The organizers of a nascent poker tour engaged in a practice that, while not necessarily against the rules or an all-out poker crime, was certainly off-putting to many poker players.

The controversy developed over the weekend when a new poster on Two Plus Two wrote the following: “Check Shove Poker is having their inaugural tournament series in Minnesota at Running Aces Harness Park. Their Main Event is a $750 $100K GTD over three starting days. The first two Day 1s drew about 60 players total. As of a few hours ago today, the overlay was nearly $40K. That’s when I noticed Hunter Cichy, owner of the brand, trying to buy up action in his own tournament to try to cover the overlay. Clearly unethical and shady.”

A screen capture of the Tweet in question followed, confirming that Cichy, did, in fact, offer to “buy half of anyone’s action in the $750 CSPT Main Event today at no mark-up.”

This weekend’s stop at the Running Aces was the tour’s first. For such a new tour at relatively small, local casinos, a $750 buy-in tournament with a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool is quite ambitious.

There were three starting flights for the Main Event over the weekend and, as the Two Plus Two poster said, only about 60 people had played in the first two days. CSPT’s website does not have information as to what the buy-in/fee split was of that $750, but pretending it was all buy-in, that means that the event needed 134 players to hit the guarantee and avoid an overlay. If there were a fee, more players would have been needed. Thus, with only about 60 players total in the first two days, it looked very unlikely that the guarantee would be hit.

That’s where Cichy’s offer came into play. He was willing to pay prospective players $375 of their $750 buy-in in exchange for half their winnings. Buying a stake in players is not at all unusual in tournament poker, but it is when you are the tournament’s organizer. Some people in the poker community saw no problem with it; if Cichy (pictured) wanted to risk his money to buy action, that’s his right.

The main problem, though, as several people pointed out, was that Cichy was not really risking his money. As it stood at the time of his offer, Cichy, the owner of CSP, was on the hook for a sizable overlay. He was going to have to put money into the prize pool. Buying 50% stakes in players who had yet to play on Days 1A or 1B was actually reducing the potential overlay while at the same time giving Cichy a chance to win it back if those he staked cashed. The money he would have paid in overlay was simply being shifted to player buy-ins.

In a blog, CSPT Tournament Director Tony Lazar reported that the Main Event’s guarantee was missed by 31 players and that Check Shove Poker covered the overlay. A screenshot posted on Two Plus Two showed a tournament information screen from the venue that read there were 118 entrants, so it does appear that there was a fee taken from the $750 buy-in. It is unknown if any action was bought by CSPT. Lazar did not address the controversy in the blog post.

What do you think of what happened? Should tour organizers be allowed to buy players’ action?

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