If any poker venue can't hold a legitimate tournament the fault is within the venue. No innocent player in this tournament should be penalized for the ineptitude of this poker venue. Let the final players play unless you can prove all 27 had involvement. The longer this fiasco lasts the worse it looks for the Borgata. Don't you have any smart people telling you that eating 3 million is better than losing 30 million over the next 2 years.

meant no offense and gl

But stuff happens man...keep awares imo

People's stacks are likely not legitimate due to a waterfall effect of fake chips moving among stacks. E.g., though the chip leader may be completely innocent, he may have benefited if he knocked out every cheater. Obviously this is extreme, but hopefully you get the idea.

Chopping seems to make the most sense to me. What if they play it out and finisher 27 comes back with a lawsuit after the fact?

thanks for that explanation. so can I have the explanation of how you can equitably adjust the chip chop to account for the waterfall effect of illegitimate stacks? If you chop it, people are getting credit for their stacks anyway. It just makes an unfair situation worse.

And as far as lawsuits go, you can just as easily be sued by someone who was forced to accept a chop

this imo, too much butterfly effecting

and a chop does nothing to solve that

I think they could work toward disqualifying any cheater among the final 27, then do an equal chop or give each player an equal stack and then play it out.

I played in one tourney where there was a lengthy power outage, and after more than an hour we were about to be ordered out of the facility by the fire marshal. They did a 43 way chop. Sucked for the chip leaders, but only thing they could do.

Interesting that the WPT Championship Event (used to be $25K buy-in at Bellagio, will now be a $15K) is moving to Borgata this year. I wonder if that will still happen at Borgata, or is its reputation tarnished forever in the eyes of the WPT?

P.S. Natalie Imbroglio.

Once you know there is a compromise, you're only exacerbating the situation by continuing to play. I have no idea of legal implications, but the casino probably knows a couple of lawyers. If they're taking this line, I assume it's the best option for them from the legal angle.

If you cannot handle the amount of players and as a result you lose control of the situation, you deserve much of the blame, regardless of what some poker players will say.

If the cameras cannot see the actions because of that, then it's an issue.

That said, if the cameras have it and the perp(s) are caught, fair play.

I haven't followed all this closely but isn't it probable that the cheaters didn't make the final 27?

Presumably with 4000 players the 5k chips would have had an impact midway through the tournament but not at the end.

Do we know when they were introduced?

Permit me to raise a point that I don't think has been appreciated.
The Borgata is now not the only sheriff on the case.
The NJDGE will likely have a large role in determining how the Borgata will be allowed to resolve this.

Tsoongi knows cameras !

Also a convention center with 50-100 foot ceilings which has a poker tournament several times a year with players money at risk, is a different situation then a casino floor with 15 foot ceilings with 24/7 table games and casino money at risk.

The economics of providing the equipment that would be required to give "serial level on a note" level of detail, with on demand full replay , over a convention center, and over multi day period is cost prohibitive

Cost prohibitive unless rake percentages went up significantly and possibly cost prohibitive no matter what, so better cameras prob not going to fix this.

Over time this is likely to have "after-shock" effects on tournament poker, as regulators all over the country are going to start looking at their procedures and put rules in place that make it more expensive for casinos to run these events due to increased security regulations.

At a minimum, more expensive, casino grade chips are perhaps going to be required. I have no idea what the solution is but it is not going to be free to poker tournament organizers.

As a player, poker lover, industry participant, this whole thing makes we want to vomit and I hope the people that did this burn in hell several times over. I've played in many events at Borgata (brag: shipped 4th in this event several years ago), May sound weird but sort of compelled to send my condolences to Tab as I know the pain this is causing him.

Tab is one of the very best in the country at what he does and just horribly disgusting that these scumbags tarnished not only tournament poker, but tournament poker at the Borgata.

Split remaining prize pool in half.

Half distributed equally to 27.

Half distributed to 27 by ICM.

If you know him so well it's a tad wrong to call him Tad.

Tadpoles turn into Tabs

This.

What would be the best way to get to the original source of the chips?
Your opinions?
Should someone/s be charged with what, exactly?

borgata should award 1st place winnings to all 27 people left in the tournament. they can afford it and all 27 had a shot at winning 1st place

Good guy...know for a long time...nothing they could do...etc

touché! nice play of words on my brain fart.

I didn't say I know Tab well, I do know who he is, I have met him before and I do know that he is one of the best at what he does and I can only assume this has been a horrible ordeal for him.

Pardon me if someone else already did the math, I didn't see a post about it.
and correct me if my math is wrong, I've been sick for a week....

96240000 total chips from 4812 x 20,000
from Tab Twitter and http://www.pokernews.com/live-report...events/day1bc/

97370000 total in play from http://www.pokernews.com/live-report...ents/chips.htm

1130000 difference.
or 226 5k chips worth.
or 11.3 stacks of 20 5k chips

If staff made an error and gave people 25k starting stacks to 226 people, this would account for the error (saw some saying on twitter or in thread that they started with more than 20k?) (thought this was just rumor, but has it been proven yet?)

Just crunching numbers and waiting for facts.

There were lawyers playing in this tournament.

If anyone comes up with different chips in play (official) or different total entrants (official) let us know.

So, putting on my tin foil hat...

What if these were introduced a while ago in a different tournament? Or, they've been filtered in over the last year or so. Maybe the dealers did mistakingly give out extra chips in THIS tournament. Maybe that explains the difference in counts, but borgata is claiming they were introduced this tournament so they avoid outing themselves for letting this happen in many previous events.

Just a random theory.