Maurice Hawkins gets boost by eliminating player in WSOP Circuit event despite having worst hand

[Dan Druff]

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https://twitter.com/chiohyim/status/1896969819393859722


The "chainsaw" above is NOT Allen Kessler, by the way.

Anyway, Pokernews has since verified that Fake Chainsaw was right about this. Hawkins really did "win" the hand with a straight over a flush, and the other player, Divyam Satyarthi, was eliminated in 3rd.

Hawkins went on to win his 18th ring, which is tied with Ari Engel for most circuit rings.

Divyam Satyarthi cashed for $64k, and Maurice got $140k for winning it.

It's likely that Maurice knew he was winning with the worst hand, but said nothing. Amazingly, neither Satyarthi, the dealer, the floor, nor Poker.org noticed what was going on. However, even if Poker.org's reporter noticed, they probably wouldn't be allowed to say anything at the time. Clearly they didn't, as the hand was reported as if it were normal.

There is likely no recourse for Satyarthi, as the mistake was also his.

[Tankazoo]

multiple reports are saying that it was printed in error and didnt happen, but I have no clue as Im not an insider

[Dan Druff]

Definitely happened.

[Dan Druff]

There is tremendous debate about whether the poker.org reporter should have said something.

It's about 50/50 on X, regarding whether players feel that media should get involved.

Famed tournament director (and PFA listener) Matt Savage is VERY much for the media getting involved. But that makes sense, because as a TD, his goal is to see tournaments running smoothly and without embarrassing situations like these. (Note, however, that Savage had nothing to do with this particular tournament.)

Here's one discussion which occurred on X:

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https://twitter.com/BradWillis/status/1897073907968131114

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https://twitter.com/CraigTapscott/status/1897138112033382725

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https://twitter.com/BradWillis/status/1897159155451879884

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https://twitter.com/SavagePoker/status/1897166968840696125

Other takes:

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https://twitter.com/jsmith84poker/status/1897540564863562038

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https://twitter.com/NormanChad/status/1897309733952086302

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https://twitter.com/shaundeeb/status/1897479357746000088

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https://twitter.com/RachKayPhoto/status/1897416237044637983



There's tons of others, but I'll stop there.

DJ McKinnon, Craig Tapscott, Brad Willis, Normad Chad, and Shaun Deeb all feel that the media should never interfere in any hand result, even if the pot is mistakenly being pushed to the wrong person.

Rachel Kay Winter, Jerod Smith, and Matt Savage feel that it is important to correct errors when discovered, regardless of who is making the correction.

[Dan Druff]

I agree with the "media should say nothing" side.

Why? Because this will introduce a terrible potential bias into the game. Poker reporters are human, and develop favorites and anti-favorites in the community. This will tempt them to speak up when they see an error which harms a player they like (or helps a player they dislike), and to stay quiet when it harms a player they dislike (or helps a player they like). In general, this will be yet another advantage for "name" pros, as tournament reporters are more likely to be favorable towards them.

Media is there for one reason and one reason only -- to report. Some are there to report on hands, some are there to report chip counts, and some are there to take pictures. However, the longstanding policy has been that media is supposed to be the "fly on the wall" -- as invisible as possible, and making no impact upon the players or the game.

By expecting media to speak up when they see a mistake at the table, you are adding too many additional parties into the situation. Part of poker involves unnoticed errors. It has been long accepted that errors may be called out by the players in the hand, anyone else at the table, the dealer, or a floorperson. But that's it. There should be no further input from media, the cocktail server, the janitor, or anyone else.

It's for this same reason that I'm not allowed to sit my buddy next to me while at a final table, sweating my action. The number of people commenting on a hand (and thus affecting its outcome) needs to be minimized, and you especially do not want to needlessly insert potentially biased additional parties.


I saw some questions of, "Well, how far does it go? Should the media be able to say something if they notice cheating occurring?"

The answer there is competely diffferent. Obviously YES, in the case of cheating, the media (or anyone else) should say something. Why? Because cheating is a voluntary action, which is both against tournament rules and against the law.

Receiving a pot accidentally pushed to you when you lost is an involuntary action. Even if you realize it happened, and keep quiet in order to benefit from the unjustified win, it's still an involuntary action.

As scummy as Maurice is in general, and as likely it is that he realized he lost the hand, he did not CAUSE this to happen. It was an honest mistake by the dealer where he benefited, and nobody caught it at the time. Had Maurice actively cheated to win this hand, that would be a different story, and 100% anyone observing it should call it out.

Similarly, if I'm in line at the supermarket, and they forget to charge the guy ahead of me for an item, I'm not going to say anything. However, if I notice the guy ahead of me pocketing merchandise and not paying for it, then I will say something to an employee. Again, one is witnessing someone gain a benefit involuntarily, the other is someone doing something actively dishonest in order to gain something they don't deserve (and is also agaainst the law). Huge difference.

[Dan Druff]

There's also the question as to whether Maurice SHOULD have said something.

It's easy to hate on Maurice for keeping quiet, because he's not a nice or honorable person.

But to be honest, many poker pros in the same spot would have kept their mouths shut, including ones who otherwise did not have a history of unethical behavior.

Does this make them bad people? Not necessarily.

This was a huge spot. There were 3 players left, and this hand not only further build Maurice's stack, but it eliminated one of the other two players. Thus, this is far different than receiving a pot you didn't deserve at your local casino's $1/$2 cash game.

As I said, errors are part of poker. If you make an error in reading your hand (say, you think you have a straight when you don't, and go all in), tough luck. If you make an error reading the board, same thing -- tough luck. If you accidentally muck the winning hand instead of showing it down, tough luck.

These occur in poker all of the time. Thus, poker is not a game about who SHOULD have gotten the pot, but rather who won the pot and correctly asserted that they won (by tabling their hand and speaking up about any errors in judging the winner).

It could be argued that catching an error like this is part of the game, and any player failing to do so has essentially forfeited the pot.

It could also be argued that accepting a pot that you know belongs to the other guy is a shitty and dishonest angle shot, and you shouldn't ever do it.

I can understand both sides of the argument.

However, there's also the issue of what your opponent would have done, in the same spot. For example, if the pot were wrongly pushed to me against Maurice Hawkins, I might find it hard to speak up, knowing that he'd never do the same thing for me! Thus, by making it a policy to speak up about errors against Maurice, while he will never do the same for you, you're automatically giving yourself an unfair disadvantage.

The decision whether to speak up about receiving a pot with the losing hand should come down to these factors:

1) From what you know of this player, would he/she do the same thing for you if the situation were reversed?

2) How much opportunity did this player have to see whether their hand won or not? (In this case, the dealer mucked the "losing" hand way too quickly, so in such a case, it should be more expected NOT to take the benefit from this.)

3) Is the player a pro or amateur? You should definitely speak up if this it happened to an amateur. It's a seasoned pro, you might have a hard time saying anything, since he should know better to always correctly read the board. However, even with a seasoned pro, it's best to speak up if you think it's likely he'd do the same for you.

4) Is this hand televised or likely to be publicly discussed? Even if up against a scumbag, it's a bad look under the spotlight to take a pot which you didn't win. It's one of these things where you have to err on the side of caution when in the hot spotlight.


In this case, it seems like the other player was a nice, softspoken guy, and Maurice keeping silent was a dick move. If I were in that spot, I would have said something. If my opponent were Maurice Hawkins or someone similarly shady, and I was in this spot, I don't know what I would have done.


This is really one of those areas where it's easy to say what you WOULD do, when there's no cost to claiming you'd do the "honest" thing. But it's a lot more complicated than you think.

Lots of pearl clutching about this one, and I bet a lot of people would also say nothing, if they could get away with it.

[Dan Druff]

I want to say one more thing.

In the cash setting, this shit happens all the time. Sometimes it's by dealer error, and sometimes it's by player error, and sometimes it's both.

Usually it gets corrected by the table, but occasionally it doesn't. And if it doesn't, everyone moves on, the "winner" (who didn't get the pot) feels stupid, and that's that.

At Commerce in 2022-2023, I had two incidents on opposite sides of the matter, both in pots of about $2500.

In the first, I was playing Omaha, and actually mucked the winner. However, about 0.5 seconds before the dealer grabbed my cards, I grabbed them back (they were easily retrievable), and tabled them. The pot was shipped to me, and I explained to everyone what happened, and the rest was uncontroversial. I apologized for the "accidental slowroll" to my opponent, which he accepted. Now, what if I didn't grab my cards in time? Then it's tough luck. It was my mistake.

In another hand, at limit holdem, I had top pair on a 4-flush board, but no flush. We both checked, I showed my top pair, he mucked, and I got the pot. A minute later, he spoke up and asked if there were 4 spades on the board. I said yes. He was very upset, and said that he had a spade, and didn't realize it was a 4-flush board, and erroneously thought my top pair was good. Did I believe him? Yes. Did I feel bad for him? Yes. Did I offer to give him any money BACK? No. Because that's part of the game.


Now, in neither situation was the pot incorrectly pushed by the dealer, so I realize this is different.

But in one case there was almost an accidental awarding of the pot to the loser, and in the second case, the losing hand DID get the pot!

This is part of poker!!


It's far worse when both hands are tabled in a big spot in a tournament, and the pot is still incorrectly awarded. However, the player negatively affected also has to take responsibility for not noticing himself.

It is not unreasonable to say that the whole thing is part of the game.

Still, the honorable thing to do is to say something and not take the undeserved pot.

[Dan Druff]

Sorry, I have another thing to say.

Patrick Leonard brought up these points on X:

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https://twitter.com/padspoker/status/1897569481008005298


Point #5: "Where the hell is the floor?" is a huge one, and is being largely ignored during this big controversy.

This was a WSOP ring event with $140k up top, and the floorman was NOT present for the final 3 players in action! Crazy!

If the venue cannot afford enough floormen to be present in such a spot, they should not be holding WSOP Circuit events.


The dealer mucking it quickly was also bad, but you can't expect all dealers to be great. It's possible he just mucked quickly out of reflex. But it's amazing that, at these final tables, they don't have a longer process of determining the winner and loser, in order to prevent things like this.

[go_buccos]

Sorry, I have another thing to say.

Patrick Leonard brought up these points on X:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/padspoker/status/1897569481008005298


Point #5: "Where the hell is the floor?" is a huge one, and is being largely ignored during this big controversy.

This was a WSOP ring event with $140k up top, and the floorman was NOT present for the final 3 players in action! Crazy!

If the venue cannot afford enough floormen to be present in such a spot, they should not be holding WSOP Circuit events.


The dealer mucking it quickly was also bad, but you can't expect all dealers to be great. It's possible he just mucked quickly out of reflex. But it's amazing that, at these final tables, they don't have a longer process of determining the winner and loser, in order to prevent things like this.

Poker is a game of continuous observation. The onus is ultimately on the player with the actual winning hand to speak up. Why he didn’t, especially in that spot, is just stunning.

Having said that, IMO “cards speak” means exactly that. Once tabled the cards are able to be read by anyone who can see them, regardless of their status in the game or their reason for being in the room. The #1 goal in this situation is to GET IT RIGHT. If I were TD and that media member spoke up, I would thank them profusely.

Druff, I understand all your points, but for me getting it right by any avenue necessary is the ultimate goal. Obviously it should never have come to that, but here we are…

[Tankazoo]

multiple reports are saying that it was printed in error and didnt happen, but I have no clue as Im not an insider

edit my own post
Im retarded and I was wrong
carry on

[zealanddonk]

I agree with the "media should say nothing" side.

....


I saw some questions of, "Well, how far does it go? Should the media be able to say something if they notice cheating occurring?"

The answer there is competely diffferent. Obviously YES, in the case of cheating, the media (or anyone else) should say something. Why? Because cheating is a voluntary action, which is both against tournament rules and against the law.

So, the media is supposed to know if the dealer is or isnt cheating, when it can be easly resolved by just pointing out the mistake?

[FRANKRIZZO]

Very riveting , I just listened on the radio segment covering this. I feel someone even reporters should have said something. I respectfully disagree with Druff that reporters indeed should have said nothing. Anyone should have intervened. I believe it would be lesser of 2 evils to speak up rather then allow player to be wrongfully eliminated. How often is something like this going to happen this was at a major event. Since it was the casinos fault that player was wrongly eliminated they should have given the player some sort of payout to compensate him for being wrongfully eliminated.