Just talking letter of the law, it seems that @flynnibus interpretation is legit. Players agreeing on a pot chop is a collaboration by players to affect the outcome of the competition. (For most competitions, the prize schedule is an integral part of the rules of the competition, and really the headline… realistically, I think most players, when considering to attend a competition, will look at cost of entry and prize pool.)
If TD’s at an event know that such collaboration is going on, they should at least yellow-card the players, according to this rule. Or simply remove this rule from the ruleset that’s in force at the event.
At the Ultrapin tournament back in 2006? 2007? the only prize was a NIB Ultrapin machine . . . valued at about $8000. There were no other prizes.
The top 8 finalists that qualified all agreed to split the prize evenly, not realizing the winner ended up having to deal with the logistics of actually selling the machine.
All I know is that as a TD I handed $600 to Bowen, and I handed the key to the game to Zach.
Everything that happens after that is none of my business.
In reality it’s up to the TD to decide what to do if they hear about a split before the tournament ends. Do you DQ both players and donate the winnings to charity?
As a TD I obviously don’t have any issues with this, so I’ll defer to any other TD’s that actually care.
Who knows. There’s a ton of variables at play. Is the final 4 made up of all 4 players that you’ve known for 20 years? Is the final 4 made up of one “elite” player and three “B-level” players?
PAPA has had the same prize pool for a while, and I was involved in a split for PAPA11, a split for PAPA14, but no split for PAPA17. YMMV on this depending on the situation.
So I’ll just repeat my earlier suggestion: delete the referenced rule from the event’s ruleset. And/or strike it from the PAPA/IFPA rules. Problem solved.
I read that verbiage as players unfairly affecting the outcome of the competition as doing something ‘shady’ to determine who actually wins the event.
This is where outside money could influence something like this happening where you have a player throwing the match.
Using my discretion on a TD, I felt that both Zach and Bowen in this case were absolutely trying their best to win the event, their interest in winning the event was extremely high and that the outcome of the competition wasn’t impacted.
I don’t agree with this assertion at all, Joe. When players agree to split the pot, they are not attempting to affect the outcome of the competition at all. They are merely attempting to affect the value of the outcome of the competition, and those are two entirely different things!
My suggestion is I don’t find pot chopping relevant to the verbiage regarding the attempt to impact the outcome of the competition. What Lefkoff posted I agree with.
If I heard about Bowen saying he would offer $10,000 to Zach to throw the match because he bet $50,000 on Zach to win . . . then I would have a problem (unless of course Bowen cut me in for $10,000 as well, we were in Chicago after all)
16.4: Interference, Collusion, Cheating: Eliminated the final paragraph in this section referencing any prize money splits between players. Even if all players desire a split, PAPA will only write checks in the amounts appropriate for each finishing position. PAPA does not endorse private money-splits between players.
That’s pretty sketchy IMHO. The rules of the Tilt-a-Whirl tournament say that the winner receives a trophy and $5,000, and the 2nd place finisher receives a plaque and $1,000. We’re talking about the players just deciding on their own to override the published rules of the tournament and say “yeah, no, the tournament we want to play has the winner receiving a trophy and $3,000, and the 2nd place finisher receiving a plaque and $3,000.”
Using the same logic, the players could presumably agree amongst themselves that, say, bang-backs are legal.
Of course it’s true that once players are handed money, they can keep it or give it away or use it to light cigars… but as @pinwizj likes to say, “Make it look good”… which would presumably at least mean not having the split be out in the open during the event.
