today in a cardroom (MTT) the player on my right lost a big pot, was on tilt and left. he still had a (very) small stack but decided to leave. The Floor removed his chips and sold that seat to someone on the waiting list. is this procedure correct?
In my humble opinion
1. that player had to be blinded-out ...
2. Chipcount is not correct at the end of the tournament...
Thank you everyone in advance for your answers

I had recently a similar occasion, guy left so fast he didn't see he was left with a few chips. The floor was called, and he just took the chips and wrote it down. In the end prize money is distributed according to when knocked out, not chip amount. Maybe better this way, even if fighting for some dead money would be interesting.

Generally speaking, the stack/seat should be left in play, get dealt hands, and be blinded out.

Did the player say anything while leaving? (i.e. angry rant that they 'won't be coming 'round here no more').

If the floor and/or security has confirmed the player has left the building, AND there is zero chance the small stack makes it into the money, I have no problem with rule 1 being used to disqualify the player and remove stack from play.

Did the player say anything while leaving? (i.e. angry rant that they 'won't be coming 'round here no more').

he left pretty angry but I did not hear anything but him waving bye bye...that's all. As per the floor though, he said, that he will not be back (for this tournament)... Of course the cardroom wanted to sell another seat asap.

If the floor and/or security has confirmed the player has left the building, AND there is zero chance the small stack makes it into the money, I have no problem with rule 1 being used to disqualify the player and remove stack from play.

there actually was zero chance he would have made it into the money. Blinds 300/600 and he had approx 800 in chips left on the table...
nevertheless - it didn't feel right (to me and some others at the table anyway...)

It doesn't matter if he left the building, what if he was going to his car to get his charger. The guy should be blinded out (unless he was just going to the bath room or something and came back). I'm superstitious and would want the hands to play out but that's just me. If it was only a blind or two then I can see them picking him up if there's a list.

He should have been blinded out.

Because he left with chips on the table the player to his right now has an advantage by being the BTN two hands in a row until the guy who left blinds out. By the house removing the chips from the table it affects the player on the right in an unfair way.

Also, there is no way to know if he is coming back or not. It may dawn on him on his way to the parking lot/garage that he has chips left. Or he may think he left something at the table and gone back for it.

On more than one occasion I have seen a player come back after walking away.

One time I won a tournament (well we chopped it 3 ways) after being down to 700 chips. So there is no way the staff should remove his chips. It was a selfish and money based decision which is totally wrong.

In the distant past I've seen the player blinded out.

Here's a sort of funny storey. I remember years ago a situation where the player in the big blind had not yet arrived in his seat for the beginning of the tournament. Action folded to the small blind and small blind looks at his hand, thinks about it for a few seconds and folds. Chips went to the empty seat in the big blind and everyone stayed quiet. A few minutes later (but before the blinds came around again) the player who was in the big blind in the sentence above sits down and checks his stack which was the same size as his original buy in. Most of the table just giggled but eventually what happened was revealed.

In retrospect the funniest thing was this was a limit holdem tournament circa 1989 or so. Limit tournaments could play tight in those days. Around that year I played in one limit holdem at Binion's (not the WSOP) with about a $1000 buy in and was at a table where I didn't see a hand go to the river for the the first eight or so hours. It was a different game back then for sure.

Yeah, this seems like bad form and isn't worth the trouble when the worst case scenario happens of this guy returning before he would have been blinded off.

He should be blinded out but player to his right advantage is a strong argument to pick him up in a tourney.

The only TDA rule that mentions disqualification is rule 71


D is the only one that mentions removing chips from play. Even if it was a penalty that would simply mean blinding people out.

Based on the situation outlined in the OP it looks like rule 30 would apply.


So this would concur with your assessment of what should happen.

What I think may have happened is that the floor interpreted their behavior as “forfeiting”, which is perfectly allowed to happen since theoretically it would pose no benefit in terms of softplaying to anyone colluding.

Generally though the forfeiting can’t be implied, it has to be explicit, and it usually only happens when there is a break with last call for rebuys. I don’t think storming off in anger qualifies someone for disqualification so unless there is some information you omitted like card throwing or extreme profanity or threatening behavior, then I think the floor made a mistake here.

Actually they are lucky that it seems like the guy actually intended to forfeit and leave all his chips because that would have been really annoying to explain to the gaming commission lol

Would say there's some kind of obligation to stay for the losing player until the pot is counted and handed over. Leaving in the middle of the count is kind of provocative. So all in all the player has himself to blame for disrupting the game. If it seems clear he left the game for good in the middle of the count, it strengthens the case to just remove the chips, and not have that a bit weird blinding out, with that great but a bit unrightful advantage for the "pseudo button". And the other MTT tables can't get their hands on the free chips either, not totally right to leave them on one particular table...

Ok but generally a room has to abide by their own rules and can’t make something up on the fly unless there is some gray area situation. Even then abject disqualification is supposed to be a very last resort for highly antisocial, colluding, cheating, abusive, or violent behavior.

I just don’t see the reason to create such a ruling ad hoc when blinding out exists for a reason. Presumably the fact that someone decides they’d rather blind their chip stack out after an all in is no way a premeditated act of collusion, so treating it as such seems like a big judgement call that I personally would advise floors not to make.

Absent any unusual rules, that sounds incorrect (picking up tourney player).

Yes, I agree the player should be blinded out. Sounds like that's gonna happen within a round anyway.

No, I don't think the chip count matters. Might be under the chip color up variance amounts anyway.