups go way beyond the "they're human...mistakes happen" excuse.

[Exitonly]

so the moral of this story.... always count your chips before a color up?

[NickMPK]

Why don't they just have on player buy all the low denomination chips at the table before everyone leaves on break? That way, there is no confusion as to who should get the chips, and only one player has worry about getting the right amount colored up.

[MrFizzbin]

[ QUOTE ]

I think some of these screw-ups go way beyond the "they're human...mistakes happen" excuse.

[/ QUOTE ]

So when you leave a bank with a large amount of money, you don't take the time count it before leaving the counter because the big fortune 500 company and their employees should get it right ?

Should Harrah staff do the color up flawlessly everytime ? yes !!!

Would it be wise to have 2 people participate (either floor and dealer or floor and floor) in the process given the amount of VIG and alleged prestige of the event?

YES !!

Does either of the above questions exempt the player from protecting his interests ?

NO !!!!

Count before break, Count on return Notify if different, dont just whine and post.

You risk thousands of $$$ in an event then trust a bunch monkeys in suits being paid as little as possible and treated badly Harrahs can get away with and you expect perfection..... HAHAHAHAHA

Is this the way it SHOULD BE No, but you can't embarrass Harrah's into better performance so either don't play and force change, or recognize the situation gaurd yourself and your interests if you do play.