I noticed an overwhelming number of people reading my last blog and they had many questions regarding the unbelievably bizarre ruling by the WSOP from my friend who nearly went bust in a hand vs. a player NOT even in the event. So I thought I would post a follow up to expand on my story. My friend John Mcclain (who I am co-backing for the WSOP events) sat down at a $1,500 WSOP Nl holdem event earlier in the series. A man sat next to him and showed his ID and registration ticket to the dealer who then handed him a stack of chips. My friend got involved in a reasonably sized pot that he lost to the man next to him. That man then said, “Isn’t this great that we only have 5 people at the table for a shoot out event?” John then said, “This ain’t a shoot out.” They called the floor and the guy thought the event was on one day when in fact it was on the next day and he sat at the table that was apparently assigned to him for the next day’s event. No one caught the error when he sat down at the table and the man played the event thinking he was in the right event.
The floor talked about it and ruled that the man’s chips would be removed and he was told that he showed up on the wrong day. So no harm no foul, unless you are John. John then said, “Uh, we’ve got a problem here. Is it possible that I can lose a chunk of my starting stack to a person NOT EVEN IN THE TOURNAMENT?” The floor talked it over and came back to him saying that he “lost his chips in good faith” to the man. Yeah that is no joke. They really said he lost them “in good faith!” My first reaction when John told me this story was what a crock that was. Don’t we all register for WSOP events in “good faith” that we will actually be competing against people who are ACTUALLY REGISTERED FOR THE EVENT! I just have no idea how anyone can actually put thought into that decision and come up with “Sir, you lost your chips on good faith to the man not event registered for the tournament.” Seriously?
I guess next time the November 9 come back for the main event final table their fiercest competition may just come from the rail. One of them might jump onto the table and check raise someone out of a big pot! I mean seriously, the jokes are endless on this one. How can this ruling be possible?
EDIT
I just wanted to follow up on a few more questions people had and one more opinion of mine on the situation. John sat with the man not in the event for several hands. John thinks the reason the floor decided to say he lost the chips “in good faith” was because the man had played so many hands at the table that it would be an incredibly big deal to try and rectify the situation on the spot. To truly make it fair, they would have to consider every hand played with the man at the table to be dead and to give people their starting chips back. They would also have to reset the clock. Of course by doing all of that, you would have to completely stop the tournament and let the one table that John was at play poker for as long as the tournament ran with the blind structures back to where they were. Once the table caught up to the rest of the tournament, then everyone could resume.
Doing something like that is obviously not practical, and with no fair way to really handle the situation, they just told my friend he lost the chips “in good faith.” So I agree with the WSOP in the sense that they were in a spot where there was no equitable thing for them to do. But where they are obviously screwing up is that they should reimburse the entry fee to John and probably the entire table who played a joke of an event. Certainly just telling my buddy John that he was SOL with the chips he lost to the phantom player is absurd. I think he should get his $1,500 in tournament credit and he should have gotten to free roll the event he was in. That would’ve been fair in my mind. Anyway, I will post more updates on this as my friend John is going to take his case to the WSOP floor again today and see if they decide to do the right thing before he possibly escalates it further. I sure hope for the sake of John, the WSOP, poker in general (and to a very small extent, myself who lost money in this event backing my friend) that they do the right thing immediately.