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A Story About One Controversial Poker Hand
A few days ago the $50,000 Poker Players Championship saw some major drama in a massive three-way pot involving Shaun Deeb, Abe Mosseri and Nikolai Yakovenko, which resulted in more than 45 minutes of debate in the Amazon Room. Let us try to reconstruct the course of events.
Actually, there were five players involved in the hand, which took place during the pot-limit Omaha round. There were five limpers - Charles Pacheco, Viktor Blom, Abe Mosseri, Shaun Deeb and John D'Agostino, before Nikolai Yakovenko raised to 12,400 from the big blind. Pacheco, Blom and Mosseri all made the call before action was back on Deeb, who took some time to think about his decision and then announced that he raised the pot. Deeb actually had less than a full, pot-sized raise. His stack was a total of 68,800 and he was in for all of it. D'Agostino folded his hand from the small blind and then Yakovenko took some time of his own to think. After a minute or two, Yakovenko said, "All right, I'm all in too."
However, Deeb had less than the pot, which meant that Yakovenko had more and wasn't exactly all in just yet, but he slid a couple of giant stacks forward. Blom and Pacheco folded their hands, while Mosseri tanked for several minutes before asking Yakovenko to count his stack. It took the dealer a little bit to break down all the stacks. When it was finished, Yakovenko was said to have had 407,300. Then Mosseri, who had less than 400,000, began acting in a very strange manner. He did some talking about his hand out loud and even announced his hand, saying, "I have aces and one suit," while plenty of other players were hovering around. Mosseri tanked for what most estimated at 10 to 15 minutes before Yakovenko finally called the clock on him. "Wow, this is the first time in my life anyone has called the clock on me," said Mosseri. Eventually, he was given a minute to act on his hand by the floor staff and eventually said, "I call."
After that everyone could see the cards:
Mosseri: 



Deeb: 



Yakovenko: 



With all the cards turned up, the dealer quickly ran out the flop, turn and river with the 



giving Deeb a spade flush to win the main pot. For the side pot, Mosseri's aces held up and he was the winner of that one. It seemed that an incident was over, but events started to develop in another way.
After the board ran out, Yakovenko said, "Wait a minute, he only said call," speaking of Mosseri's preflop action. Because Yakovenko had more than the pot when he raised, he wasn't actually all in. He stated that he only reraised the pot, which caused issue about whether or not everyone's money actually went in. It was clear that Deeb was all in, but the side pot between Mosseri and Yakovenko was in question due to Mosseri saying only, "I call."
The floor staff was called over again and everyone began telling their own version of what happened earlier. The pot was counted, which Eslami's iPad calculator was needed for, to determine that Yakovenko's reraise was to 246,000. With Mosseri's stack at around 150,000 more than that, the first floor ruled that the turn and river would have to be re-run as the flop action hadn't been complete.
Players could not believe their ears, as it seemed to be the most terrible decision ever made. Someone from the audience shouted: “Call Jack [Effel]”. But Jack was out of reach, and this is why the lead floor supervisor was called in and arrived on the scene within a few minutes to try and solve the issue.
The floor then heard from the dealer and all the players again before making the final ruling, which canceled the previous one. The ruling explained that it was deemed "accepted action" by all parties that all of the money was in the middle, even though Abe Mosseri had only said, "I call." Nikolai Yakovenko would have only committed about 60 percent of his stack by putting in the pot-sized reraise, but it was now ruled that he had to pay off Mosseri's entire lot.
Most of the players were satisfied with such a decision, except Yakovenko, who began arguing and saying that this hand must be replayed. It is still unclear, why he was not so talkative when the cards were dealt. As a result, Yakovenko’s demands were neglected, and he was left with just under 15,000 in chips and was eliminated in a very next hand.
Here are some tweets on this situation from some notable players:
Todd Terry: “So Yakovenko and Mosseri were ruled to be all in? Totally wrong because (1) Mosseri said call and (2) Mosseri said what he had while tanking”.
David Bach: “Wow. Just read the pokernews PLO contoversy hand. Sounds like a terrible ruling (although the first ruling was worse). Googles got screwed”.
Ryan Daut: “Hard to have opinion on mosseri's play without knowing what kinda bets he has for the tourney. but man what an awful ruling”.
Daniel Negreanu: “Agree with the ruling of last nights crazy hand. Absolutely clear when all hands are tabled that the intention of all was to be all in”.
Matt Glantz: “Anytime both players table their cards w a majortity of chips in play & allow the runout of the board it should be ruled an allin situation”.
And what do you think about this hand? Please leave all your thoughts in comments.
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