Allen, doesn't Matt's tournaments offer 12% ITM, and 5% Advance ?

Both of those don't qualify as "value" ?

I value your opinion (on occasion) from a player's perspective, but in this particular case, I think you're charging the wrong windmill.

Youre not seeing the big picture. Once a player advances, and they are nearing the 5% bubble, he will get the same bonus if he makes day two again with one chip or 200k.

If he makes day two again he will have to forfeit all of his chips.

This creates a huge incentive to smuggle some chips back to advanced stack, or to lose all but a few chips to someone who hasn't advanced already.

You are actually way way more likely to be cheated in a 10k small field where people have massive side bets on winning.

I still like the wsop just saying.

$10k side bets have nothing to do with this.

You never listen to anyone else'sarguments. You are not that smart. I'm saying when people have huge bracelet bets, with small fields, and a lot of people who know each other at the same table there is definitely more of a chance of cheating than in a huge field reentry.

Final 18 today with WPT Champions Club members Kevan Stammen and Alex Lahkov still in.

Follow along at www.WorldPokerTour.com

At the risk of jumping in over my head...

With BSF, you are intentionally putting the very same chips that are at risk of being stolen into the hands of the players that have an incentive to steal them on the day before they first have the opportunity to make use of them. This is what I think Allen means when he says the format incentivizes players to steal.

If this were a valid argument, then no one would ever cheat in a poker tournament. We only need to look at the Borgata fake chip scam to see that's not the case. In addition to that incident, a small casino in Sacramento, CA several years ago caught a player stealing chips in a $35 daily tournament. The guilty party was a 90-year old man. People cheat in tournaments all the time, for that matter whenever money is at stake, and it doesn't matter what's at stake. They do it for the thrill. If you want, I can tell you the story of when we busted a guy cheating in a $0.25/$0.50 NL home game...

The difference is that players have a stronger incentive in a BSF tournament to employ these tactics. I agree with you that re-entry tournaments that force you to forfeit chips have the same issue.

Isn't that what snake oil salesmen told themselves? "People have a choice of whether or not to buy my product, so if it happens to be bad for them, it's their fault for patronizing me." (Please don't construe my snake oil salesman metaphor as an attack on anyone's ethics.)

More revenue for the casino?

Matt, I have a ton of respect for you. I just happen to disagree with you on this issue.

So the concern appears to be that a player who makes day two in one flight, decides to double his/her own entry costs by buying in again (still waiting on Matt to let us know how many players actually decide to do this)... then manages to make it through almost 95% of the flight field a second time... then manages to get on the same table as some buddies in order to chip-dump to them... then manages to manipulate pots and action to actually chip-dump to their specific buddies, but not too much, else they risk missing the day 2 bonus...

or this player decides to risk everything they have already won in this tournament plus the ability to play future events and/or prosecution, in order to sneak some comparatively small number of chips into his/her original qualifying stack.

This is all with in the realm of physical possibility, but do we really need to dedicate so much bandwidth to this concern? It seems so miniscule a risk compared to the other forms of cheating in poker.

Allen is playing a best stack forward tournament tomorrow at the Venetian.

Not a playdown version and no turbo flight and no pay as you go. There are different BSF formats.

Is it me or Allen was against all BSF because of all the points he say that can lead to chip dumping and here he is playing in a BSF format tourney...

Against all bsf. Meeting with Venetian tomorrow to discuss their policy.

Trying to convince new management at aria to drop BSF in upcoming wpt 500.

Will you be meeting with the folks at PH in regards to their "Quantum" tournaments which feature BSF?

Already spoke to chris regarding this.

One possible problem is the $1 million guarantee this year, which needs 2,000 (re-)entries. There will be less re-entries if players have to give up their entire stack by the end of level 8 (300/600+75) just to pay for another shot.

BSF is the 5987th most important problem in poker

the quantum things are a bigger deal

What? No lengthy rants and claims of poker injustice? You spoke to him?

The number of players who took advantage of BSF in the Aria event was quite miniscule, so I agree, BSF is not nearly the biggest problem with some of these new unorthodox tournament formats.

Well put Steve ...

So, now you're quoting yourself... quoting someone else who was referring to you. Talk about a circle-jerk.

Anyhow, since you seem to strongly agree with Steve who strongly agrees with you that BSF provides an "egregious" opening for "collusion and cheating", then I'm expecting you to come out guns-a-blazing and condemn the PH Quantum tourneys which feature BSF.

I keep looking for a series of strongly-worded posts (in circle-jerk format or otherwise) on the PH threads, but there appear to be none to be found. Yet here you are drumming the BSF evil mantra again on the Aria thread.

Strange inconsistency.

i still fail to see there being much opportunity to abuse BSF

you start with 50k, make day two with 500k, decide to play again for reasons, only have like 300k at the end of the day so decide to dump it to someone or something

seems far fetched

The chip-dumping scenario is a non concern, at least in comparison to any other re-entry format. So BSF really has no bearing on that.

According to Allen, there is tremendous risk of a player taking chips from their stack in an earlier flight and bringing them to a later flight and/or giving them to other players.

Given the miniscule number of people who actually take advantage of BSF, and given that being caught chip cheating would result in major punishments, I fail to see this as a huge concern.

My personal feeling is BSF is not worth the hassle, even if only from a few very squeaky wheels, but I don't really care whether it exists or not.

If you advanced with 500k and play again, you have a dilemma at the end of your next flight.

Say you have 200k. You get paid for making day two with 1chip or 150k.

Most of your chips have zero value to you ...


Unless ....

You dump them to someone who hasn't advanced yet ... Or


Smuggle some to your advanced stack.


Common argument is "well so few take advantage of BSF it's a non issue."

If that's true why possibly corrupt your event for these few players?

i'm ok taking that risk if someone with 500k already advancing wants to fire several bullets

seems easy enough to minimize