I want to clear something up that happened during a hand in a $1,500 no limit tournament. I have heard that some are accusing me of using my influence to get a favorable ruling and/or that I took a shot to win a pot.

I’ll let Pokerati readers decide.

On the river, I bet. My opponent calls, to which I announce, “nothing.” My opponent does not turn over his hand, so I table my jack-high. He looks befuddled, picks up one of his cards so only his next-door player can see it. He does NOT table his hand. Only one player sees his one card, which is a queen and would be a winner. He takes his two cards face down and places them on top of the stub of the deck.

The dealer pushes the pot to me. Two seconds go by and everyone is kind of stunned. One guy at the table mutters “sick call” thinking the guy called and couldn’t beat a jack hi.

The dealer does make a little mistake by not mixing all the cards together to make sure that the hand is unidentifiable. Now my opponent looks puzzled and says, “Wait, I had the winning hand.” Yes he did, but he mucked it. Now he’s saying he should get the pot.

We call floor and tell our stories. The floor asks if the hand is identifiable. We all say yes. He leaves and comes back to the table and says that my opponent gets the pot. So I ask, “When is a hand ‘over’? And are you telling me that a player can muck his hand and then get awarded a pot?” He says, “hold on, I’ll be back.”

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Trying to remember where in town I spotted this one … hard to tell from the distorted reflection on the trunk. Doesn’t look like the Rio … but regardless, have a feeling that if I’m not following this Lexus on Flamingo, I probably am on twitter.

Real question for Nevada DMV: When will we be able to include an @ sign on a personalized plate? Could make a diff for @POK’TI. Please forward to state-gov suggestion box.

I just witnessed something pretty-dern interesting (new to me) … am at Binion’s for the World Tavern Poker Open 9, and saw for the first time instant replay used to help with a difficult floor situation.

WTP is one of the bigger amateur bar-leagues out there, and this is one of their two annual big kahuna championship tourneys. More than 10,000 bar-league players across the country competed for seats in this event, which started with a field of 188 … The top 8 all make the money … with prizes starting at $1,000 WSOP event entries, and $2,500 worth of WSOP dollars for the winner. They were down to 11 players when a dealer error almost seriously fugked things up.

Apparently it was a multi-way all-in, and at some point the dealer took a bunch of chips from one player to pay another … but he scooped in more than he was supposed to, and then mashed them all together. Floor got called over (Binion’s Monday afternoon TD, Alan, the guy in the Aikman jersey) and it was a bit of a nightmare sitch trying to recreate the hand to figure out who had exactly how many chips before and after the hand.

But tournament purity was salvaged when they could simply go to the cameras, and the floor guy could see exactly who had what and when:

They’re at the final table now … with eight plastic champagne glasses awaiting a toast for the money finishers once the bubble bursts … and because of cameras, all can know they did or didn’t get there fairly.

An unsettling tournament rules situation … just in from one of our undercover Pokeratizen investigators playing in the $1,500 NLH … and, of course, it involves texting.

This took place at a table in the Miranda Room, shortly after the first break … a player was re-raised all-in, and he supposedly went into the tank for a good two minutes. During that time, the player with his tournament life on the line reportedly stood up from the table and sent a text. A few seconds after getting a reply, he folded.

Though no one called the floor during the questionable texting, the table did bring it up after the hand, and the dealer apparently said that no, they are not supposed to issue any sort of reprimands for texting-related issues. The assumption around the table was that this dealer simply was a bit clueless … but then when a new dealer came in, the players brought up the same hand and issue, and the new dealer concurred, that yes, they are not supposed to stop any such activity.

I think we all know that this shoulda been a dead hand — sorry dude, your tourney’s over — but with the new dealer echoing the same thing, perhaps there was something misconveyed to the dealers about non-enforcement of original texting rules at the table, exception to the exception obviously being when a player’s in a hand?

We’ll see if we can’t find out more. Obviously you’d hate to boot a player on a rule violation or technicality in a $1,500 Donkament Super-Amazing Intraductory Pokerthon (we’re still workshopping a new name) … but at the same time, to avoid that, you’d think the dealers would need the authority to pipe up and say, “hey you, Mr. Amateur who doesn’t follow these sorts of things on Pokerati, stop that or your hand will be dead!”

The question was: How much can the first person to act come in for in Pot Limit Omaha if the blinds are 5k/10k, and the big blind is all-in for only 5k?

Most seem to believe that in WSOP-branded PLO, a true pot is a true pot, and therefore the answer is 30k. However, according to the decision handed down by TD Steve, it is still 35k, because you count the big blind as complete, lest you wanted to let someone limp for 5k. Most who disagree believd that sure, the minimum should be 10k, but the max would be only 30k. I tracked down the TD in question, and before I had the camera rolling, he acknowledged, “I was wrong.” But he may have just been joking, so I went Bill O’Reilly/local-news ambush journo and forced him to answer the tough question:

An interesting situation came up the other day in a $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha that required floor intervention … (yes, even Harris screws up every once in a while occasionally calls for assistance.)

Blinds were 5k/10k … the big blind was all-in for his last 5k … meaning there was 5k in front of the small blind, 5k in front of the big blind … so the question is: How much can the first player to act bring it in for? Or perhaps more specifically, since we all probably know that the minimum to call is still 10k … How much would “pot” be in this situation?

PokerNews has a pretty cool new(ish) feature on YouTube called “Hand of the Day” — where they get two players to break down a specific tournament situation in a relatively interesting way. In this episode, they talk to Bryan Devonshire and Noah Boeken about an unusual hand in $1,500 Limit Hold’em where the dealer dropped the stub and exposed three cards from the bottom of the deck:

What I’ve been doing while waiting anxiously for Jeffrey Pollack’s next blog post:

Day 1a of the $1,500 almost sold out, as over 2,000 started play. The play was fast and furiousEarlier this evening there was about 400 spots left for Sunday’s day 1b field, giving the appearance that the overall field will top 4,000 (beating the WSOP prelim record by over 800). The tournament went on its dinner break after level 6 about an hour ago; tournament staff decided play will end with either 225 left or 4 more levels whichever comes first. Contrary to what happened yesterday, someone did receive a 1-orbit penalty for CALLING with the nuts (recall yesterday a player checked down a royal flush and only got a warning).

Day 2 of the $10k PL Holdem event is in the hand-for-hand stage as there’s 37 left, with 36 hitting the pay window. Patrik Antonius, Eli Elezra, Phil Laak, Mike Sexton, Mark Newhouse and Dustin Woolf are among those still in the field at the time of posting.

8:20 Edit: Scratch Newhouse from that list, he finishes in 30th.
More from the rest of the Pokerati staff later tonight…

Tom busted out on his first hand of today’s $1,500 NLH event. Here’s how it went down … Donkey Bomber shows up and is looking for his seat. A floor guy directs him to his table — only he sends him in the wrong direction, and when he finally makes it to his seat, turns out he was just a table away when he asked for directions. Oops.

So he arrives having missed the first hand … no biggie, right? Takes his seat and the first two cards he sees are both queens. So he raises … Bill Edler re-raises (to about 1,500 — virtual half-stacks) and Hevad Khan calls. So Tom concludes that there’s no way Hevad has aces or kings — he woulda just shoved — and Edler was just letting Tom know who’s gonna be boss at the table … so Tom goes all-in.

Edler calls (with pocket 5s) and Khan calls (with AK). Edler would end up flopping a 5, and Hevad also paired one of his big-boys … so just like that, Tom is out. But wait, there’s more …

A floor guy had come over to the table to let players know that some of them were in the wrong seats … including Edler and Khan. Hevad woulda had the pocket 5s, and Edler woulda been in the ded big-blind’s stack … something like that. But in general, everything woulda been different.

Kinda funny/ironic … especially since dealers are being extra-cautious about checking IDs.

LAS VEGAS–We all heard the sound and paused for a moment … yep, that had to be what it was. A floorman dropped a rack of chips, right near the rail where spectators were gathered. Tourney officials handled it well, backing up the crowds immediately and authoritatively to secure the area and pick up the little (but very important) round pieces of plastic. It appears they were all yellow 1,000 chips — the smallest value in play right now — so there was little panic. But inside, just for a moment, you could tell the floor briefly feared another chip scandal.

With that said, the current total chip count is off by 5,000, as one orange 5k chip was found on the floor toward the end of Day 2 b and removed from play.

LAS VEGAS–The $50k HORSE event finished up this morning … and FREDDIE DEEB is officially crowned the best all-around poker player in the world for the time being.

You can only presume HARRAH’S OFFICIALS are breathing a sigh of relief — after having pimped the tourney as the biggest deal, it makes a much better story to give the title to an immigrant who came to America to save his family from war and turned to poker as a way to make good while AMERICAN IMMIGRATION BUREAUCRACY futzed around with his ability to earn a living.

Had JOHN HANSEN won, the story would’ve been about a relatively unknown bad-ass from the NEW YORK hardcore poker underground. Less savory.

Speaking of LEGALLY QUESTIONABLE poker players, did you know drug kingpin JIMMY CHAGRA — released from prison earlier this year — played in the SENIORS EVENT?

He was on “Talkin’ Trash” with BRIAN WILSON just a couple days ago. [via Gary Wise on 2+2.]

JEFFREY POLLACK did a little semi-live blogging from the HORSE final table. Maddest props to the Commish — not only for letting us know what he heard from the poker-players town hall, but also for providing his first-ever outbound link. Puts him on a short-list of people who just-might qualify for Pokerati posting privileges some day. We’ll be watching as he continues to cut his Wicked blogging chops.

In the meantime, The Jeffster tells us:

1. There is insufficient play in the middle levels of limit games and too much in the beginning.

2. There are some instances where the color-up process isn’t being handled correctly.

3. The tent is not a comfortable place to play.

4. There needs to be more room between the spectators on the ropes and the players.

5. The next day’s breaking order should be posted when an event ends for the night.

6. We need to improve media access to final tables.

7. The sequestered tables are tough to cover for the media and follow for the fans.

8. Tournament clocks should be more visible.

9. The Amazon Room is too cold.

10. We should continue and better publicize escort service to the parking lot late at night.

Yesterday’s “other” bracelet went to a guy named SAIF AHMAD, who won the $2,000 Limit Hold’em event with relative ease.

View from the rooftop of Pokerati’s VEGAS EDGE bureau:

ERIC ROSENBERG poses an interesting question on his new-ish blog — about why official poker “stats” don’t subtract known tournament buy-ins from “winnings.” The WSOP, of course, has records of every bracelet-bound buy-in … so it could be done. Likewise, they bar-code initial seat cards, so it’s theoretically possible to provide PokerNews or whoever with the basic info on every single player whose chips they try to track.

Maybe next year?

Rosie has also spurred further conversation about BACKING-DEAL DISCLOSURE — specifically as it pertained to BILL CHEN’S WSOP-approved chip-dumping agreement. It’s not about gratuitous rabble-rousing so much as it is about decisions that will affect the future of poker, regardless of what they are.

So the $1,000 7-Stud Hi Lo continues today. Pokerati’s own TOM SCHNEIDER sits down with 4,300 chips. We’ll find out if North Texas pokerer DAMON RAMIREZ is still alive. And DOYLE BRUNSON takes his second stab at bracelet #11 with 10,700 chips. Pokerati fantasy man STEVE WONG also ain’t too far behind.

Follow the 7-Stud Hi Lo action today here.

Today’s other tournament action:

Day 1 of $2,000 No Limit Hold’em
Day 2 of the $5,000 World Championship of Short-handed No-Limit Holde’m.

And the final table for $2,000 Omaha Hi Lo gets underway, with at least one familiar professional face, who will see if he can hold on to the chip lead.

Seat 1- Martin Corpuz, Jr. 292,000
Seat 2- Ming Lee 373,000
Seat 3- Mitch Maples 70,000
Seat 4- Thang Luu 238,000
Seat 5- Jess Robinson 255,000
Seat 6- Frankie O’Dell 318,000
Seat 7- Marcel Luske 427,000
Seat 8- Marvin Ryan 104,000
Seat 9- Stuart Paterson 58,000

While most of you probably know the standard rule differentials between cash and tournament play, it is important to know they vary not only between locations but also within the same room. For example, in the Bellagio 2-5 NL game you are required to turn over your hand when heads up with an all-in player. However, in the 5-10 NL Bellagio game you do not have to expose your hand in this same scenario. Seem strange? According to the Bellagio poker-room floor people, “It’s because 5-10 is a higher limit. The higher the limit, you don’t have to show your hand.”

I don’t pretend to be a know it all, nor have I played one on TV. But there are times when I know that I am right. Like last Saturday night when playing in my favorite monthly (legal, non-raked) tournament in Southwest Houston. I picked up J-10 under the gun. Having an M of 6.5, I moved all in. It folded to the table captain small blind who called. Not feeling insecure about taking Dan Harrington’s suggestion, I flipped over my hand immediately to conserve time. The dealer proceeded to flop and turn before he heard my request to stop dealing so I could see the other player’s hand.

My opponent, angry he had to wait to see the river, said, “I don’t have to show my hand.” Wanting to help better the world, I explained it was a basic tournament rule that all-in players when heads-up had to show their hand. Not to mention I’ve played in this tournament for two years — I have always been asked to flip over my hand in this situation, but this “new” guy informed me the rule did not apply to this particular tournament. ??????

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