From
the sublime to the ridiculous. Last year's London EPT ended for me after four
long days, with a crystal trophy, a £500,000 cheque and the title of
European Poker Champion. This year, it ended with a misdeal on level
three.
I was down to 3,000 in chips (blinds 100-200), after losing a
nasty couple of hands with 1010 and AK. When a serial raiser made it 600 to go,
I moved all in with AJ. "Call," said the button, throwing in 600.
When my reraise was pointed out to him, he
started shouting that he hadn't seen it and didn't want to call after all.
During the commotion, it became clear that the big blind had no cards. He had
simply been dealt out. The button now shrieked that it was a misdeal and a dead
hand. The big blind shouted his agreement, having been obliged to put money in
but not receiving cards in return. The floor was called, and the ruling was
that action had been taken so all bets must stand. The button looked near to
tears - making it terribly easy, of course, for the original raiser to move in
over the top.
The tearful button was obliged to call for the pot odds .
. . and rolled over two queens! What was all the fuss about? I wish I had his
problems. The original raiser had AK, and the A came down to knock us both out.
I could hardly sympathise with the button; had he masked his emotions, the
raiser (looking at a big reraise and a scary flat call) might well have mucked
his AK, and we'd both still be in the tournament.
There are two lessons
in this clownish farce. One is that you must never make it obvious which way
you want a ruling to go. And the other is that it's bloody hard to win the same
tournament twice.
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