Poker News

A fantastic article (all three parts). You are to be commended for releasing this. It is important to uphold the integrity of our game and this should go a long way to assist in that.

great writing. you spent a lot of time and effort . i really enjoyed reading it.

is there anyway of knowing which player benefited from the 2 mill oversight?

Bravo!

Amy & Tim - outstanding journalism. You've renewed my faith in true hard-hitting reporting.

PokerNews - thanks for your courage in publishing it.

Great job guys. Very informative and you deserve a HUGE pat on the back for your efforts on this one.

Very enjoyable read indeed. Thank you.

HUX

Very well done job my fellow writers and friends!

A thoroughly well done and researched job...you obviously worked very hard on this and I am proud of your efforts!

EB

Something to PONDER:

Isn't it AMAZING that IF players were given 2 million in chips too many at
the World Series Main Event, NOT ONE PLAYER brought it to the attention of
the "house".

Exchange mistakes happen all the time in poker, including at the "cage",
involving cash.

Humans make mistakes.

It is one thing to "blame" Harrahs for the possible "exchange problem" and
inaccurate way of keeping track of chips - but to ignore the fact that NOT
ONE PLAYER spoke up about the "inaccurate exchange rate", if it happened,
raises some serious questions about honesty and morals about poker players -
especially if millions of dollars were at stake.

I think if the inaccurate exchange happened, that not one player spoke up,
shows that basically POKER PLAYERS ARE DISHONEST and a serious morals
problem with poker.

Something to ponder!

Montana Mike

The four players in question could be inexperienced enough to not know what their chip count was. I agree that if they did know, maybe they should have said something, but there is a good chance they didn't even realize.

I like to think that I am a moral and ethical person, but if I was in this situation I cannot say with certainty that I would alert the floor, unless I thought someone else got more than me.

Poker is about exploiting edges, but on the other hand the integrity of the game is of paramount importance. It's not the players fault - it is up to the Tournament Directors to uphold the integrity of the game. All that should be on the players mind is how to win the tournament.

I don't think we will ever know who the players were, unless they speak up themselves.

It's probably easy to see from the security video who counted their chips before and after the exchange. Seeing the players do that shouldn't be hard to detect on the video.

I'm all for giving everyone who fesses up amnesty on this, but they have to step forward and say, "I was scared. I was weak. I wasn't honest." Then, AT LEAST, future players will know it's not okay.

I wonder if they did the chip exchange wrong IN THE OTHER DIRECTION how many players would have noticed and brought it to the attention of the floor? I assume all or nearly all.



Montana Mike

True, but I don't think Harrah's will ever come forward with evidence to prove how they messed up. Maybe any gaming commission enquiry will force them though.

This was an excellent article.....A well written and informative piece....

There are only two things that I STRONGLY DISAGREE with about the likely chip color-up mistake.

First, is the assumption that it was a mistake by the floor staff that did the chip color-up....

Isnt it possible that it wasnt a mistake by the floorperson and that the floorperson was working with one of the players to help give that player an advantage?....

I mean perhaps a specific player made it a point to be the table captain and collect all the lower denomination chips from the other players. All of us poker players that have played in tounaments know that its easier for one player to collect all the chips and then only that player has to color up with the floorperson....We all know this saves alot of time.

So, if this table captain does this and makes a deal with the floorperson, then this player can get an extra $2 million in chips and if they get caught all the floorperson has to do is say it was an "honest" mistake. I mean its so easy to dismiss as an honest mistake and there is very little chance of getting caught. I'd say its VERY VERY tempting for a player and the floorperson doing the chip color-up to cheat. There is $12 million at stake with almost no chance of getting caught. Since its easily dismissed as an honest mistake if someone sees it.

Secondly, if it was an honest mistake and the player and floorperson werent cheating together then I strongly disagree that the player or players that received the extra chips where unaware of the mistake.

All of us that have been in a similar position during chip color-ups KNOW EXACTLY how many chips we have to color-up and we KNOW EXACTLY how many chips we get back in return. Even if we go on a 20 minute break and leave before the color-up we obsessively count what we leave behind to get colored-up and as soon as we get back we obsessively count how many larger chips we received to be sure we got the right amount of chips back.

So, there is no way the benefitting player or players didnt know they received an extra $1-2 million in chips. NO WAY!!!! Not when there is $12 million on the line. You wouldnt be able to prove in a court of law that the player actually knew, but the court of public opinion is all that matters at this point. The poker community deserved to know who benefitted and deserves to hear this player or players response.

I would think the the security tapes wouldve caught the player or players that benefitted. When the mistake happened it was under alot of scrutiny and was taped, so it shouldnt have been hard to find out who received the extra $2 million in chips.

If this tape shows the player or players that benefitted with the extra $1-2 million and the floorperson that made this mistake then we could investigate it further to see if there is any connection between the parties involved. This could possibly help us find out if it was an honest mistake or not.

There maybe a lot more to this story. Like all investigative journalism you have to start somewhere and then continue to push forward to find out the truth.

This article is a great start, but now we need someone else with the resources to pick up the ball and to continue moving forward with the investigation.

Sincerely,

TC

Considering that you have Jamie Gold (being sued for half his winnings) and Richard Lee (being investigated for gambling crimes in San Antonio) you have to consider that if either of those guys got more chips than they were supposed to, then I'm sure neither of these two players would have said anything. And they were at the final table.
Maybe they were able to get to the final table BECAUSE of the extra chips.
If they were 'table captions', then the crooks are guarding the hen house!

The WSOP main event chip discrepancy highlights the fact that we need uniform standards in the tournament poker industry to prevent this type of error. The integrity of tournaments should be priority number one. The World Poker Asociation will address these standards through committees and input from the membership. Individuals and organizations need to join the WPA to participate in the process of protecting the future of our great sport.

Jesse Jones
Founder
World Poker Association

As one who has been a dealer at the WSOP for many years, let me share something with you about this year's crop of floor people. They were, basically, inept for a large part of their responsibilities. It does'nt really surprise me much that the chip count went up quite a bit after a color up. I personally had to correct several floor people during the several weeks of the preliminary tournaments in this same reagard. They made many many mistakes coloring up that resulted in players nearly benefitting (or, perhaps, actually benefitting). When someone DOES benefit as a result of ONE of those kinds of mistakes, do you think it would be normal that the person benefitting is going to say something? Certainly they WOULD say something if they were were made to lose chips. Nuff said.

Thank you, Amy and Tim, for bringing this hugely important issue to the surface again. A few weeks have passed since the WSOP and it's important that people not forget about what occurred during poker's most important event. We may never find out whether your hypothesis is correct, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that people remember. Here's hoping enough pressure can be put on Jeffrey Pollack and other important people in the WSOP for a public statement to come out about this - and more importantly, ensure that it doesn't happen again.

I've just finished blogging about your post on my own blog at: http://terrencechan.livejournal.com/