Brazilian Poker Pro Rafael Caiaffa Disqualified from LAPT Tournament for Chip Violation

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A strange scandal broke out at the BSOP Millions tournament, which was held as part of the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT). Brazilian poker pro Rafael Caiaffa has been disqualified from the tournament after being accused of adding chips to his stack. But the situation is not unambiguous.

The fact is that due to a mistake by the organizers, Kaiaffa, like some other players, received two starting stacks at once after joining the tournament in late registration. That is, after registering for the tournament, Caiaffa first received one stack of 100,000 chips from the floor, and then, when he took his seat at the table, received a second stack of 100,000 from the dealer. All the other grinders who also mistakenly received the second stack informed their dealer or room employee of the mistake and returned one of the two stacks, but Caiaffa did not. Instead, he quickly hid his extra chips.

After his initial starting stack was down to 10,000, he was transferred to a new table and it was at this point that he decided to "add" another 100,000 chips to the stack. Unfortunately for him, the other participants noticed that Kaiaffa suddenly started playing with a large stack and reported it to the tournament director.

This is how BSOP director Devanir Campos commented the situation:

"The player violated some clauses of our rules and because of that he incurred the sanctions. Tournament management has determined that the violation was serious enough to immediately disqualify him from competition and preemptively and temporarily suspend him from participating in any following tournament. Following the conclusion of the competition, our internal committee will meet to determine the type and duration of suspension that the player will incur and whether it will be temporary or permanent."