Lold at this. Best post so far imo.

Anyone expecting a statement from TAB is just a huge moron. Hes most likely been advised to say nothing. Especially not to you idiots in news views and horse****. Please stfu and stop clogging the thread.

yea it was really bad. I recognized a woman dealer as she sat down. She was wearing a blue short sleeve shirt, as do all the contracted dealers in just for the BWO. I said "hey I recognize you! you must have dealt me the last Open"..she replies "no this is my first time dealing poker, you must know me from the craps pit". i say "Oh yeaaa!! thats exactly where i know you from"...she was horrible, we all felt bad and helped her along. We might as well pass the deal and cut to the right lol...btw the blue short sleeve shirts vs the brown shirt dealers is like 9:1 blue/brown...all the brown shirts, employees of Borgata, arre down stairs dealing cash games.

Played on day 1b and 1c. This thing was playing just like a turbo and the serious grinders picked up on it quickly. Some of the dealers could not count, had no idea on winning hands and did not know how to shuffle cards. Several times antes were collected and three or four were missing. Some short stacks were getting tilted at the brutal slow pace of the dealers; many times a single orbit of the table wasn't complete in the 30 minute level. Saw a few dealers at or near tears.

Alan, you are brilliant. Well done.

Yeah completely unacceptable at that stage of the tournament. The fact that the tournament was reduced to 16, 30 minute levels on all of day 1 didn't help either.

5 hands if we had one of the fast dealers. Seriously don't create a tourney you are not staffed for and throw makeshift dealers in the mix to just draw people to the casino. I play WSOP and 90% if all the dealers know what they are doing. Some are slow but not anything like this tourney was. Before first break the button orbited maybe 5 times in two hours. Then a 20 mim argument with the floor and our table to get the damn dealer out of the box so nothing happened that level. Just not fair to players to play in situations like this. My first time to borgata and its nice but would never go back to play WPT there at all.

Yeah heard similar stories as well. Totally like a turbo on the first day(that's why I skipped the event which would have been unfathomable to me 18 months or even 1 year ago). Can't really blame the dealers since they were all probably recruited last minute and given very little training. Just an overall sad situation and this is BEFORE the counterfeit chip scandal came to light.

My experience there playing a large number of tournaments is that the other events are usually run much better with the more experienced dealers primarily.

I will be there for the 1k 6 max and main most likely and won't expect to find that problem you guys had for event #1. You know it's funny, 2 years or even 1 year ago that opening event used to be a MUST PLAY and a GREAT VALUE. Now it seems like it is the WORST ONE on the schedule.

Qft

Poker Godz punished the Borgata through karma. they knew they were understaffed and wanted to do a moneygrab by offering a tournament they are not staffed for. they made over a quarter million just in tourney fees, and probably just as much on the same people, rooms, food, cash games, losses in the pits. They knew they will be subjecting the poker players to dealers who never dealt poker EVER before and got punished.

An Announcement Regarding Event 1 From the Borgata
Posted 27 minutes ago

2014 Borgata Winter Poker Open
We have been handed a press release from the Borgata staff regarding Event 1 ($560 NLHE Re-Entry, $2 Million Guarantee), which was suspended yesterday pending an investigation into the suspected use of counterfeit T5000 chips. Below is the text from that announcement:

Borgata announced today that the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has ordered the cancellation of the first event of the Borgata Winter Poker Open due to a pending investigation.

Thus far, investigators have found that one or more tournament entrants improperly introduced a significant number of counterfeit chips into the tournament, gaining an unfair advantage and compromising the integrity of play for the event.

Tom Ballance, President and Chief Operating Officer of Borgata, said "It is extremely unfortunate that the criminal actions of these individuals can have a detrimental impact on more than 4,000 other entrants. We fully understand and regret the disappointment this cancellation causes our valued customers, and we will work diligently with DGE investigators to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. The integrity of our games and the confidence of our players is of the utmost importance to us."

"We thoroughly verified all remaining chips in our inventory, and are confident in moving forward with our tournament schedule as planned and approved by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement."

I really think live tournys would be better played on those PokerPro e-tables. It would improve player experience by giving them a decent number of hands per hour, ans this incident would not happen. And hopefully the state would make the penalty for trying to hack these the same as hacking a slot machine.

To refund everyone in the tournament their money they would have to recoup the money already paid out to players that cashed, no? That could be problematic if it's been spent, etc. Or if there even exists verbiage that they could do such a thing.

So by cancelling it they in effect said it's not playing down to a winner. I would think they would either A) Pay them out based on chip position or B) just have the 27 remaining chop the remaining prize money. But in both instances, for the sake of good business by the Borgata, they should at the very least refund everyone that played the tournament vig. The casino should in no way allow itself to make the amount of money it made off of a tournament that ended the way this did. Not doing so would be terrible PR.

In fact, they should release a statement in the meantime saying something along the lines of "All players that participated in Event 1 have been credited with $60 on their Borgata card which can be redeemed for the same cash value at any cashier window while a resolution is still being found. The Borgata will not stand to profit from its players from an event that was run under inappropriate circumstances." I'd say just put it on the card cuz it would be the fastest/easiest way and people can jsut cash it out at the window when they can.

They should at the very least do that while the investigation is being made. What to do with the prize money is something that would require a lot more in depth analysis.

I don't really have a problem with e-tables per se, but I think there's a reluctance to do anything large scale with them because of the fear of what happens if you run into problems.

If an electronic shuffler breaks down, the dealer switches to a manual shuffle. If you have hundreds of electronic tables and have problems even on only 5% of them, what's the solution? How many back up do you need just to reassure people they won't lose large numbers of hands if a table breaks down?

Just my .02c. I agree with the general consensus wrt any casino running such a huge series that they have to hire people that have no idea what they are doing, which significantly affects anyone at one of those tables. 6-7 hands per down? That's atrocious.

I had a really bad (and obviously inexperienced dealer) at the WSOP ME and even though it was only for that half hour, it irritated me and the rest of the table. I can't imagine having to put up with hours and hours of a rotating circus of incompetence.

Long story short, if you can't maintaing a base level of proficiency, then you shouldn't be running that series. IMO. As a player I know now I'm not going to go out of my way to play a big Borgota series in the future unless I hear they knock off this bull****, which is completely independent of the fake chips.

how would being refunded the vig make anyone feel better? they declared that the tournament is in fact cancelled; ergo, the only feasible option is to refund everyone.

I think they should pay the remaining 27 what 28th place money is and refund everyone who did not cash

Borgata cannot issue REFUNDS. Ultimately there is NOTHING anyone can do about players bringing in fake chips and putting them into play. I bet at almost any tournament at the end of play some chips are missing or new ones are added, and as long as it is not a massive amount like in this case, they just chalk it up to collateral damage.

The prize money has already been paid out to 400+ people. They are never getting it back.

I see the remaining 27 players getting the prize money split via ICM. (which really is the fairest thing to do, UNLESS it is found out that one of the remaining players is suspected of being one of the culprits.

I see borgata offering a massive freeroll tournament and invite all the people that played in this event to play in it as a gesture. Whether right or wrong.

The people who busted in the first few levels or even the first day probably were not affected at all by this. By all accounts these chips were introduced in the later part of the tournament. So refunding everyone just wouldn't make sense, although its borgata and they have a reputation, so MAYBE they will just eat it and move on.

I like the fact that you keep using the word "imbroglio." I love that word.

Nice to have an erudite poster such as yourself contributing here. Classes up the joint.

But him signing each post is more tilting than the value of reading it.

Thanks for the reply. Crazy.

Refunding the vig doesn't make anyone feel better, but it's a good PR move for Borgata to not take a profit from the tournament. How much worse would it look for them if it said and oh by the way the casino made almost a $300,000 profit from the shady tournament that never finished. $60 wouldn't mean anything to the players' pockets, but in terms of Borgata trying to do right by them in some way what else can they do? I'm sure it's not just as simple as refunding people fully because the fact that you have 400+ people that already cashed brings up another question as to what to do with them. I can't believe anyone would expect Borgata to pay out tournament winnings to those that cashed and then issue refunds on top of that. They have a lot to sort out. That's why I'm saying IN THE MEANTIME, just to do something, they should give people the vig back while trying to come up with a solution.

no, Borgata eats it

There will be a class action lawsuit everyone feels bad for borgata for some reason I don't care about them they have so much money making this right is a drop in the hat for them. Pay the 27 out with a chop, refund players you let get cheated.

This was my first major live tournament and something happened during once of the race offs that had me questioning how the tournament was ran

I was talking to a friend that was still playing in the tournament during the first race off and they did the race off at his table, I noticed there was a stack at my friends table with a 25 chip that didn't get raced off, first floor my friend called over kinda just brushed it off and said he would come back and deal with it later because he had more tables to race off, about 5-10 minutes go by friend mentions it to another floor to which he just says "oh ****" and takes the 25 off his stack and just gives him a 100 chip

Obviously the amount is negligible but that seemed kind of ridiculous to me and who knows what other kind of weird stuff like that went down. Is it as ridiculous/badly handled as I think it is or would that be a standard resolution in this case? I think they should have raced that off as it wouldn't have interfered with play as they were still far from the break being over and still racing off other tables

Is there anybody familiar with NJ gambling laws to know exactly what the perpetrators will be charged with and the potential jail time or fines associated with the charges?