A weird situation came up in a tournament this weekend. We are coming into day 2 of a 2 day $1100 event with 12 players remaining, Blinds are starting at T1200/T2400 with a T300 ante. 2 Players are late to the seat draw (Player A and Player B both are regs and are on a first name basis with staff) and the supervisors draw seats for them. Player A gets drawn to seat 8, and player B gets drawn to seat 6 of the same table. Player A should have T43,500 while Player B should have T90,300. Player A shows up as the first hand is being dealt, staff point him to the correct table and he sits down and play begins. Within the first orbit Player A knocks out a player. Player B arrives about 12 hands into the tournament. When he sits down he says "This isn't my stack it is too short." It appears that since both players were known by name the people themselves were in the correct seat but the bags got placed in the incorrect positions.

What as a player would you expect the house to rule.

As the supervisor what is the fairest ruling considering the whole event.

This is a really ugly spot to be at. But we have one thing going for us. Since we just started we know how much each player should have had at when we began.

Now one thing I want to open with is that we can not discount the possibility that Player A sat down and recognized that he had too many chips and deliberately did not say anything about it. And if the staff has any reason to think this player is guilty of that then a different course of action is called for.

I don't think there is any thing we can do that everyone will feel is fair ..... but this is what I think should happen....

(first of all the players will be moved to there correct seats). Player B should get correct starting stack less the blinds and ante's that he would have posted (they should be able to determine this by the button position).

Now the remaining chips belong to Player A as they represent his starting stack plus or minus whatever he has won along the way. Now I know someone will object and say its not fair that Player A gets to keep chips he won with chips that weren;t his .... but this is why I don;t think we should be concerned with adjusting for that. We know he knocked out a player (its not mentioned if he won or lost any other chips in those hands he played so for this part lets just deal with the hand we know he won). But lets suppose that he lost that hand .... we aren't going to give him back the chips he lost, so its only fair that he gets to keep the chips he won .... even if he won more he could have if he had had the proper stack (I would treat him as eliminated if he lost more than his proper stack)


And no ... there is no recourse for the player who was knocked out.

^ Concur.

a. Player A didn't notice his stack doubled overnight?

b. What idiot unbagged the chips and didn't double check? Didn't leave the empty bag for the player to verify when he finally showed up?

^
Concur.
Without doubt the first thing I would do in player A's position is think 'wow no way did I have this many chips' and then recheck the name on the bag immediately.

Pretty poor by player A IMO.

I agree with psandman. That is exactly what should be done. It really sucks and yes its not perfectly fair, but we can't rewind all the hands played. Ridiculously tough spot for the TD, but should never have happened because when those players arrived there should've been some sort of verification.

I think player A had to realize he had more chips than he should, but not sure how we could prove it. Shady shady shady.

The really nasty scenario would be that Player A has lost the chips.....

I'm not really sure where we go if Player A doesn't have enough chips to give to Player B to make him whole.

Suppose that instead of knocking out a player Player A lost T60000.

Now B comes back and is owed T46,800 from Player A .... but Player A only has T30,300.

We can rule that Player A is eliminated. he is going to go through the ceiling but its not really unfair when you consider that he should have noticed that his stack had more than doubled.

But even if we give all of Player A's remaining chips to Player B, Player B is still short T16,500.

I don't think its fair to take it from Player C. After All if Player C had lost he wasn't getting his chips back. And what if they weren't all lost to player C, what if the T60,000 was lost to multiple players over multiple hands?

It's a freeroll for player A. Worst that happens to him is he has to give up chips that were never his.

Tournament staff gets a KITN.

I think this is all pretty much correct if we assume it was a honest mistake. Do any of you experienced players here think A didn't notice his stacked doubled? I am incline to think A noticed and hoped to get away with it. So how do we deal with it when we don't pretend we believe him that he didn't notice his stacked doubled.

Isn't it the players' responsibility to verify their bag/stack? Like it's written in the T&C of the tournament? If so then Player A absolutely doesn't get to freeroll here, even in the unlikely case that he wasn't attempting to get away with it.

I have been around enough players to know that MANY are oblivious to things liek there own stack size. Now knowing the player would give us a better idea of whether or not this player likely did or did not know.

I think if I believe the player knew that he had more chips than he should have and made no effort to correct the problem than in this case I would not allow him to keep any chips that he had won froma player beyond what his actual stack should have been.

So if when he knocked out Player C, Player C had 70,000 (assuming Player A's chip stack was roughly static from hand 1 up till the hand he knocked out Player C on) then in addition to Player B giving Player B his 46,800. I would confiscate from Player A the roughly 26,500 that he had won from Player C above and beyond his 43,500. Those chips would be taken out of play.

I would also likely ban him from playing in the room.

If I am 100% sure he was acting intentionally I would disqualify him .... but before I go that far I want to know that I can articulate to either the casino manager or the gaming agent why it is that I am so positive he was acting with full knowledge of the situation.

Correct is as best possible. Ship B his starting stack. Let A play what's left.


If A goes busto, and can't make B whole, I think I'm good with adding chips to the tourney. B spoke up right away. Should not have a penalty for things outside his control (other than showing up late).


Holding A responsible for not knowing chipstack, if they didn't leave the bag... tough to prove, but the 2nd time I might DQ him.

A question on bagging chips, as I have extremely limited experience in this area
Does the staff actually take and stack the chips before the players get there or is the sealed bag just put in your assigned seat and then the player has to open the bag and verify that its his chips, since your name is on the bag?

When I bagged, the second option was used. When that's the case, i dont see how the player could keep any chips won due to the largerincorrect stack. I'd put it in the same category as protecting your hand. If dealer makes mistake and mucks them you have no recourse since you must protect your hand.

So in this case, I'd say the player failed to protect his chips, if in fact he opened a bag with someone elses name on it. So In a way it doesnt matter if he did it on purpose or not. Even an honest mistake is still a mistake and he shouldnt get a freeroll and be allowed to keep any winnings he accrued as a result of the extra chips,

My assumption was that since the player arrived as the first hand was dealt, the staff had already opened the bag and stacked the chips.

If the player shows up before the start time they open their own bag and stack the chips.
If the player has not arrived to open his bag shortly before the start time, the staff has to do it because they will be posting blinds and and antes from the stack.

Would player A have been able to knock out the player he did, if he'd had the correct stack?

In this case the players arrived after starting so their chips would've been taken out of the bags by staff and stacked for them. They also should've put something with the players name on it and left that with the stack for verification when they arrived.

Just DQ player A and give player B his original stack, lol at not noticing the difference between 40 and 90K. Player A gets 12th place, whoever he knocked out gets 11th, but if the paperwork has already been processed I'm ok with giving him 11th

First of all, how badly run is this tournament? This type of blunder is completely procedural and 100% the fault of the card room. I have been at enough tournament day 2's to know that proper procedure is to break open the bag, take out enough low denomination chips to cover the immediate round of antes and blinds and leave the bag at the table with the rest of the chips in it. Once the player arrives, the dealer gets to see picture ID or player card with name as written on the bag whatever is the card room's MO. Kudos to Foxwoods for getting this right!

Second of all, Player A has to be suspect. It is hard to believe that a player coming into the 2nd day is unaware of the # of chips he has after having written that number on a bag the night before. At the very least I would assume that Player A had a suspicion something was wrong in his favor and said nothing.

As a result of that, as TD I am never letting Player A keep the extra chips he won as a result of having the wrong stack. I would:
1) Stop the tournament clock and halt play at both tables
2) Calculate the chips that player A had at the point in time that started the hand that eliminated the Player in 12th place.
3) Remove 46,800 chips at that point and put them on Player Bs stack.
4) Calculate the number of chips that player A should have had were he all-in on the hand in question.
5) If the eliminated player would still have had chips, I would place that stack back on the table, and I would do everything in my power to find that player and get him back to the tournament. If the player is never found then his chips blind off and he gets whatever extra money he is owed held for him by the card room until he next shows up.
6) I restart the clock.
7) I would consider giving player A a penalty. However, given my own ineptitude as TD, I would probably give no penalty unless Player A admitted to knowing he had too many chips...

If the TD didn't do all of the above, as the player who was eliminated in 12th, I would go to the gaming commission and demand punitive action be taken. Well I would go first to the TD and ask how he was going to compensate me for his mistake. And if I wasn't satisfied then I would go to gaming.

Right? How can there be no recourse for player C? If he had more than 40k but less than 90k then he should never have been eliminated.

This. And if there was no prize money involved, the player who was knocked out should get refunded.

No way player A gets a freeroll.

The refund for the knocked player is a must and A must be DQ. Amazing not seeing u have doubled you'r stack by magic.

Yeah, I'm agreeing with a stiff penalty up to and including DQing player A here. We're not talking about a small amount of chips that may have been overlooked, we're talking about more than 2x what he finished with the previous day.

No scenario where A keeps all these chips. Cannot introduce an extra 50K into a tournament with only two tables remaining.

DQ is tempting but without solid evidence on A, 2-3 round penalty after adjusting stack is more likely.

Busto player is SOL. Accepted action is accepted. Free buffet, maybe.

a. Why did they play down to 12 players? 6-max? Or "ran out of time"?

b. If they "ran out of time" then A might argue:

"We played 12 hours yesterday and finished past 1am. I was tired and my memory isn't that great. So I figured that I must have mis-remembered. I put my faith in the honesty and professionalism of the tournament staff. (and I believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus)"

We don't typically give players the benefit of the doubt. We create stupid rules for things that should be common sense but apparently aren't.

If we're assessing a 1 round penalty to the guy that misreads his hand and checks back the nuts on the river, I can't see how this guys doesn't get a penalty for not knowing his stack wasn't his.