I am going to take one more chance to give my opinion using TDA rules on the recent hand that everyone is talking about from Maurice Hawkins recent win.
You can see in the video, the third place finisher Divyam Satyarthi should have won the pot with a flush but misread the hand, along with the dealer misreading the hand and awarding the pot to Maurice. Many people have opinions that have been given about what went wrong and what should happen, but here are the rules already written pertaining to the situation found at PokerTDA.com.
There is a phrase in poker called “cards speak” which has been around long before the TDA was founded in 2001. It creates protection for a player to win called pots by tabling your cards face up and can be found as TDA rule #12.
The cards were face up and so “cards speak” and anyone pointing out the error is NOT influencing action. To me, anyone means the winning player, the losing player, another player in the tournament, a tournament director/floorpeople, spectator, poker media, live stream operator, or anyone who would speak up!
I will propose to change in TDA rule #12 from “any player in the hand or not” to “anyone, in the hand or not” at the next TDA Summit.
I’d also like to reinforce the procedure of dealers pushing up the cards of the winning hand before killing the losing hand. Unfortunately, this whole social media kerfuffle turned into me vs poker media as journalists have always been taught not to get involved, but I prefer that the pot go to the best poker hand in a called pot no matter what. I want to reiterate that work with and have the utmost respect for poker media and the job they do, but disagree with their opinion that they shouldn’t get involved. Ideally, if both the players and dealer miss the winning hand, there is a floorperson/TD watching, but if not, I want anyone to see the mistake speak up.
What did come from the TDA is what I call “all-in protection” which simply means when you are heads up, all-in, and called the cards go face up before the hand is over which includes preflop, on the flop, on the turn, or the river. In addition, a dealer cannot kill a properly tabled hand that is obviously the winner.
Even though Divyam said “I thought I won,” I believe he thought his pair was best, not seeing the flush. If he thought he had a flush then he would have and should have protested more. While this was a dealer mistake, the ultimate responsibility lies on the player to speak up and make a claim to the pot, once he didn’t do that and walked away from the table, and significant action happened on later hands, all future claims are void.
If anyone sees the winning hand killed, TDA rule #14 protects the player to get the hand back and claim the pot.
So as you can see, the TDA has protections in place so that situations like this don’t happen and players are protected, but even with the rules, mistakes can and will happen. Hopefully some good will come of this situation and player will pay more attention, dealers will slow down and push up the winning cards on the board, TD’s and floorpeople will be present at final tables when the most money is at stake, or anyone with a view of the table will speak up so the rightful winner will collect the pot.
You can reach me through X at @SavagePoker, and I am happy to answer all tournament poker questions.
