Need a ruling on this...
I'm pretty well versed in basic tourney rules and structures, and I've scoured Robert's Rules for this specific situation, but it is not addressed. What do you do here?
Wednesday night, 22 person live tourney $100 buyin. ($5000 starting stack)
Gord goes all-in for 5,225, and Mike calls. Chips are counted and Mike has 5,250.
Mike wins the pot, Gord is eliminated.
But...when he gets up, Gord finds a grey $500 chip UNDER his chair.
What do you do?
If it's his, he still has 475 back.
(I'll tell you what happened after I hear suggestions)
Wednesday night, 22 person live tourney $100 buyin. ($5000 starting stack)
Gord goes all-in for 5,225, and Mike calls. Chips are counted and Mike has 5,250.
Mike wins the pot, Gord is eliminated.
But...when he gets up, Gord finds a grey $500 chip UNDER his chair.
What do you do?
If it's his, he still has 475 back.
(I'll tell you what happened after I hear suggestions)
Comments
For any chip that is found somewhere other than in a players stack, unless someone can prove that it's their chip, I would call it dead. Regardless of whether the person just busted.
The only exception I would make here is if it was just a $5 fun tourney I would ask the players, and if they ALL agreed, I would let Gord back in the tourney with the 475.
/g2
However, should all players agree to let him have it, to keep the game friendly he should be let back in. But I can't see a $100 22man tourney being that good natured.
Timer was stopped, and the entire table was counted and found to be exactly $500 short.
Does that have any effect at all?
/g2
I'll see if anyone else responds and then post the result.
Talk about Department of Redundancy Department.
/g2
"A player who declares all in and loses the pot, then discovers that one or more chips were hidden, is not entitled to benefit from this. That player is eliminated from the tournament if the opponent had sufficient chips to cover the hidden ones (A rebuy is okay if allowable by the rules of that event). If another deal has not yet started, the director may rule the chips belong to the opponent who won that pot, if that obviously would have happened with the chips out in plain view. If the next deal has started, the discovered chips are removed from the tournament."
/g2
/g2
Ok, for closure on this, I found that rule (after the fact) but like Greg says, it only covers IF you know which stack it came from.
The decision was as follows (keep in mind, I wasn't TD on this one, just a player):
Since it couldn't be proven that the chip WASN'T Gord's, it was considered to be part of his stack and he therefore was NOT eliminated, but instead had 475 chips back. Average stack was approx $12,000 at the time, so it wasn't a HUGE deal.
But I immediately said to the host, "You're going to have a BIG problem on your hands if he makes the money."
Which he didn't....he went out a few hands later, but I just wanted some opinions since I couldn't find a rule that covered it EXACTLY.
Thanks for the input.
/g2
Wanted to post it to see if I was the one who was thinking wrong or not.
oh well...
That's the stuff legends are made of...
"27. All tournament chips must remain visible on the table throughout the event. Chips taken off the table will be removed from the event, and a player doing this may be disqualified."
i guess this rule could be invoked to render the found chip invalid.
Reasoning:
1) Rulings need to be consistent. I am sure that there would have been more of a problem if the chip in question was a 5,000 not a 500. Players are responsible for keeping their chips on the table where everyone can see them. Decisions are made based on stack size. (This is also the reason why high denomination chips must be kept at the forefront).
2) What if that player had won the pot instead? If he stated "All In", would you make the other player put in that many more chips at the end of the hand? I sure hope not.
3) The third factor that needs to be taken into account is the chance for abuse. If we do not make chips off the table null and void then people can put chips in their pocket and wait for their all in then "accidentally" drop the chip on the ground to get back into the game.