Simon Says "All In"
Simon Rinoldi was all in under the gun for 13,600. He was called by
Gabriel Chuang, and Rinoldi stood up to await his fate. As he stood up and
stepped back from his chair though, the dealer pulled all of the cards into the
muck, including Rinoldi's.
The floor was called over, and eventually the supervisor, Charlie Cresi had
to be summoned. He took a minute to survey the situation before making his
ruling.
"It's definitely a dead hand," he said, indicating that it was impossible
to retrieve the cards from the muck. "In essence, it's the player's
responsibility to protect their cards," he added. The decision was made to save
Rinoldi's tournament life though. Cresi ruled that a minimum raise -- 3,200
chips -- had to be taken out of Rinoldi's stack, and the pot was awarded to
Chuang. Rinoldi was given a 10,200-chip rebate to use in another spot.
Rinoldi was unhappy with the decision, but he very easily could have lost
his whole stack in the incident. "I'm making a ruling in fairness to the game,"
Cresi said. The dealer apologized profusely, though by the rules, Rinoldi was
at-fault for failing to cap his cards to prevent them being prematurely
mucked.
This is at least the third time this has heppend during this World Series--see here and here for the previous stories and associated rants from me. I don't get what players find so difficult or repugnant about using a card cap that they refuse to do it. But tough noogies. They have had ample warning. It's in every rule book, including the standard Tournament Directors Association rules and the WSOP rules. If players haven't bothered to read the rules, or if they know the rule but decide to risk going without a card protector anyway, I have zero sympathy for them. This is especially true if, in addition to leaving your cards uncapped, you step away from the friggin' table! (See here for other similar stories.) As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon!"
Incidentally, this Charlie Cresi made a horrible decision. He was obviously right that Rinoldi's hand was dead, but was absolutely, completely, 100% wrong to give him any chips back. Assuming that Chuang had more chips than Rinoldi did (which is not stated but sort of implied in how the story is told), Rinoldi's entire stack should have been shipped over the Chuang, and Rinoldi shown the door. Thanks for playing. Thanks for the money. Buh-bye.
His chips were in the middle, matched by an opponent, and he had a dead hand. Only a live hand can be awarded the pot or any portion of it. We don't give refunds in poker. Once your chips are in the middle of the table, and that bet has been called, you have to win them to get them back, and you cannot win the hand when your cards are dead in the muck. Period. End of story.
Mr. Cresi's pathetic excuse that he was giving Rinoldi a break "in fairness to the game" is hogwash. It was not fair to Chuang, who was the innocent party here. This decision was just as bad, unfair, arbitrary, and contrary to the rules as if, out of nowhere, Cresi had wandered over to the table between hands and ordered Chuang to give Rinoldi 10,200 chips. Those chips rightly belonged to Chuang the instant Cresi's hand was declared dead. Had I been Chuang, that's a decision I would have appealed all the way to the tournament director.
I'd love to hear Cresi justify his numbers. On what possible grounds, other than "I say so," did he settle on the amount of the refund? This is an all-or-nothing situation. We either award pots (or portions of pots) to players with dead hands, or we don't. If the WSOP staff is deciding, against every rule and tradition of the game, that we do, in fact, award pots to players with dead hands, what basis is there in the rules for deciding on what proportion to give to each player? None whatsoever.
Giving part of a pot to a player with a dead hand is yet another in a growing line of astonishingly bad decisions by WSOP floor staff. I don't know where these people got their training, but they are becoming an ugly reflection on what should be our game's pre-eminent event.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that the cards shoul;d have been turned up at this point anyway, so if the player doesn't decide tro showboat and just tables his hand like he is supposed to, this problem doesn't occur.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the rules for most that play there are just a "Learn as you go" type process. Most players probably have no clue how a lot of rulings should go and perhaps some dealers have no clue as well.
ReplyDeleteHe was probably not going to last much longer anyways with 13,600 in chips.
Pete has a good point. It dosen't say this in the story, but my guess is that he stood up and stepped back right after moving all in, before anybody called. I think that, because so many players do just that. That would explain why it happened as it did. Just a guess, though.
ReplyDeleteI don't get the ruling, either. Rinoldi definitely said, "All-in", which commits his stack to the pot. He was then called. How do you rule that the caller only called a lesser amount than the all-in bet?
ReplyDeleteI could see the ruling in a situation where a player said, "raise" but had not yet stated the amount of the raise, and his hand was somehow killed (though those would be weird circumstances). But here ... color me baffled.