Two of the free pass players were at my table and one appeared to give his chips to his friend and went back to playing the cash game. These players had no investment in the chips they received and played that way making it difficult for those of us who had been playing and accumulating chips for 2 hours.
When break was over 20 plus players were pulled from cash games and given free entry into the tournament with the same opportunity to win the tournament as the players who had paid up to $330 to participate in the tournament. No one expected what management did when we started playing after the break and after the entry period was over. There was discussion at the table about how many entries were required to support the 10k purse and whether it would be reduced because of the lack of turnout. As the deadline for entry approach (2 hours into tournament) there were fewer than 60 paid entries with a number of re-entries making up that number. On Monday, 2/14/22 I went to Derby Lane to play in their 6:30 pm poker tournament $165 buy-in with 10k guarantee purse.