in Vegas for last month and played 10 tourneys at the same casino. Everything has been fine but yesterday something real messed up happened and I'd like feedback from fellow players.

Before I begin A fun fact about me-I am that guy with his cellphone at the table constantly counting my chips so I can calculate exact number of big blinds I have/strategy to play based off stack. In other wards I always know how many chips I have.

$200 buyin with $100 add on option. I buyin and after 8 levels add 20k chips for $100.

We go on a break at level 16 and I have 220k chips 27.5BB.
When play resumes blinds will be at 10k so I will have 20BB.
Currently there are 500, 1k, 5k & 25k chip denominations in play.
During this break they will get rid of the blues.
***I take the one blue chip I have and put it infront of my chips away from rest of my stack. I almost want to repeat that part because once I seperate the chip there getting rid of from the rest there's NO reason to even touch my stack...right?
--------------Go on 15 min break-------------
I come back and look down at 130k chips?!?! 90k less than what I should have.
Floor! I explain to them 90k is missing. I don't have a photo but I show them my calculator, how I point my stack and the history of it which ends at 220k. They say if that's the case it will be in there "color up box" something along those lines. They say to start playing and they'll bring me my chips.:confused
So now I just went from 20bbs to 13 and I'm in the BB/w antes so 11BBs. I go from aggressive 20bb stack to 10bb survival mode.
One hand later the worker that fiddled with my stack returns and gives me 50k and says sorry. I genuinely believe she felt bad but (I'm missing 40k more) they said this is what was in the color up box so its what I get. I protest but am also sensitive about holding the game up so I say whatever with the intention of addressing it later.
Next hand table breaks and oh look were on the bubble and I'm one of the short stacks. I have to go allin 3x on the bubble due to stack size (something that could have been avoided if I had a few more chips)...Long story from rest of game up to final table im in survival mode. I double up 3x off bigger stacks. **40k I lost would have been 320k chips (I got to FT with 400k).
I ended up getting 6th(could have easily bubbled, was short stack almost whole time down to FT).

After the game I went to talk with tournament director, I asked for my add-on ($100 for 20k chips) to be refunded. He countered with $50 dinner at casino. I had been playing since 11am, it was 1am. I took through voucher and $ I cashed for and went home.

Woke up this morning feeling unsettled about it all, amount of equity I lost and frankly feel like they owe me something other than a sorry and dinner voucher. Thoughts

Sucky situation. Are you permitted to watch the color up? If so I’d probably make that regular practice. Probably nothing you can do about it now that you have accepted the voucher except learn to take a photo of your stack at every break or observe the color up. I guess you could have requested surveillance try to determine your stack but who knows if they would do that for a small tournament to determine how many non-value chips you have. Could complain to corporate I guess but that will likely make you persona non grata. I’d probably just let it go at this point.

Also strange they would make you play hands with a potentially incorrect stack, why not just halt restarting the tournament till they check?

Live and learn ?

It was break and I had to use bathroom.

The employee incorrecty changed chips in my stack that *were not part of the color up and in the process decreased my stack significantly.

Serious question: Learn what? Are there reasonable steps we can take to prevent this?

Well, learn not to accept the offer at end of the night if not happy with offer (or at least sleep on it).

You took the offer. You have zero recourse now..

What casino did this happen at?

It is pretty common for dealers/floor people to make change off of a stack for the color up. This is why everywhere that I've seen allows you to stay and witness the color up if you wish. Most players don't though, allotting their time instead to peeing and/or shoving a hotdog down their throat.

As far as making things right with your stack, it should be a pretty easy task for surveillance. It shouldn't really matter that it is a $200 tournament. The floor should recognize that you are sure in your conviction and have surveillance take a look at the transactions that took place during the color up.

In what casino/tourneys? Story sounds a little fishy to me but I'll give you cred when you explain where or at least.... what area? Casino preferably... why not call them out if it happened?

I think it was the 2006 WSOP Main where 2M or so chips were added incorrectly during a color up.

I would look at it philosophically. If you had had the right amount of chips, you might not have played one or more of those "desperation mode" hands that you (obviously) wound up winning. So I think it's a bit of exaggeration to say that the $40K you were shorted would have resulted in $320K more in your final table stack. Being short stacked may have actually helped you. You can't rewind the tape and play it all over again with the stack you were supposed to have, so I would just let it go.

Also...you were lucky to be offered the dinner comp. I had a similar situation happen to me where I wound up bubbling out because of a dealer error (that couldn't be fixed retroactively), the lowest cash was $140, I complained to the floor, and was told (not very politely) to pound sand.

Use that phone to snap a picture of your chips.

Don’t suffer from buyers remorse.

Its true that after 12 hours of play (dead tired) and my initial request being denied (to have my $100 add on/20k chips refunded (I lost 40k chips). I accepted a voucher(there original offer was SOL).

But that doesn't mean I can't bring the issue to a forum of my peers (you guys) where I can get a second opinion about whether the mistake (acknowledged by casino and only semi corrected) has been properly taken care of.

I'm not greedy, only want what I deserve. If the consensus is that if something like this happened to you (put yourself in my shoes) that a dinner voucher settles the issue (losing 41% of chips due to employee changing chips that weren't part of color up and only getting half back) then I'll go there and use said voucher and let it go.

Big question is...how much were those 40k of chips worth and what type of financial compensation should the cardroom provide when they make a mistake like this.

I would kind of like to get a consensus on the issue I present (is matter resolved yes or no) before naming the cardroom.

Its actually kind of sad as prior to this I was going there 3-5 days a week and played 10+mtts there in the last 30 days.

Casino in Las Vegas that has daily/weekly poker tournaments.

I will at some point name them but would like feedback on my question first.

This is why I made this post...The loss of chips not only affected my play, it affected my overall equity in the tournament.

NOTE: The 40k to 320k # I got was by using 3 hands leading up to the end where I doubled up VS bigger stacks AA vs 1010, QQ vs AJ and AK vs AQ. 40k->80k->160k-320k.

The managers response to my addon $ back request said something like "20k chips later in the tournament aren't worth that much" something along those Lines when justifying why he wouldn't give me a partial financial refund.

It was this statement by him that rung in my head and the next day made me think about how Much of a loss I took overall because of the mistake they made.

320k chips(7.1Million in play) would have equated to 4.5% of chips in play, If the prize pool was 45k, how much does that end up being worth...

Everyone gave you very straight forward, direct, and reasonable answers. They need more information to provide further insight. Strange not to provide further information that could further help you get answers you want from people.

This matter is 100% over in terms of anything changing from it. You were probably right and the casino wrong, but its over, outside of maybe another $50 coupon if you shame the casino. Any damages would be too speculative and a lawsuit would cost more in filing fee and 1 hour of an attorneys time than any damages.

You can't and shouldn't engage in hypotheticals. If your stack had been larger (what it was "supposed" to be), you might not have doubled up each time. You might have played the hands differently; so might your opponents.

The value of the lost 40K was simply (the percentage of the total chips in play that amount represented) x (the total prize pool). If you want to pursue this matter further, or if it happens again, this is a simply way to calculate how much you were hurt by the error, and I think you could make a good case for it with management.

Edit: just saw that you provided the total amount of chips in play: 7.1 million. So that 40K was a bit more than 1/2 of one percent of the chips in play. One percent of the prize pool of $45K is $450. Half of that is $225.

So you could legitimately claim, based on that simple calculation of equity, that you were shorted. It would be a mistake to project any better result than you got--no one's going to pay you for that. I would perhaps show this calculation to someone one level above the floorman--maybe the poker room manager. I'd ask for maybe a free entry into the next week's tournament and maybe another dinner comp.

Then I'd let it go.

Thank you, for the most part this is the answer I was looking for.

A method of determining the damage, and what a fair resolution would look like.

Honestly I am trying to look forward rather then ponder on it but yeah just didn't feel right and I didnt know what exactly I should do.

I think I will contact them and give a chance to respond prior to publicly outting them.

Its understandable that mistakes happen, what matters is if there willing to fix it properly or not.

In what casino did that happen?

It's not the first time, it won't be the last time, and the resolution rarely ends up being fair. The truth of the matter is the majority of casinos don't really cater that much to MTT players - MTTs are a way to pull people in for cash games, and to a greater extent, the casino for table games.

You could show up with an MIT peer reviewed dissertation of the equity you had stolen, video of the employee messing up your color up, and the fact would be you'd probably still just end up with that $50 voucher. It doesn't really matter what casino it was at; they don't care that much about finding a fair resolution, and you have little to no recourse if you disagree with their settlement.

Name and shame the venue, also what were you using your phone for? Basic division?
Kind of funny to show them the calculator on your phone with a number on it like that would have any credibility.

It sucks but it happens a lot during color ups. After it happened to me once I now always stay for color up and watch the dealer do the table. Iv caught them on multiple occasions messing up. Usually not by much but enough that I do not trust the dealer/floor on color ups.

Iv also started telling the dealers no when they want to use my chip stack to pay out others. I let them use others stacks. Never had a dealer push the issue yet.

The hypothetical is even more void than op would have played different. If anyone at the table played any different , just folding differently would have shifted at least one card which forever changes every subsequent hand and every decision to be made by everyone changes.