Where 2 Million Chips Came From
Finish reading this ASAP and read the trio of articles on Pokernews.com by Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli solving the mystery of the extra two million chips introduced on 3-table day at the Main Event. (Part I, Part II, Part III)
Here is the dumbed-down version of the 8,000+-word series: (1) With 8,773 entries in the Series, there should have been 87,773,000 chips. (2) Going into the final table, there were 90,140,000. (3) Dead stacks probably couldn’t be responsible for more than 50,000 chips of the 2.4 million disparity. (4) Race-offs could not have possibly been responsible for inflating the chip count by more than 85,000 chips. (5) Review of Harrah’s and tournament-reporting records show that 2 million chips were introduced during a 22-minute break in play on 3-table day, August 8. During this period, the $5,000 chips were colored up to $25,000 chips. (6) Harrah’s did the color-up incorrectly, giving double the number of $25,000 chips it should have. “A 5-stack rack of 5k chips should swap for a single stack of 25k chips but,in fact, the color-up was made at a rate of two stacks for one rack.”
This is important, important work by Calistri and Lavalli, the exact opposite of what the leading poker news magazine/website has managed. Perhaps the most important part of the story is that Harrah’s is supposed to, in its response, admit to exactly the scenario the Pokernews.com article described.
I’m going to write more about this later this evening and/or during the weekend. Among the points I want to make:
1. Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli deserve a giant amount of credit for undertaking this difficult, thankless, unrewarding, risky assignment and doing it so well.
2. I have a few criticisms of their presentation, which I want to share. It doesn’t diminish what they have accomplished but I think critical thinking about serious work is a good thing and will lead to more good things.
3. Where was Card Player in all this? That’s a rhetorical question.
4. What will Harrah’s do? What should Harrah’s do? How should we treat Harrah’s as a result of this?
5. What questions remain unanswered?
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September 9th, 2006 at 10:44 am
I saw a link to these articles yesterday and was appalled and the lack of proffessionalism on the part of Harrah\\\’s in the supposed most prestigeous event in history (that in and of itself is BS, as we all know that the HORSE event was/is/ and will be). I am interested to see, who was the benificiary of these errors, the case could be made that the final outcome was skewed and that all those who made the final three tables may have some sort of beef. I also think that the gaming commision should be involved, and I cannot figure out why this investigation was not done by them. I can\\\’t wait to see what the Harrah\\\’s response will be, and I think it is in everyone\\\’s best interest to make them fully accountable.
September 11th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
As a former Harrah’s Total Rewards Diamond Club member I am appalled that 2 million chips were added by Tournament staff.
I have sat at a Black Jack table and seen a security guard bring oout chips to reload dealer’s tray and have to take them all back after count revealed paperwork was $1 off.
Harrah’s collecting $5,260,000 (6%) from the players to run a tournament professionally only to introduce a $2,000,000 mistake needs to be addressed by Harrah’s.
Bottom Line is poker players having put up $10,000 view the tournament chips as money, Harrah’s does not. If final table payouts were based on % of final chips present you could be confident that Harrah’s would tighten up procedures.