It's good to see that Americans aren't the only ones lacking a sense of personal responsibility.

But I posted the EPT rule

Both Hard Rock properties are very good at telling the players the chips must be moved in a rack. I really can't think of a time that they haven't told the players that when they break tables.

Just because you have headphones in doesn't make it their fault. Take the headphones out and pay attention to what is going on around you.

Have you considered complaining to the manufacturers of your pants because it was their fault for putting pockets on them with no warning label not to put tournament chips inside?

the ruling sucks but is right- but if he needed his hands to carry other **** and didn't have a lot of chips it would make perfect sense to put them in his pocket.

And as primarily a cash game player, i do this very very often

Yes but the dealers never actually say it the same way as they do here in us

EPT is strict about that rule too. If a dealer sees you taking chips out of your pocket, they are gone. If that's all of your chips, you're out of the tournament.

Carrying your stack in your hand is where it starts to get fuzzy and rulings might differ.

Headphones, of course. You don't see the difference between your chips when picking up from a cash game table and tournament chips?

In England and around the world it's the same. Every time a table is broken racks are distributed and players are asked to carry the chips in the rack, I can't imagine a player entering a $3,500 comp and not know this.

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Out of curiosity, OP, are you unaware of what happened at the Borgata in 2014 with the introduction of fake tournament chips?

If you don't know about it, go find out, then you'll understand why the rule exists.

So let me get this straight - you spent $3500 to enter a poker tournament, and didn't even bother to read the rules before playing? This is something about poker players that I'll never understand. They (I say they because I've read the rules) will sit and spend hours and hours on top of the thousands and thousands of dollars playing a game to which they never even bothered to read the rules before sitting down.

About a year ago in a tournament, a player came to my table from a broken table and sat down in the button's seat. The dealer told him he had to wait and I disagreed and quoted the TDA rule that applied. No one believed me. I insisted the dealer call the floor over, and the floor quoted the same rule that I did and said he could play the hand. One of the players looked at me, astonished, and asked me if I was a dealer or a floor somewhere. No, I said, I just believe that if you're going to spend $225 on a poker tournament, maybe you ought to read the rules before you sit down. Silence and dumb looks followed.

For a tournament director, this is one of those rules that we find ourselves conflicted over when enforcing. Unfortunately, ignorance of a rule doesn't allow me any wiggle room, it's something that has to be done to protect the integrity of the game.

I sympathize with you and every other player that I have DQ'd when enforcing this rule. We have even gone so far as to include this specific rule reference in our pre-tournament speech.

In a small tournament with inexperienced players it's easier to find a way out of disqualification. But the bigger the tournament the harder it is.

When I was running a $45 tournament I once had a new player take his chips with him on a break. By speaking with the dealer and other players at the table I was able to confirm what his stack was and didn't disqualify him because he returned with that amount...... but I would not be so lenient if I recognized him as an experienced player.

For me this is just one of those rules that there is zero leway on. If your chips go out of sight, they are no longer allowed in play. $35 weekly or $10,000 main event, doesn't matter. You can't let one person get away with this and not expect an issue when you don't do the same for the next guy just because he paid more to play or has more experience.

I also make this announcement every time I break a table, because I never want to have to enforce this rule. I have had to do it one time and ever since then I have made the announcement.

And to make it clear, TDA rules:

Only the chips that were out of view should be forfeited.

So if you have 500K in racks and 10K in your pocket, only the 10K should be forfeited.

Unless, of course, they determine that something else was going on besides an innocent mistake.

To be fair, how many players do that?

Because I've never done it (not even for the WSOP) I asked around in one of my skype poker groups and not a single person said he ever read the tournament rules for an event that he entered.

Tough luck if something like this happens of course..

Well they do in fact announce this very much when breaking the tables but maybe you had the headphones on each time as well?

I don't have numbers, but "the smart ones" is a close answer.

And then they start threads in B&M whining about problems that they created because they couldn't be bothered to read the rules.

In my book, it's stupidity, not luck.

Right on all three points.

I have the webpages for the TDA rules and NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement's poker regulations bookmarked on my iPad and reference them a few times a year.

The floor who run our tournaments, even our little ones, are very good about telling people moving from table to table that their chips must be in plain view at all times and providing racks.

I even saw the floor give the guy another rack when he had, literally, three chips remaining from filling his rack. Just to make sure all chips were carried in a rack and remained in plain view.

Even if the floor doesn't mention keeping chips in view, I've never played in a tournament (although I've never played in one outside the US, to be fair) that didn't have the "chips must remain visible at all times" rule.

Sucks you learned a lesson the hard way but removing those chips from play was 100% the correct ruling.

At least you admitted this^. You went from normal foreign tourney player (ftp), to knowledge-less ftp, to whiny ftp, to just plain douche bag ftp, and back to somewhat normal ftp with just a little bit of sense of entitlement after this comment. Now. just admit to how stupid all of this was immediately after the disqualification and you can come back full circle with just a few KITN for not knowing this very common rule.

in

+1

Honest mistake, seems like an extreme punishment to not even give him any sort of compensation. I've seen many scummy things go unpunished like talking about a hand while the hand is going on, acting like you threw away a hand that connected with the board, walking away out of turn because you have a bad hand and want to talk to a friend/go to the bathroom. When moving to a new table this seems like a mistake many that don't play live tournaments could easily make.. imo at least give him some sort of tournament ticket to a future event.

Although this was a player mistake and a technically correct decision by the floor, there is another aspect to this situation and the OP's appeal which should be mentioned.
Even if the situation were different and the mistake were the casino's, not the OP's, since the Hard Rock is an Indian tribal casino there would be no steps that could be taken to "not let them get away with it", other than laying at the mercy of the casino management.

In the US, most tribal poker rooms are not regulated by state governments. Usually the only regulatory authority overseeing the operation of the poker rooms is the tribal gaming authority. When you step onto tribal casino property, you are stepping onto sovereign tribal lands. You have no recourse to U.S. courts in most cases. Tribal casinos do fall under the regulatory oversight of the federal National Indian Gaming Commission, but there is no accessible process for individual player grievances.

Even tort liability for severe issues such as loss of life or limb is limited to only what is available under tribal-state compact. In Florida with the Seminoles, the limit is currently $100K per occurrence.

So don't think that following the rules protects you when you play in an Indian poker room. Your only recourse is to the room management or tribal government, and the only leverage you have is public sentiment. Just something to keep in mind - it makes playing poker at tribal venues more of a gamble.