The new chip sets were very very bad. The colors are not distinguishable and there was at least 25 misclicks yesterday because of it. Everybody I spoke to couldn't believe how inferior they were to previous seasons.

Hi everyone! Here is my modest contribution to the thread :
Barça is the name of the football (soccer) team. The abbreviated name of the city is usually Barna/BCN. Just a tip if you want to sound knowledgeable and/or stop pissing off locals
Btw I'll be in Barna on the 26th and would to treat some old friends to a beer or two

New clock doesn't show average stack and you have to wait for it to scroll to see places paid and next payout.

Hi,

This event is incredibly busy and there is only so much space for tournaments and we have to take this into consideration when scheduling, however thank you for your feedback, we will discuss internally.

If you win a satellite into an event the ticket is non transferable between players or events.

Thanks

Toby

If u think sats or more tournaments are gonna be a success, then finding/asking for more space seems the way to go. Am i missing something ?

Have a friend looking to buy a room at the arts if someone is selling last minute

They have already set up two tents to play poker in this week, there is no more space

The Stars party last night was great. I think it was the first time Stars invited random girls to one of these, and it really took the party to the next level.

Whoever thought of that idea deserves a promotion.

These chips are terrible. Seriously. I am forced to stop playing in EPT if you don't get better chips. I can not calculate opponents stack. Very annoiyng.

I was playing Day 1A of the EPT Barcelona Main Event.
On level 3 I got a phone call from my wife, that she was in an ambulance heading for the hospital back home in London. After talking to our nanny I realized that I had to take the first flight back home.
At this time I was up to >34.000 chips.
I went to talk to the tournament director if there was anything they could do for me.
When I told them I was going to fly home they said they had to take my chips out of the tournament. And they could not give me a refund.
That did not make any sense to me as there was a small chance of me being able to fly back to play day 2, 2 days later if everything back home was under control.
Instead he decided to take my chips of the table and blind some off every 15min from the tournament director desk.

Reading the chips counts after Day 1A I found out that I had no more chips left.
To me that seems like a quite agressive approach to blinding off my stack.
Shouldnt I be able to leave my chips at the table if I wanted to?
I would have expected to have 10-20k chips left if they blinded it off normally?
Basicly I had the chance to book an early flight back to Barcelona early this morning and play day 2 with my remaining chips, but with my stack being gone its of course not an option.
I have not played much poker the last few years, so I dont know if this is standard procedure now a days, but with my experiences in the past this seems a bit harsh.

Looking forward to hearing your point of views.

Soren

That sounds pretty terrible. Why didn't they just blind your chips off normally?

LOL Spain, terrible ruling. It should be treated the same way as you being in the bathroom, they just take your blinds as they come around.

You definitely should be able to leave your chips on the table. In fact, there is no way that you can be denyed doing this because that is the default if you just got up and left without telling anyone. Even after telling then that you had to leave, you could always say, "nevermind, I'm staying for a while longer" and go back to the table. The only reason for officials to remove chips from play, IMO, is if you are disqualified or are somehow able to get a refund.

In terms of estimating how many chips you would lose by just having your chips on the table, I'd say about 4 orbits worth of blinds and antes (36 hands, nine handed) per 75 minute level.

While it might make sense to take chips off the table so that the dynamics of the play won't be severely affected for the other players, the rate of blindig off seems way too agressive. People frequently take 10-15 min to play one single hand with decisions on multiple streets, so even 4 orbits per level seems high-ish.

Two minutes per hand is a pretty standard generally accepted "average hand length" that is used when adding time back on the clock for some bubble situations. So 75/2= 37.5 hands per level which is actually slightly more than the 36 that I'm assuming to make calculations easier. At 4 orbits per 75 minutes starting in level 4 (100/200/25) and going through level 8 (300/600/75) you get the following: (525+675+1,050+1,200
+1,575)×4 = 20,100. Even if you miss all of level 3 as well, that is only another 1200 chips.

Even if the tournament director takes the chips off the table and assumes an unrealistic 15 minutes per orbit (which it sounds like he did) you should have only lost 25,125 for levels 4-8 (plus another 1500 if you left at the very beginning of level 3). So there was DEFINITELY a mistake/miscalculation made. I think you should be entitled to some kind of compensation.

Perhaps there are different rules for A) Not being there - like the guy who bubbled whatever EPT it was by going on a mission and no one knew where he was. & B) Telling them you are not going to be there

It sort of (might) make sense, but like all rules I guess you have to know what they are to do the most +EV thing - by the sounds of it, just walking away and saying nothing, and checking on your chip count at close of day might have worked out best.

Hi Soren,

First off, our thoughts go out to you and your wife and we hope everything is ok.

In regards to your post, I spoke to the Floor staff this afternoon about the situation and they informed me that you still had chips at the start of today. Your name isn't in the Day 2 seat draw because you weren't technically drawn to a seat for Day 2. They hadn't received any communication from you but were still blinding your stack off at the start of Day 2.

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

Hi Neil.
Thank you for your answer and your concern.
Before I left they asked be for my phone number so they could contact me for updates.
Also I left the "identification slip" with my stack before Leaving.



Cheers
Soren

Out of curiosity, at what rate are they blinding off his stack? It sounds like they are taking out one orbit worth of blinds and antes every 15 minutes. I think that would be far too much.

Also this doesn't really answer my questions.
Where was my stack mentioned on the list of chip counts?
The team knew my situation and my plan excactly so why did they not tell me what number to call to get updates?

terrible decision by the director.

I am trying to think in a possible worse decision than this but I cant find nothing

Hi Soren,

We have had this situation three times I can remember where a player has explained to us they have to leave and might be able to return or left with no possibility of return. Our normal procedure is to remove the stack if they aren't coming back for two reasons. One is the possible unfairness to the players who will have to play all day with a dead stack (there are advantages too) and the other is the security concern of having an unattended stack sit on the table throughout the day of play. We haven't in the past included that player's count in the end of day chip counts, but I have sent an email to our global TD's asking if we want to change that procedure after reading about your confusion on here.

I'm not sure why the Floor asked for your contact information as in these circumstances, the procedure is for the player to get back into contact with us and explain if they will be returning to the event. I apologize if you were given the impression that we were following up instead of expecting you to follow up with us. In all such circumstances we try to leave the responsibility with the player. The situation that causes someone to leave is always very serious and we want to be respectful of situations where someone could have passed away, been severely injured, etc... and we assume the player will contact us if they wish to resume their place in the tournament.

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

Hi Niel.
Thank you for your time
I understand some of your points.
My problem here is that the tournament staff misguided me and because of that, I lost my stack.
I explained my situation 100% saying there was a slight chance that I would fly back and play day 2.
After the day ended, I would always assume my stack to be counted and written into the chip counts. Why was I not informed by the tournament staff that it would be different in this case?
If they told me to call them in case I wanted to go back and play that would have been perfectly fine with me. But they left me with the impression that they would call me and give me an update. With the way they blinded my chips I expected that all my chips were blinded off.
When I mention there is a chance I will be back for day 2 I can’t see why you are just assuming I would get back to you when you don’t tell me to do so.
Also what would have happened if this happened when we were in the money?

Soren, hope your wife is ok.

PS/Floor staff gave the wrong information from what's been said. That's got to count for something! If your staff/floor are not 100% sure of something it's their job to ask the TD for advice/correct information. TD, that responsibility comes down to you running the team!

Oh yeah....Hope you got a good discount on those chip sets, terrible! Love how you use same chip sets for all events, piss easy for people to smuggle them from Cup/300 into a Estrellas/1100 event and so on. What's happening? Wan't to make it easier for the % of field that are willing to cheat?
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...event-1556384/

Over than these things I'm not a hater. This is my 3rd year and I will go come back. Every year this stop gets a bit better but as you know, you can always do better and it's your job to strive for perfection to make this event excel even further for players experiences.

Over and out BCN!