Rants & Raves: The All-In Muck

(Updated 10/02)

Last week, ESPN's WSOP coverage showed the most controversial hand of the Main Event. Here is the Poker News entry in their Live Reporting of the Main Event:

Gaelle Baumann opened for a min-raise to 60,000 from under the gun, and the action folded to Andras Koroknai, who moved all in for what looked like 2 million from the small blind. Gavin Smith folded from the big blind, and thinking that the action was completed, Koroknai mucked his hand.

When he realized his mistake, he pulled back one of his cards, but the other was irretrievable. A floorperson was called to the table, and the dealer explained what had happened. Tournament Director Dennis Jones was called over to make the ruling, and upon hearing the story, he stood silently for half a minute. 

Smith, who was standing next to him, began laughing at the difficulty of the decision. 

After a moment for thought, Jones informed the table that Koroknai would have to forfeit 60,000 chips to Baumann, but that he wouldn't be eliminated completely. 

"Really?" Smith blurted. 

Baumann was also confused with the ruling, so Jones pulled out his iPhone and called Vice President of the World Series of Poker Jack Effel. After a two-minute conversation, Jones hung up, and announced to the table that the original ruling would stand. 

"You're not losing your tournament life," Jones told Koroknai. 

In Jones' explanation to the table, he cited the "integrity of the tournament" as the major factor in the decision. 

According to Smith, Baumann showed two kings. 

Hand Of The Day #100

(Not only is this Hand Of The Day #100, it is also Blog Post #400)

Golden Nugget $240 HORSE ~ 06.11.12 ~ Level 13 (4k/8k) Razz

Bring-In is 1500. Next player completes (4k) with A showing. Lady calls with 2 showing. I have (53)A, and raise (8k). Original raiser 3-bets (12k) and has 5k behind. Lady thinks for a bit and calls. I just call, because I want to see the next card before I completely commit to this hand.

4th Street
Shorty: (XX) A A
Lady: (XX) 2 2
Me: (53) A K

Well, I'm ahead with K-Low, so I bet (4k). Both players call.

Atlantis's $340 NLHE

"Shuffle Up & Deal" - Yesterday was the $340 2-Day tourney ($30k guarantee), which was the kick-off event for Atlantis's WPT Western Poker Challenge. This event has two separate flight, 12p & 5p. Each flight last 10 levels, or just over 7 hours. This is also a re-entry event. You can re-enter into the same flight before the first break, and then re-enter the other flight.

This is the 12p flight. There are seven tables with nine seats. My table has seven players. I'm the second youngest, and one of the players is a Reno Regular.

We get 10k chips, and 40 minute levels.

End of Level 1 (25/50) - Better turnout than I would have guessed. Our table filled up quickly, with one more Reno Regular sitting down. They also opened up an 8th table.

Things went well for me. The 60's guy on my Right had been raising a lot, so I called him down with ATo on an A-high board. He had QJ-high. A few hands later, I called a 150 raise with 87h, and the Flop was 8c 7c 8s. It wasn't a huge pot, but it was nice for this early level. I also hit a small flush against Top Pair (AK) for a decent pot.

I have 15050 chips.

Hand Of The Day #99

In case you haven't been paying attention, we are coming up on #100 of the Hand Of The Day series. For this milestone, I've been looking for something special over the last few months, whether it's a huge money pot, or something truly bizarre that happened.

Unfortunately, there haven't been many hands to choose from. I've decided to present a hand from Las Vegas that I think is worthy of #100, so I'll use this post for my other option.

Right now, we jump into the Way-Back machine, and present two separate hands from a .25/.50NL home game that I use to play back in Ohio. These two hands are from a few years ago, so the details are a little fuzzy.

The first hand is proof that Live Poker is rigged. It was the 2nd hand of the night, and we had eight or nine players at the table. We had an AA vs AA vs QQ vs QQ vs JJ trainwreck extraordinaire.

September News & Notes

- My WSOP recovery has come to a grinding halt. August was a pretty bad month for me. Not only was it my first losing month at $1/$2 this year, but I also went 0-11 in tournaments.

Actually, I'm currently on a 0-13 streak for tourneys. My sweet score at GSR was the last time I cashed, and I've been paying for it ever since. I'm busting out early and not even  making it through half the field for all but one of the 13 tournaments. My best finish was 7th at a Peppermill donkament, which was the Bubble+1.

As I've said before, I don't like to use the term "Running Bad" because I think that most players use it as an excuse. However, sometimes it is true, and I'm deep in the middle of it.

I also hate Bad Beat Stories, but this hand is a good example of how things are going. I just played in the Peppermill's $180 NLHE tournament as part of their Deep Stack Classic series. I was rather card dead for most of the time I was there, and I lost the few hands I played.