$2 Million Extra Chips At Main Event Final Table |
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Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:49 am GMT by wEbMaStEr
I don't think this has been posted here yet, i looked but couldn't see anything.
Anyhoo, it seems that by the time the WSOP Main Event got down to the final table there were an extra $2 Million chips in play.
From pokernews.com...
It appears that the 2006 WSOP Championship was played with an "officials" fifth down. By the time the final table had been set for the largest poker tournament in history, with $37.8 million of the total $82.6 million prize pool yet to be decided, Harrah's was already aware that the number of chips in play was far greater than the number suggested by the starting field. According to Harrah's records, there were 8,773 paid players in the record field of the 2006 WSOP Championship. The WSOP Championship Event is a one chip per one dollar event. In other words, all players received 10,000 chips at the start of play, resulting in a total starting chip count of 87,730,000. But at the conclusion of the last day of play before the final table, Harrah's own official chip count totaled 90,140,000. Starting two days prior to the final table, there were a number of inquiries made by the poker media relative to the sudden chip increase. Harrah's simply had no answer.
No-one seems to know where these extra chips came from, a number of reasons have been suggested from discrepancies while colouring up (altho Matt Savage himself said this seems unlikely because of the amount involved, and in fact 2002 & 2003's colour ups went to the exact $) To discrepancies while bagging chips at the end of the day. to downright cheatery.
Wherever these extra chips came from one thing is for sure, with such huge paydays involved ($250,000 down to about 50th place?) someone definately got a boost from these extra chips in play.
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Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 8:29 am GMT by mindgame
Sounds like a simple matter of cheating with counterfit chips, although by now this had to have been detected. Harrah's certainly knows how many chips it started with and they should know how many they now have.
I run tourney's from time to time and this is a minor concern of mine. I say minor because it my chips are unusual and it would be hard (but certainly not impossible) to aquire some that are identical or very much like mine.
Still, how does one slip 2.4 million chips into a game? That's not exactly small potatoes. It would be easier to slip a player in, especially with so many tables and so many new faces--and now we are talking inside job. One thing for sure. There is not a player at that level who doesn't know exactly how many chips he ended the day with. If the tourney organizers were inadvertently adding chips to your stack each day someone would have spoken up by now. On that basis alone I would rule out this being an innocent mistake.
Which all goes to underscore my endless refrain. Be careful. Be careful everywhere and all the time. People cheat. It's what people do.
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:21 am GMT by Hurricane Ham
Rigged.
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:36 am GMT by MrDarling
what , you want to tell me that there is no hand history recorded for every hand of this tournament?
Wow ,
Also , it should have been obvious at least when it came down to HU....
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:38 am GMT by mindgame
Well there are some who think I'm paranoid...but I wouldn't go so far as to say rigged. I can't imagine a plausible explanation that rules out cheating, though.
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:03 am GMT by wEbMaStEr
| MrDarling wrote: | what , you want to tell me that there is no hand history recorded for every hand of this tournament?
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I'm 99.9% sure you're making a joke here... but there's still that 0.1% 
| MrDarling wrote: |
Also , it should have been obvious at least when it came down to HU.... |
The point is... it was obvious before the final table started and apparent to many even before that. Still, what they gonna do at that point? re-run the tourney? As far as they are able the tourney organisers will sweep this under the carpet. They wont want to scare away sponsors etc.
But with the cctv coverage, don't be surprised if someone is out digging a fresh hole in the desert 8)
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:09 pm GMT by Ryan231
I was actually thinking of posting something like this the other day.. What if someone took a large denomination chip at night and then got it copied and then came back the next day with like an extra 10 more in their pocket? It wouldn't be hard to just slowly add them to your stack as play progresses thats for sure..
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 1:03 pm GMT by groton
its kinda hard to forge casino chips.
as for the extra chips in the ME
seems they blinded off a few people who the Organizers screwed up and had them listed to play one day but the players were told they were playing anouther day.
that and Color up's make the fiqure for the most part
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 3:56 pm GMT by wEbMaStEr
If players were blinded off they would have been registered so would have been on the official count and there chips would have been in play. I'm not sure I get what you mean? This would be equivelant of 241 ppl removed from the official tally.
Where did you see this? AFAIK there has been no official reason given for the 2.4 million extra chips.
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 4:28 pm GMT by wEbMaStEr
The following is an extract from pokernews (I'll copy/paste rather than hotlinking because they are affiliate laden and that would breach forum rules  ) in which they discuss a hypothesis of what could have happened. They have focussed on the start of day 6 (27 players) as the time when the increase in chips in play took place.
Harah's have stated that they will be conducting investigations.
If the following is the case then someone (or some few) got a great boost to their attempts to win the thing!
Twenty Two Minutes:
Day Seven of the 2006 WSOP Championship began at noon with twenty-seven players. At approximately 1:14 PM, Eric Lynch was eliminated in 24th place. At 1:36 PM, twenty-one remaining players started their first break of the day. We believe, with the supporting data, that the increase in chip count can be attributed to this twenty-two minute period. It was during this time period that the $5K chips were colored up. Day Seven would play on until approximately 2:00 AM, when Fred Goldberg became the final table bubble boy. It would be sometime after that when the official end-of-day chip count confirmed the increase. Here's some of the reported data from Harrah's and Pokerwire from Day Seven that support this claim:
Time Reported
12:00 PM Starting chip count by Harrah/s (27 players) 88,256,000
12:29 PM Chip count by Pokerwire (25 players) 88,011,000
12:33 PM Chip count by Pokerwire (24 players) 88,011,000
1:14 PM Eric Lynch is eliminated in 24th place
1:14 PM Chip count by Pokerwire (23 players) 88,061,000
1:23 PM Rob Roseman is eliminated in 23rd place
1:35 PM Lee Kort is eliminated in 22nd place
1:36 PM First Break
1:36 PM Chip count by Pokerwire (21 players) 90,200,000
2:06 AM End of Day Seven chip count by Harrah's 90,140,000
NOTES:
- The End of Day Five chip count by Harrah's was 87,775,000
- The End of Day Seven chip count was verified by WSOP tournament officials with a physical count at the start of the final table.
- The total chip count reported by ESPN when Jamie Gold and Paul Wasicka started their heads-up play was 90,150,000 chips.
Chip Count Data Discussion:
In our first article we already discussed some of the problems with chip count data accuracy. As Day Seven progressed past the first break, there was a lot of variation in the reported chip count data. Performing a rough mathematical analysis, this variation straddled a mean approaching the 90,000,000 chip mark; well above the day's official starting chip count and approximating the officially verified end-of-day count.
It also should be noted that the 500K increase reflected in the official end of Day Six count didn't raise too many eyebrows, even when compared to the "near perfect" count of at the end of Day Five. The media had become used to the over and under variation of the end-of-day counts, commonly plagued by self-reporting and recording errors. For instance, the official end of Day Four chip count was $86,752,600; almost a million chips too low. But Day Seven's end-of-day chip count, verified before final table play, raised more than eyebrows.
However, on site at the Rio in the tournament room, media did not have the luxury of the careful examination of the multiple tournament reports and chip counts we have analyzed over the past several weeks. Once we had honed in on the critical 22 minutes, then the only other plausible explanation for the huge chip increase became easy to dismiss. Let's dismantle the cheating explanation right now and then we will explain what exactly did happen during those 22 minutes.
Cheating
When playing for a total prize pool of $82 million dollars people are motivated to cheat.
When we heard of the extra chips in the Main Event, we certainly considered cheating by one or more players. Perhaps some of the chips in excess of the two million did make their way into the Main Event via illegal means. But the fact stands that the majority of the excess chips came into the event on Day Seven, which means that most of the chips used during the WSOP could not have been used to contribute to the two million chip increase. Here's why.
The same chips were used in each of the 46 WSOP events this year; the same $25, $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 denomination chips. If you could get your 1500 chips from a $1500 buy-in event off the table and sneak them into the Main Event, those chips would play. However, at the beginning of a 1500 starting chip event you only received $25, $100 and $500 chips. These denominations were simply not in play on Day Seven of the Main Event when the two million extra chips were introduced. The lowest denomination on the tables at that time was the $5,000 chip.
Larger denomination chips did eventually come into play in other events as the result of chip color-ups. However, one has to wonder if you were deep enough in an event and had a big enough stack to actually see a $5K or $10K chip, if you would be willing to pull it out of play from an event where you were either in the money, or very close, in order to have that chip in the Main Event. You'd also have to assume that you would make it deep enough into the Main Event to introduce that larger denomination chip. And, of course, we are not talking about accounting for a single chip but rather hundreds of chips.
So the question is were two hundred $10K chips slipped into the Main Event or were four hundred $5K chips pocketed from other events and reintroduced? A player would have to go very deep in many other events to be able to pilfer two million chips from their stacks without notice. Removing two million chips without detection and those same chips not being missed in the earlier events borders on the realm of the absurd.
Furthermore, those chips would have had to be introduced during the 22 minute window and not be detected. Those final three tables on Day Seven were being filmed by ESPN and watched by dozens of media and hundreds of spectators. Is it really feasible to think someone actually slipped two, three, or four hundred chips onto the table undetected?
What Happened:
What happened in those twenty-two minutes? The color-up and race-off of the $5000 chips occurred at the first break of Day Seven; the period when the chip increase is first detected. We postulate that in that 22 minute period, an inadvertent, but large mistake was made; a two million chip mistake. In those 22 minutes, the $5000 chips were removed from play and a simple case of bad math, working without the safety net of basic accounting procedures, was to blame for the introduction of approximately two million chips into the main event. Day Seven would play on until approximately 2:00 AM. By this time, it was arguably an irreversible error; aided and abetted by hours of play, busted players and aggregated chip stacks.
The Color-Up:
To understand what happened in those 22 minutes, it helps to understand the color-up process as it was being practiced at earlier points in the WSOP Championship event.
Color-up was not one single process. Sometimes it was preformed periodically during play to consolidate the growing chip stacks in the field. For instance, on Day Five, Card Player reported "The tournament staff has just brought out the $25,000 chips and they will now be in play. This isn't an official color up, but they will be periodically switched out for smaller chip denominations."
Most often, color ups were conducted in a period prior to a break, pending a chip race-off as occurred for the color up of the $1000 chips: "The players are taking a 20 minute break following the color up of the yellow $1,000 chips." In pre-race-off color-ups, the tournament floor personnel would go from table to table, exchanging higher denomination chips for an equal value of lower denomination chips. Often times, to facilitate the process, they would ask one or two players to buy up all the lower denomination chips from the other players at the table so that a smaller number of floor transactions had to be made. It was a "rolling" process that could start during play, but could also extend beyond the official period of play.
The Day Seven Color-Up:
By the time Day Seven started, the following denominations chips were in play: $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, $100,000. The race-off for the $5000 chips was scheduled to take place at the first break.
Tournament staff can color-up to any higher denomination chip in play. The prudent decision at this chip-up was to exchange the 5K chips for 25K chips, whenever possible. While 100K chips were in play, the blinds were still below the 100,000 threshold; moving to 30K/60K with a 10K ante after the break. With adequate $10K chips already in play for the blinds and antes, coloring-up to $10K chips would have been inefficient.
A stack (20) of 5K chips equals 100,000, which is exchanged for four 25K chips. A rack of 5K chips equals 500,000 (5 X 20 X 5K), which should be exchanged for twenty 25K chips (a full stack). Here is the critical error. A five stack rack of 5K chips should swap for a single stack of 25K chips but, in fact, the color-up was made at the rate of two stacks for one rack. So anyone with a rack of 5K chips worth 500K in fact got 1 million in chips; a half million more chips than the value they should have received. One player with two racks may have received not 1 million, but 2 million. We believe that an excess of approximately 2 million chips were added at this color-up by incorrectly exchanging the $5,000 chips for double their worth.
Chip Revelations:
While this was an easy enough error to make, it deserves some discussion as to why it wasn't detected. Or if it was detected, why it wasn't identified and rectified.
The color-up and race-up were conducted prior to the break. The clock for the break does not officially start until the color-up is completed, but players often leave the tables to begin their break and are not present during the color-up. If there was consolidation of lower denomination chips among one or two players at a table, the other players might not have felt the need to monitor the completion of the color-up. The majority of players may not have been directly involved with the tournament staff's exchange as they had already been colored-up by another player. Even if a player's stack was specifically involved in a floor transacted color-up, the player may have failed to notice the error. In a color-up, a player's stack is physically reduced; even factoring in the mistake, stacks were being reduced at a ratio of 5 for 2. After hours of play the participants may not have noticed the mistake. And of course, the count is being executed by tournament officials, the very people entrusted with maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the event.
One or more players may have noticed, but not come forward. If so, was it a case where the potential whistle blower worried that they might be the only one penalized for their honesty; reducing their stack while other beneficiaries of the error remained silent? Or could there have been someone that remained silent, knowing the huge edge they were being given in the race for the twelve million dollar first prize? If either case was true, it represents a gross ethical breach. However, there is no written rule that requires a player to report this kind of error to tournament officials. There should be.
We do not know how many, if any, players watched this color-up, nor do we know how many, if any, players saw the mistake being made and did not report it. And because there was no hand for hand reporting at this point and chip counts were sporadic and mostly estimated, we do not know, definitively, who or how many players benefited by the error
Posted Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:57 pm GMT by MasterShake
Hooray! Harrah's f***s up again.
Posted Sun Sep 10, 2006 10:38 am GMT by mindgame
A very plausible explanation of the error.
It is noteworthy that the player at each table who undertook to consolidate for the color-up would have recieved a huge boost to his chances. I don't think it's credible to suggest that this happened at all or most of the last few tables during the (soon to be famous?) "22 minutes" and that no one recieving this bonus noticed his good fortune.
My feeling is that it would take a very rare player to speak up. I wouldn't put it on par with a receiver in football saying "Oh no...no, I didn't make the catch...maybe looked like it, but it was incomplete"--but it would probably be almost as unthinkable. The official blows a call, it's part of the game. That's a sports mentality and I see it creep into poker.
But football calls are never matters of fact...they are judgements by men in the heat of battle, men hoping they get most of them right. Poker tourney officials are charged responsibility for accounting. This is an EXACT science. Ethically it is a different situation.
And the situation does NOT rule out cheating. Such a situation could have been pre-arranged with a few carefully-placed members of the tourney staff. Key "fortunate" players are told in advance to position themselves to excecute the chip buy-up prior to the color-up. I will be the first to say that this is a huge stretch to suggest it was intentional. But it is not enough for the highest profile tourney in poker to be free of cheating--it must be free of even the appearance of cheating.
It bothers me that the tourney staff had to know how many chips they were coloring up. They know how many have been issued in each denomination--that is fundemental accounting. How was it even possible to send out twice as many as needed???? In any casino there are transactions at the tables all the time--all filmed. One of the fundemental ones is called the "fill." Chips are sent out and money is removed. The house knows exactly how many chips it is sending out and two poeple deliver them. They both verify that all the money necessary to "buy" these chips is taken from the dealer.
I'll tell you one thing. If Harrah's had to "buy" all these chips from the winning player--in other words, if they were required to match the purse exactly with the number of chips in play--this WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED. What is happening is that normal and customary casino practice is not being used for the "color-up." They are playing fast and loose in the interest of speeding up the process.
Posted Sun Sep 10, 2006 12:07 pm GMT by MrDarling
Just to point that not all sport are full with cheaters - snooker for example is pretty much a honor game. Where players often will admit to the referee that they made a fault. Admitting that might cost them the game and loads of cash in prize money!
I really can't see a real pro noticing his chip stack change and not reporting - guess you can call my naive !
Posted Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:09 am GMT by Dave B
BTW-casino chips are hard to counterfiet, but tournament chips are usually much more plain looking and MUCH easier to counterfiet. I have not seen WSOP chips, but many tournament chips are just solid colors.
I does not seem like that was the case here.
Posted Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:24 am GMT by JewishPete
I also read something about a junior dealer screwing up on a hand doyle was involved in that resulted in him getting knocked out sooner than he should have.
Don't ask me for details, it was brief and I forget them 
Posted Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:26 pm GMT by wEbMaStEr
If the above is indeed the case then we are only dealing with 3 tables here, surely the cctv will be able to pick out which table it happened on, I assume that it only happened on 1 table? Surely more likely than the same mistake being repeated over the 3 tables left?
It would be interesting to see who got the extra chips, altho i agree that once they were down to final table it would be next to impossible to do anything about it.
Also... If I came back from a break when under the last 27 in the wsop and found an extra 1/2 million chips in my stack... I'm gonna mention it to the floor!
YEAH RIGHT!
Posted Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:52 pm GMT by Sid Lambert
frankly, i came back to my seat after break to find about 400 more chips than i thought i had.....I immediately thought that I had simply either miscounted, or counted, then stole blinds just before break...i don't think it was the chip fairy 
I dunno wut to happened, but I think its hard to believe that chip races accounted for that much of a discrepancy...
Posted Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:08 pm GMT by Dave B
Could it be that someone had a bet on a certain player to win? The odds on each pro was well over 2000:1. If your bet was still in it and you had access to chips, if it was worth $20-40k for a long shot, that is a lot of incentive to help.
I have to think other players would notice if someone all of a sudden had an extra 2 million though.
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