Comments | brec: Fairness: Dead at the Bike

brec

Fairness: Dead at the Bike

Jan 12, 2012 16:05

After the dinner break on Day 2, Weds. Jan. 11, of the WSOPC Main Event at the Bicycle Casino my table was moved to the "feature table," the feature being that it was streamed, including hole cards, to the Bike's "Live at the Bike!" web site. We were told that, despite the "Live" part of the name, the webcast was delayed one hour from real time. ( Read more... )

Comments 8

whipartist January 13 2012, 00:16:51 UTC

I think the key point here is prior notice.

If this was in the tournament rules that were made available to all players, then it's a reasonable condition-- you can agree to it, or not play the tournament. Did they give you the option to unregister once you saw it on the receipt?

brec January 13 2012, 00:21:18 UTC

I'm going to be lazy rather than polite: please review what happened vs. what was on the receipt.

Without confirmation I assume that any player would be able to un-register before the start of the event.

whipartist January 13 2012, 00:25:34 UTC

My apologies-- I did see the discrepancy, but glossed over it in my relatively quick comment. Allow me to clarify.

In general, I think it's reasonable for casinos to put such qualifiers on tournaments, so long as they are known to players in advance, and the players have the opportunity not to participate if they find such requirements to be unpalatable. In this particular case, the requirements weren't all that clearly spelled out ahead of time, and the actual situation was outside the requirement that was on the receipt.

So yes, I agree with you that the casino was completely in the wrong.

vizslas_r00l January 13 2012, 00:32:53 UTC

In addition, there's nothing stopping you from pursuing legal action after the tournament, right?

clutch_c January 13 2012, 02:32:13 UTC

This isn't hard to understand when you consider one pertinent fact:

The casinos absolutely do not care what the players want or what is fair.

tahoemph January 13 2012, 02:34:29 UTC

I appreciate your the analysis of the costs of the change in rules and possible security issues but that seems mostly irrelevant to me.

They choose to change the rules after the game started. That is broken. The fact ya'all had access to the the same information missed the point in such a typical poker room way.

I agree with Patti they probably took the worse of it here. IANAL but by disagreeing I think you keep most of your ability to responding legally open while also taking advantage of your equity at the moment.

My perception from fairly far outside of the tournament world is that tournament vendors see the players as actors and not as competitors.

fich January 13 2012, 02:38:45 UTC

I think you have more of a gripe because they specified it would happen for the final table. That sort of implies that it would happen only at the final table.

rcfox January 13 2012, 04:15:45 UTC

I'm going to take a Devil's Advocate position first, and then hopefully destroy that position.

Why can't the Bike change the rules? I'm certain that buried in the fine print of the advertisement of the tournament series is their usual disclaimer, something like: "The Bike reserves the right to make any changes to the tournament at any time." You were put in no worse a position than anyone else. You could get on your cellphone, call anyone you know, and have them scout the hands. You even state that, noting, "The rejoinder was that there was equality of opportunity among all the players, i.e., that all were free to recruit or employ assistants to provide them with opponents' earlier hole cards."

Now, let me destroy that position.

First, there's the obvious argument, the one you and clutch_c stated: This wasn't part of the terms and conditions of the event. You had played well over several hours, outlasting a good portion of the field, and given a bad choice. You could either accept conditions you were unaware of or be disqualified. ( ( ... )