For those of you who didn't hear about what happened with the sudden emergence of
WSOP rule No. 81, here's a recap of what happened. As usual, I was at the epicenter of the incident that stopped the deuce-to-seven tournament and nearly erupted into a row worse than the Watts or Rodney King riots. Many players were late getting to the tournament, as usual, but in this tournament, the blinds and antes start off rather high to encourage rebuys. I was literally two minutes late and had lost $450 of my $10,000 stack due to the $100-$200 blinds with a $50 ante.
You can imagine how much players who were an hour late had lost. Berry Johnston was one such player, as well as an all-around troublemaker. Anyway, during the rebuy period (which was three hours in this particular tourney), any player can buy in late, as opposed to the normal rule of being allowed to enter only up to an hour late. Because of this, many extra stacks were put on every table and were blinded off.
Now, for some reason, about an hour and a half into the tourney, a floorman comes around and picks up the unmanned stacks. A few players immediately question this, as there is still about an hour and a half left in the rebuy period, during which players can sign up late. As usual at the Rio, the floorman doesn't respond and picks up all of the stacks that haven't been claimed, which were between $2,600 and $2,800 each.
Just as we suspected, within two minutes, Berry Johnston shows up for seat No. 6 as a late entrant, but his chips were just picked up. The dealer calls for the floorman and explains the problem. The floorman says that he'll go get him chips, and leaves. Being the soothsayer that I am, I predict that they will bring Berry the full $10,000 in starting chips. Everyone says that's ridiculous, that he'll get only the $2,600 that they just picked up.
Well, I'm not perfect, but just as I assumed they would, they brought him way too much, $9,000. This immediately caused an uproar, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time for me. Erik Seidel (who went on to win the event) raised from first position and Steve Z (Zolotow) made a big reraise. I moved all in from the small blind, and inasmuch as Steve and I both had tripled up, this was a huge pot.
Erik passed, but Steve was so upset that he refused to act on his hand until the tournament director ruled on the Berry situation (I told you that Berry Johnston was a troublemaker). Anyway, since Jack had the day off, we had to wait for Jimmy, who was God knows where, to come make a ruling. I had to wait for Steve to act on his hand for about 20 minutes. I had either a 7 low or a full house (I can't remember which), so this was a very suspenseful time for me.
Finally, Steve folds (phew!), and Jimmy comes down and quotes this
WSOP rule No. 81 that not only had not one single player ever heard of it, it for some reason has never been enforced. It states that if a player registers late, he incurs a one-time chip penalty of up to three rounds of blinds and antes. What?!
If he had shown up two minutes earlier, he would have had $2,600, but since the floorman picked up his chips, he got $8,200? Daniel Negreanu, as well as many other players, went crazy at this ruling. Daniel was about an hour late and had lost more than half of his stack. "Why didn't I get $8,200?" an exasperated Kid Poker wanted to know. The ridiculous answer that Jimmy gave Daniel was, "Because you didn't ask!" How could anyone ask for a rule to be enforced when no one's ever heard of it? And, if that's a rule, why hasn't it ever been enforced before?
Anyone who has ever played with me knows that I am habitually tardy to tournaments. If I were able to be on time, I would be a lawyer right now, not a poker player, and this point would be moot. I was late to literally every tourney I played at the
World Series of Poker this year, which totaled about 20 events. I have been as late as three hours and have showed up to see my stack looking like an elephant has stepped on it. I never complained because I never heard of this
WSOP rule No. 81; I just accepted the situation.
Why did they suddenly whip out this rulebook and apply a rule that has never been enforced? The first floorman made a bad decision and tried to give Barry $9,000. When Jimmy was called, he apparently was trying to back up the floorman. I can't imagine another reason to arbitrarily enforce a rule right out of the blue. It's kind of like a cop accidentally shooting an innocent victim and the other cops saying, "Oh, he was going for a weapon." This is the only conclusion I can come up with.
After things calmed down, I spoke with Jimmy and recommended that late players receive a full buy-in and not be penalized at all. This would end these arguments about how much the "offender" should be penalized. I mean, why should they punish players for coming late at all? Is there some advantage to showing up late?
On the contrary, the late players miss the opportunity to play hands and are at a disadvantage (assuming they are winning players). Steve Z and I were tripled up by the time Berry got there, so if he received the full $10,000 that we all started with, he still would have been at a disadvantage.
The worst thing to me about this situation is that not everyone was treated equally, and that is not right. There are many rules in poker that I don't agree with, but as long as they all are enforced the same with everyone, I think things even out. I believe that it's much more important for a rule to be uniformly enforced than it is for it to be fair, as crazy as that sounds.
On a happier note, I quickly busted Berry, so instead of getting $2,600 from him, as I should have, I got $8,200. Nice decision after all, Jimmy!
P.S. I don't want to be overly critical of Jimmy, Jack, or the rest of the
WSOP tournament staff. I realize that they have a difficult, thankless job, and people pay attention only when they perceive that they have committed an error. Overall, the 2007
WSOP was well-run and a pleasure to play. To all of the Rio and
WSOP staff, good job, guys!
