A tournament meant to celebrate the second year of existence of a Florida poker room has instead become the target of rumors about the staff’s conduct after a huge chip controversy and other incidents that allegedly occurred.

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The Hialeah Park Casino in Miami (pictured) was the spot of a $250 buy-in tournament that featured a $200,000 guaranteed prize pool and a $60,000 payout for the eventual champion. The tournament was to have five Day 1s with two starting flights each day. From August 25 to 29, these ten flights ran, building a prize pool that had never been seen in that particular poker room.

From the beginning, however, something didn’t seem right about the tournament, at least to one poster on the Two Plus Two forums. Poster Bob Bernstein took to the forum for a long inaugural post on the many issues that allegedly plagued the event.

“The structure sheet was not posted online nor was it freely available in the poker room,” Bernstein stated to the readers. “It was posted at the tournament podium where players went to register. This podium was where buy-ins were exchanged instead of the cashier’s cage, which had no sign (for the tournament).”

After Bernstein broke down the distribution of the buy-in money, he stated that rebuys were available and, at the end of nine levels, a final add-on was also offered. With all of this information given to the players, the problems didn’t seem to arrive until the final day of the tournament, Day 2, was held on August 30.

The chip counts were posted prior to the start of the day’s play which stated that the prize pool in the event had cracked the guarantee at $215,002, that 163 players had made it through the ten flights held, and that 90 players would earn a cash from the tournament.

The total number of entries was never released to the players nor was there any information given regarding the number of rebuys or add-ons. Watchful players did the math and found that the total number of chips in the Day 2 lists did not jive with what was posted on the tournament clock in the Hialeah Park poker room, a difference of 696,000 chips.

Bernstein stated that the South Florida Poker Players Association raised a ruckus regarding the situation on Facebook, bringing a shift manager from the Hialeah Park poker room named Daniel Sierra to the social media site to attempt to explain the discrepancies.

After giving some information, Bernstein and others found even more numbers that did not correlate either with the Day 2 chip counts nor the tournament clock at the event. Furthermore, after encouraging people to ask questions, Sierra decided not to air the answers on Facebook and instead suggested people talk to him “in person.”

The accusations of a poorly run tournament continued from Bernstein. Bernstein suggested that floor staff allowed players to be seated with “friends.” In a particularly damning anecdote, it is alleged that players who busted would pay a tournament runner for a new stack, but that no receipt for that rebuy would be passed to the player.

“How easy would it be to skim money this way?” Bernstein asked. Dealers allegedly would keep tournament chips in their wells and color down players rather than have another player at the table do the deed, possibly introducing extra chips into the tournament.

The drama doesn’t end here. Once the tournament popped the money bubble, payouts were done at the same podium where buy-ins were taken rather than at the cashier’s cage. The final table allegedly resulted in a ten-player chop, but there is no information regarding how the tournament concluded or who won, as Hialeah Park did not publish any results.

Bernstein alleged that the manager of the Hialeah Park poker room, Nelson Costa, “hired friends” to staff the floor at Hialeah Park and operates a dealer’s school whose graduates earn jobs in his poker room for a cut of their salaries. Bernstein also alleged that many players in this particular tournament were allowed entry and paid nothing, a freeroll for the player in exchange for a cut of their winnings.

There is healthy debate going on in the thread, with a majority of the commentary against the poker room. There is also talk about getting gaming officials from the state of Florida involved in the proceedings. The situation continues to be very fluctuating and every truth may not be known until the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering investigates the allegations further.

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