As I thought might happen, the PokerNews live blogger coverage of the World Series of Poker is going to provide fodder for rants.
Here's the first interesting rules-related situation I've read about so far. This happened in an Omaha/8 event:
Over at Justin Phillips' table, there was a pot involving Phillips and two
other players. One of the players was all in and at the showdown when all three
players revealed their holdings, the all-in player noticed he had five cards
instead of four. The floor was called over to the table and the ruling was that
the five-card hand was a dead hand. Because he hand was declared dead, the
player was eliminated. Phillips and the third player in the hand then chopped up
the pot.
This was unquestionably the correct ruling. One of a player's obligations is to make sure that he has the correct number of cards. If you get too few or too many down cards, you must notify the dealer immediately. Any money you put into the pot with a dead hand (which is what you have with the wrong number of cards) will stay there, but you are not eligible to win it back.
How can you not notice having five cards instead of four--especially when you're putting all of your chips into the pot??? That has got to be just about the most pathetic possible way to be knocked out of a tournament.
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2 comments:
Question on this: Did Phillips and the 3rd player win their portion of the pot, or did they just split it due to the dead hand being ruled improper. In other words, did Phillips and the 3rd player win their halves of the pot due to their hands or due to the "error"?
The PokerNews story doesn't say. But the usual ruling would be that their cards speak and the pot is awarded based on who won, with the dead hand simply disregarded. Presumably, then, between Phillips and the remaining player, one had the best high and one had the best low.
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