Rewatching Notkin’s Triple-Knockout; or, Did Anybody Fold an Ace?

Glad today to tune back in for the return of the EPTLive stream from Barcelona. Coverage of the Super High Roller has been featured today, the first of nine straight days’ worth of all-day shows.

I’ve missed the EPT guys’ coverage over the last few months since Season 10 wound down back in early May. Always worth tuning in when the EPT is on, both because of the play and the high quality of the production and commentary -- the most consistently engaging televised poker around, in my opinion.

I was reminded this week that we did get another glimpse of James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton and the production team since the EPT Grand Final, namely at that Canada Cup event that played out at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal in late May.

I wrote about that one here briefly then, entirely because of the wild conclusion that saw no less than four players all in on the final hand with a rare triple-knockout giving the tournament to Robert Notkin. Yes, that really happened.

They’ve isolated the hand in a YouTube clip, which if you haven’t seen it is probably worth five minutes to watch:

“This would be the weirdest end of a tournament ever,” says Stapleton while Vincent Rivers contemplates making the call with his pocket eights, the only genuinely questionable action in the hand needed to create the weird four-way all-in.

Then when Rivers does call and everything is getting sorted out before the delivery of the community cards, Stapes delivers the following hilarity:

“Did anyone fold an ace?”

I’d missed that line when watching this hand before. Think about it.

Afterwards Hartigan makes reference to it having been “the strangest hand ever streamed online,” and it’s hard to disagree.

_{This post is sponsored by Spreaditfast.}

A Four-Way Stop in the Canada Cup

See the final hand of that Canada Cup event at the Playground Poker Club? Hear about it?

I know we’re all locked in on the World Series of Poker getting underway this week, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of you missed this one. But check it out... it’s worth it.

This was a PokerStars event, a $3,000 buy-in tourney that drew 578 entries which meant a bit of an overlay as it had a $2 million guarantee. They’d played down to a final table yesterday, and with four players left a player from Toronto named Robert Notkin had the chip lead.

I believe Notkin is just a part-time player. He hasn’t many results, and from what I remember hearing on the PokerStars.tv live stream he seemed to be playing the amateur’s role when at the feature tables.

I remember James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton talking at length on one of the latter days about how many of Notkin’s relatives were heading to Montreal to watch the tourney once the elder player got a big stack and appeared headed for the final table, with Stapes noting the irony of his last name and the number of kin coming to see him.

Anyhow, I wasn’t watching the final table yesterday, but woke up today to see the tweets and some reference to what had happened. Here the video of the entire final table -- jump ahead to the 8 hour, 46 minute-mark or so for the start of the final hand:

For those not wanting to watch a video, you can read Lane Anderson’s write-up of the tourney and final hand over on PokerNews.

But really, you should watch. Impossible to do so without a big, dumb grin. Four started the hand, and just one survived. Nuts!