Borgata tournament suspended

Hobbes

counterfeit chips were apparently discovered

Live Reporting | Event 1: $2 Million Guarantee Big Stack NLHE Re-Entry | 2014 Borgata Winter Poker Open | Event 1: Play Suspended for 24 Hours | PokerNews

moose

Using these... big mistake

SteveKerr

http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/report-borgata-poker-open-event-1-suspended-due-counterfeit-chips-589135/

Milo

moose;367543 wroteUsing these... big mistake

But, those are official casino weight chips . . . what could go wrong?

BlondeFish

I hope WPT Fallsview will learn from WPT Borgata and implement security procedures next month. If Borgata has good video surveillance, the scumbag cheaters who snuck in one million worth of fake chips should be caught, and jailed just like Russ Hamilton, Ray Bitar,...
Oh, wait!

sn1perb0y

When i played at Montreal-playground, I played the satty for the main event and got a ticket.. The chips used at the satty were the same at the main event.. After the satty was done the chips were all over the tables.. Its easy to take a few 5ks and add them to your chips later at the main event using the exact chips? How can this be avoided?

Hobbes

and now the event is cancelled.

Borgata Cancels $2M Poker Tournament With 27 Left Amid State Investigation Into Counterfeit Chips

wildbill7145

Hobbes;367600 wroteand now the event is cancelled.

Borgata Cancels $2M Poker Tournament With 27 Left Amid State Investigation Into Counterfeit Chips

Interesting that they're saying it's unclear if any players will be getting their buyins refunded. I've never heard of something like this before. Would this be standard to not refund?

djgolfcan

wildbill7145;367603 wroteInteresting that they're saying it's unclear if any players will be getting their buyins refunded. I've never heard of something like this before. Would this be standard to not refund?

How can they keep the buy-in ? The tournament didn't finish or was an unfair contest to begin with. Everyone should get their money back, except, perhaps, the admin charge because dealers, etc.. need to be paid.

Monoxide

wow that pic, the two different 5k chips? what a weird situation lol

one benefit of online poker tournies i guess.

BlondeFish

Monoxide;367606 wrotewow that pic, the two different 5k chips?

Is it the pic below?

Are the orange chips the real 5K chips?

windbreaker

In your post, the there's two different shades of grey/silver for the 5k chips that are pretty distinguishable. Whoever tried to pull it off had balls and little brains.

BlondeFish

windbreaker;367612 wroteIn your post, the there's two different shades of grey/silver for the 5k chips that are pretty distinguishable. Whoever tried to pull it off had balls and little brains.

The real Borgata chips looks really amateurish too. I think moose has better and harder-to-fake 5K chips than Borgata!

sn1perb0y;367569 wroteWhen i played at Montreal-playground, I played the satty for the main event and got a ticket.. The chips used at the satty were the same at the main event.. After the satty was done the chips were all over the tables.. Its easy to take a few 5ks and add them to your chips later at the main event using the exact chips? How can this be avoided?

A standard procedure of a good poker room is to track the number of chips both before and after any tournament. At Fallsview, I have been told that ... nevermind, the less the wanna-be cheaters know about the security procedures that will be implemented at WPT Fallsview after Matt Savage talks to them about best practices, the better.

Well-trained tournament staff can be vigilant about spotting the many ways scumbags will try to cheat in a casino. I believe a savvy player noticed the different looking chip soon after the cheater lost them in a pot and smartly mentioned it to the table, but unfortunately the dealer didn't tell the floor to take a look and possibly notify surveillance before it was too late to confiscate the fake chips from the cheaters' stacks and having to cancel the $2 million event.

BlondeFish

After playing the WPT Fallsview satellites and having a New Year's Eve celebration at Copacabana Brazilian Steakhouse, my "semi-pro" friends told me they were taking a break from the WPT sats. and invited me to drive with them to WPT Borgata. Obviously, I told them, "Are you f***ing nuts with the 30% withholding rape then having to lie to the IRS like RMS if you want to try to get it all back? Why don't you knuckleheads just keep winning your WSOP rings and lucky huge cashes in the withholding-free tourneys like WPT Montreal & WSOP Lac-Leamy?" :D They conceded that they lose part of their big bankroll when they travel to US tournaments.

One of them made it to Day 2 of Borgata, then the "ChipGate" cheating started. I believe Borgata discovered the cheating on Thursday night after adding the total chip counts, which means that Day 3 is corrupted with 27 players left. A fair way of distributing the players' prize pool is by chip counts at the last legitimate chip counts, i.e., the beginning of Day 2. So players that were eliminated in Day 1 would get no money back, then players that made it to Day 2 would get their portion on an ICM-based formula. PartyPoker has lots of crashes, and it uses a non-ICM formula to give players' approximate equity at the time of the crash; PokerStars may use a better formula.

It is a huge public relations disaster to Borgata, especially after spending huge marketing dollars on the new online poker site. They may decide to return the fees to all the players and swallow the huge loss.

Wetts1012

Theres word that theyre ICMing the last 27?

Thats the most absurd thing Ive ever heard if true.

This benefits only the cheater.

Either you ICM after the last legit chip count or you play it out at this point.

wildbill7145

Wetts1012;367621 wroteTheres word that theyre ICMing the last 27?

Thats the most absurd thing Ive ever heard if true.

This benefits only the cheater.

Either you ICM after the last legit chip count or you play it out at this point.

I'd have to agree that an audit of the chips would have to be done, but how do you decide who acquired what chips legitimately and who didn't at this point? How long have the non legit chips been in play? At some point, you'd just have to say run it out or don't.

Is there a precedent in this regard? There must be.

Gottaget

I believe Borgata discovered the cheating on Thursday night after adding the total chip counts, which means that Day 3 is corrupted with 27 players left. A fair way of distributing the players' prize pool is by chip counts at the last legitimate chip counts, i.e., the beginning of Day 2.

I've been keeping up with the thread on 2+2 & this does not seem to be the case. A player reported that a fake chip was discovered and removed from his table during play on day 2. Players have also reported that bagged chips were not verified by tournament staff or dealers so the chip counts aren't reliable either.

This event was held on different levels of the casino at the same time. Tables broke and players were left unattended with their chips as they made their way to a different spot in the casino. Players reported seeing entrants go for bathroom breaks and stop to get into cafeteria lines with their chips in hand.

Such a cluster#@!$!

Theres word that theyre ICMing the last 27?

Nothing official-just speculation -afaik

Another interesting note- Men the Master finished in 28th in this event.

BlondeFish

Gottaget;367647 wrotePlayers have also reported that bagged chips were not verified by tournament staff or dealers so the chip counts aren't reliable either.

Tournament directors will have to improve their procedures now. For example, I always wondered why casinos with regular tournaments never bother to count out each player's chip stacks in the final table to verify that the total number of chips make sense. I've only seen it once in a non-televised tournament when I was covering a tournament at GBH for Canadian Poker Player magazine and I requested a chip count of everybody in the final table; I recorded the numbers and the total made sense.

Tables broke and players were left unattended with their chips as they made their way to a different spot in the casino. Players reported seeing entrants go for bathroom breaks and stop to get into cafeteria lines with their chips in hand.
Such a cluster#@!$!

WTF!? At the WSOP, I had to pay attention to the detailed step-by-step instructions on how to move my chips from one room, then the players were escorted by a couple of floor people to the main room. Luckily for me, I ended up in the ESPN TV table with Phil "Poker Brat" Hellmuth!

If all of the above negligence by Borgata is verified by the gaming commission, then Borgata is responsible for its very expensive screw-up and should do the following:
- Pay out the final 27 who did not cheat (based on their ICM equity if not allowed to play it out),
- Let the other cashers keep the prize they had already collected and hidden away from Borgata :p and
- Refund everybody else including my "knucklehead" friends their entire buy-in back.

JohnnieH

wildbill7145;367622 wroteHow long have the non legit chips been in play?

Casinos have hundreds of cameras. A close examination of the footage would have revealed the culprit.

Milo

"Revealing" and "convicting" can be two different things. Will depend on how good the resolution of these cameras is, and whether or not these scum were stupid enough to do the deed in view of the electronic eyes.