A situation that needs opinions

[pbrannon]

I had a situation at one of my tournaments and I would like to get opinions on how I should have handled it.

At the start of the tournament I give out all the stacks. The greens, blacks and purples equal 20 chips and come out of a chip rack. This equals 3,000. Our tourney starts with 5,000 so I have another rack slot of 20 yellows, where each stack gets 2 yellow chips.

So, I'm handing out the stacks...One stack, 2 yellows....one stack 2 yellows....after handing out 9 stacks, before I hand out the 10th stack, someone calls my name and needs my assistance...I run and take care of that, then come back. I then hand out the 10th stack, but forget to give the 2 yellow chips (which we will discover later).

Play starts...into the 2nd round, seat 10 goes all in and loses...We have rebuys in our tourney, so he rebuys. While giving him the rebuy amount, he thinks about it and says he didn't think he started with the right amount of chips. I count the rebuys I have available in the tray and notice I have 2 extra yellow chips, so this confirms that he didn't have the correct amount.

How should I have proceeded from here? (And then I'll tell how I actually did proceed).

[pokerfish]

What are the parameters for the rebuy? When he's busted he can rebuy but if he had the $1000 TC could he have made the rebuy? Depending, I might have given him the rebuy AND the chips he was owed or just the chips he was owed depending on the answer to the above. Regardless, the last hand is over and done and the chips don't/won't come into play. Interesting scenario and especially good that you keep your chips in a meticulous manner so that you can do an accurate count easily.
Jan Fisher

[Nick C]

That is interesting. I think that I would want to consider the way the last hand played out. Did the player that was short chips go all in on an earlier round? In that case, the player that won the hand might have a complaint that he should have won more chips. If the player that was short went all in, on the last bet, it could be different. The fact that the shortage was recognized as soon as the player purchased his rebuy makes it a little easier to handle. IMO you could give him his rebuy back and give him the chips he was shorted, or add the two yellows to his rebuy. I know it's never quite that easy but, what else would be fair?

[Stuart Murray]

All players are responsible for taking ownership of their starting chips, where a player has not drawn attention to this anomaly I would argue that he is not entitled to receive those chips as the tournament has already commenced and the player has accepted that starting stack he received.

I can see arguments for allowing him to have the T2k, but I think your just opening the door to further issues and angle shots in future.  I would be apologetic but robust that unfortunately he nor the other player have claim to the T2k as they have both acted on the chips that were at the table at the time.

Interestingly this happened to one of my players not that long ago where they thought they had started with an incomplete stack, sometime into the tourney they drew attention to it and felt silly for not checking their starting chips before play commenced.

Regards
Stuart

[Nick C]

I am very curious to see how pbrannon handled this situation. I think that he was certain that he did short that player and he felt obligated to assume some of the blame for shorting him two chips. He admitted that he was distracted. Why should his player be the victim of an honest mistake?

[pbrannon]

What are the parameters for the rebuy?

The parameters of the rebuy are that he can rebuy if he is completely felted.

The way I handled it was that, like someone said before, the hand was over, so I didn't give the remaining 2 chips to the winning player of the last hand (he did have enough to cover this bet, so if the chips were in play, he would have won them). I did not process the rebuy, and gave that player the 2K chips and play continued with that as his remaining stack. It was a split-second decision. The winning player was a little miffed for a second, but all in all, everyone was happy with how it was handled.

Looking back now (before I read the above responses), since I had time to think about it, I think I would have done the following. Since the winning player of the hand had enough to cover the 2k chips, I would have given him the chips, and then allowed the losing player to rebuy. I think what swayed my decision was a comment by the losing player. He said that had he known that he had 2k more chips in play, he would have never made the all in call. Since I know this player, I know this was most likely true, so subconsciously it swayed me. Whether this is right or wrong; I would have probably done this with more time to think.

Don't get me wrong though. I wasn't showing favoritism on purpose....I actually know all the players quite well. The good thing is that our tourney is a pretty tight-knit group of players and friends, so this mistake on my part was taken as just that; a mistake. And play goes on.

[pokerfish]

I would never change the outcome of the previous hand as it all would have played differently had the chips been known. The felted player... had he won the hand would you have made the other guy give him $2k? I think the hand is over and stands and since you had to be felted to rebuy the exact amount he was shorted, he deserves those chips gratis.
Jan Fisher

[Nick C]

I think you handled it well. I like what Jan said about the outcome of the hand, if the other player (all-in) had won. I think that would silence the winner, if he felt that he was entitled to the 2k. Whenever a mistake is made, there will be players that might question the decision of the floor. In this case, because it was an honest mistake, the players accepted your fair ruling. My guess is, you learned a valuable lesson and it won't happen again.

If the players were happy, you did it right.

[pbrannon]

Thanks to all the responses...I love this site, as I learn something new all the time.
You don't really think about how many different weird situations can arise until you start hearing all them.

Paul

[Oddvark]

My main concern with the situation described is the appearance of impropriety.  If I were a player in a tournament where another player lost all his chips, and the TD came over and gave him more chips, I would really question the fairness of the tournament.  And it wouldn't help if the TD knew and trusted the player who was claiming to have been short-changed in their initial stack; in fact, it would seem even more like there was favoritism going on.

So I'd have to agree with Stuart, and hold the players responsible for checking their stacks.  If a discrepancy were found within the first several hands before the complaining player had been involved in any hands, then it would be fine to correct any mistake.  At a minimum, you should be able to check the number of chips in play at that table to confirm a shortfall.  If any players had already rebought or there had been any balancing/breaking of tables, then in my opinion it would be too late to correct any mistakes in the initial stacks.  By the time the complaining player had lost all his chips, it would definitely be too late.

If you are sure that you shortchanged a player, but the discrepancy was not noticed right away, and you want to do something to make up for your mistake, rather than give the player more chips, I think an appropriate solution would be to give the player a partial (or full) refund of his buy-in -- making sure that the refund comes out of the house's money and definitely NOT out of the prize pool.