[toysteel]

This Wednesday was my first tournament entry at star city and I was shocked at the cheating that I saw but also how blatant it was.

1. I arrived late to the tournament after it started and stood in line to register for the tournament as an alternate, there was a line about 10 deep, a young asian guy lined up behind me. An older white person who was already playing at the tournament left his table and walked up to young asian guy and said to him "Do you want the chips now?", the young asian guy appeared to be discreet while saying "Nah, later."

Both players are star city regulars whom anyone playing there on a regular basis will know by name or face.

2. I get to my table and proceed to play in the tournament, at the last level before the first break, 150/300 from memory, another star city regular, came to the table, what was striking about him is that he had no smaller denomination chips other than $500, and $1000, his stack was around $6000, in a pot just before the break, he proceeded to make a ridiculous bluff with half his stack which proceeded to fail, and he was left with $3000 in chips. He was involved in no further pots until the break, immediately after arriving back from break, I noticed that his chip stack had now magically grown and is suddenly around $8000, again, all 500 and 1000 denomination chips. I don't know how many other people noticed this at the table, I suspect given the caliber of play that noone pays much attention to anything other than the cards.

So this is my observations from my FIRST tournament at starcity, and it seems to me that cheating is RAMPANT at this tournament. It seems to be quite easy to do, all you have to do is skim a few chips from your stack when you get deep into the tournament, a few $1000 chips won't matter if your average stack is $50000, and then you can put those chips back in play earlier in the next tournament to give yourself a better chance. It seems to me that there is quite a few syndicates who do this and then share the chips amongst themselves.

In terms of EV, I don't think it matters that much since most of the play I saw there was atrocious, but I don't think I will play the tournaments at star city again given that I will be on tilt knowing that I am playing at a tournament with rampant cheating.