Preserving One’s Tournament Life: The Aussie Millions Pregnancy Story & A Big Hand for the Little Lady

You might have heard about this story from the ongoing Aussie Millions where a woman playing in a preliminary event went into labor and had to leave the tournament. That in itself would be a somewhat unusual situation, but the story became even stranger as tournament officials actually allowed her husband to take over her stack and finish the event for her. No shinola!

The decision did follow one of those “discretion of the Tournament Director” rules that allow a lot of leeway for those who run tournaments, in this case one having to do with permitting a player to “transfer his/her entry to another person” as long as the new player wasn’t already in the event. In other words, there isn’t really much to debate over whether or not the husband could be allowed to take his wife’s place at the table, but rather over whether or not he should have been allowed to do so.

The woman, Katrina Sheary, began a Day 1 flight in the event before having to leave, at which point her husband, Peter Sheary, took over for her. He actually managed to make it all of the way to a 25th-place finish in the $1,150 tournament, cashing for $6,495 (AUD). Should put all of that straight into the college fund, I’d suggest.

Following some of the debate over the decision, it sounds like the general consensus is that while few are especially bothered by this specific situation, many aren’t crazy about this sort of thing happening again going forward. Esteemed tournament director Matt Savage summarized that response in his tweet about it yesterday: “Wonderful story and terrible precedent.”

I fall on the side of those who like Savage wouldn’t think to allow any substitution like this, regardless of the circumstances. Also, given how many seem likewise opposed to the idea of allowing substitutions, I can't imagine this turning into a meaningful “precedent” for tournament poker going forward.

Meanwhile the whole incident immediately reminded me of the plot of the 1966 western A Big Hand for the Little Lady (one I’ve written about here before in the past).

Those who’ve seen that film know how much of it revolves around a single hand of poker that lasts nearly the entire movie. It’s the once-a-year high-stakes cash game game in Laredo, Texas, and the naive-seeming Meredith (Henry Fonda) finds himself sitting in a game amid a bunch of savvy high rollers during a stop along the way to taking his family to San Antonio to buy a farm.

A huge hand of five-card draw develops involving all of the players, but before it can conclude Meredith suffers a heart attack and becomes incapacitated. Much drama follows, ending with the men reluctantly allowing his wife, Mary (Joanne Woodward), to take over for Meredith and complete the hand. There’s a lot else going on plot-wise, including more sketchy rulings regarding what is allowed and what is not in the game, but I’ll save those who haven’t seen the film from spoilers and instead recommend it as a fun couple of hours.

That fictional “precedent” makes me think of other stories of players dying at the poker table, some of which involve some wickedly black humor regarding others’ callousness and how the importance of playing out a hand to its conclusion gets elevated above the importance of someone’s life coming to a conclusion.

How would they have ruled at the Crown in Melbourne in the case of a player dying during a hand? Would that player’s stack be “dead,” too? If so, I guess there would be a certain symbolic symmetry when juxtaposing that situation with the one in which the stack of a player giving birth was allowed to remain “alive.”

Image: A Big Hand for the Little Lady (dir. Fielder Cook, 1966).

Short-Handed, Short-Stacked, and Short-Changed

Have a postscript to share regarding yesterday’s discussion of the last part of Day 7 of the World Series of Poker Main Event (and ESPN’s coverage of it). Has to do with the short-handed play and a problem faced by some of the short stacks -- I’ll keep it short.

The episodes this week showed them play down from 15 players to nine, with Daniel Negreanu dramatically lasting as far as 11th place. While watching I was reminded of the significant faux pas made by the WSOP not to go to hand-for-hand play immediately after George McDonald’s knockout in 12th place. This issue wasn’t brought up at all on ESPN. It might have been, because it involved a mistake in judgment that affected who of the final 11 ultimately were able to make it to the final table.

After McDonald’s ouster, there were two short-handed tables, with the feature table being the shorter one with just five players. That’s where leader Joe McKeehen sat with a monstrous stack that dwarfed those of the other four players, including Negreanu.

In fact, for much of the sequence that followed, McKeehen was in first while the others were 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th in the counts. He also was opening practically every hand and keeping the pressure on constantly (as he should have). Too bad for the short stacks, for sure, but that’s the luck of the seat draw and subsequent table-balancing.

What wasn’t fair, though, was the fact that at the five-handed table they were playing nearly twice as fast as at the outer six-handed table. Over the next hour-and-a-half, they played 48 hands at the feature table (with McKeehen winning 26 of them), while they only played 26 hands at the six-handed table.

Not incidentally, when McKeehen had the button, Negreanu was in the big blind, and we saw several hands in the coverage involving those two. Looking back through the live updates again, Negreanu was in the big blind 10 times during the non-H4H portion when there were 11 left. Meanwhile Patrick Chan -- who became the short stack on the outer table after Neil Blumenfield doubled up soon after McDonald’s ouster -- was in the big blind exactly five times during the same hour-and-a-half.

The WSOP finally decided to go to hand-for-hand once they reached the next level break, well after the many criticisms for not doing so had been fired over Twitter and across other social media. It then only took four hands more for Negreanu’s bust to come (in one last button-versus-big blind hand with McKeehen).

There were some strange pay jumps in play here, too, you might recall. Here’s how the top 11 spots of the WSOP Main Event pay:

1st: $7,683,346
2nd: $4,470,896
3rd: $3,398,298
4th: $2,615,361
5th: $1,911,423
6th: $1,426,283
7th: $1,203,293
8th: $1,097,056
9th: $1,001,020
10th: $756,897
11th: $526,778

This payout schedule also represented something that might have been done otherwise, and once it was announced during the early part of the Main Event many suggested problems with it and possible corrections.

Notice how the jumps between 11th and 10th ($230,119) and 10th and 9th ($244,123) are both much greater than the ones between 9th-8th, 8th-7th, and 7th-6th. Not that anyone is going to be less than cautious with 11 players in the WSOP Main Event, but those big jumps could obviously encourage players to play less quickly, especially if they saw short stacks at the other table being threatened by the chip leader.

The fact that the WSOP did finally exercise their judgment and go to hand-for-hand some 90 minutes after they should have shows they could have done it as soon as they got to 11 players. As I wrote about here back in July, the fact that they didn’t represented a serious mistake, one made more conspicuous (if not more significant) by the fact that Negreanu was among the players directly affected.

Poker Cheaters and Public Confidence

Today Daniel Negreanu posted a new entry on his blog provocatively titled “A List of Players Who Should Be Barred from WSOP?”

The post goes on to answer the title’s question with discussion of six different individuals, each of whom has distinguished him or herself in the poker world via significant controversies that ultimately reflected poorly not just on themselves but the game, generally speaking. Negreanu doesn’t, in fact, propose banishing all six of those whom he discusses, but instead presents a specific criterion for earning such a penalty -- namely, having been found to cheat at poker -- then applies it to each of those he examines.

You can probably guess most if not all of the six persons Negreanu chooses to discuss as candidates for being barred, as well as who among them would be chosen for banishment by Kid Poker and who would not.

The WSOP’s official tournament rules cover a number of violations for which the penalty includes being ejected from a given event and/or losing the privilege to participate in future WSOP events (or even ever again being able to enter the Rio). Various forms of cheating are obviously covered under that heading, with tournament officials likewise able to use their own discretion on how to treat other behaviors thought to compromise the integrity of a given event.

In other words, if you cheat, collude, chip dump, or soft play, you’re risking being made to forfeit your chips, having to give up any prize money won, being ejected from the tourney, or losing the ability to play at the WSOP ever again. Other disruptive behaviors while playing in WSOP events can be penalized similarly -- you can check out Section IV of last year’s rules for a complete rundown of offenses.

The last rule listed in that section looks like it does give the WSOP authority to impose the kind of “barring” Negreanu discusses -- that is, to keep someone from participating who hasn’t necessarily broken any rules or committed other acts in a WSOP event, but who would nonetheless create problems for the WSOP should he or she try to register for an event.

“Where a situation arises that is not covered by these rules,” reads that rule, “[the] Rio shall have the sole authority to render a judgment, including the imposition of a penalty, in accordance with the best interests of the Tournament and the maintenance of its integrity and public confidence.”

I think it’s safe to say tournament officials would hate to face the prospect of delivering that kind of judgment upon a player who hasn’t actually violated any rules while playing a WSOP event, but who by attempting to participate in one would somehow compromise either the integrity of the tournament and/or damage “public confidence” -- like a known cheater would.

Check out Negreanu’s post and decide for yourself what might happen if any of the six he discusses happened to show up to play an event this summer.

Gentlemen Do Not Bet the Nuts

In 1864 The American Hoyle; or Gentleman’s Hand-Book of Games by William Brisbane Dick (writing/editing/compiling as “Trumps”) was among the first titles to spell out in detail rules for draw poker. It wasn’t the very first, but it did expand significantly on the “laws” of the game, the terminology employed while playing it, and hand rankings.

Interestingly, as explained here, straights are still up for debate. The earliest versions of poker (including the 20-card variety) didn’t count straights or flushes, and the 1864 Hoyle explains how it remained the case that “straights are not considered in the game, although they are played in some localities.” Flushes weren’t part of the earliest variants of poker, either, but here are part of the line-up of possible hands.

Since straights aren’t universally accepted, neither are straight flushes, although a footnote to the hand rankings does explain that when they are counted they should be considered as ranking higher than four of a kind. “It is strongly urged by some experts that the strongest hand at Draw Poker should be a Straight Flush, for the reason that it is more difficult to get than four of a kind.”

The “experts” are right. A 52-card deck produces 2,598,960 possible five-card combinations, with only 40 of them being straight flushes (1 in 64,974) as opposed to 624 being quads (1 in 4,165).

There’s one other point made in the footnote in favor of counting straight flushes I find kind of intriguing, namely, that doing so “removes from the game the objectionable feature of a known invincible hand.”

Without straight flushes, any hand containing four aces would be known to be unbeatable, as would a hand containing four kings with an ace. With straight flushes there still exists, of course, the “invincible” hand of an ace-high straight flush (or royal flush), which could theoretically be equaled. (This possibility is explained in the footnote.) But there’s only four of those (1 in 640,974), making it exceedingly unlikely for the invincible-hand situation to arise.

Setting aside this quibbling, though, it’s kind of curious to think of “a known invincible hand” being an “objectionable” feature in poker. The variants popular today obviously include this possibility, and in fact it is hard to imagine poker otherwise. Players know fairly frequently in hold’em, for instance, whether or not they hold the “nuts” or an unbeatable hand.

Still wondering why this feature of the game might be considered “objectionable,” I continued on to read the last sentence of the footnote, which does provide an explanation of sorts.

“No gentleman would care to bet on a ‘sure thing,’” it is explained, “and we therefore think the Straight Flush should be adopted when gentlemen play at this game.”

Ah, right. This is a “gentleman’s hand-book of games,” imparting rules both for the games and for what it means to be a gentleman.

Now, of course, one can earn a penalty for not betting the nuts when last to act. And claiming you were just being a gentleman is no excuse!

What the Rules Say (2009 WSOP)

Was leafing through the “Tournament Rules” for the 2009 World Series of Poker yesterday. When the rules for this year first went online about a month ago, much of the attention was given to the new “Code of Player Conduct” that appears as Rule No. 30 (of the 98 rules). Also getting some reaction at the time was that Rule No. 36 that “prohibits the use of obscene or foul language in any public area of the casino at any time.” If yr interested, click here to read F-Train’s overview of the new rules.

As I was looking back over the rules, there were a few that caught my eye, so I thought I’d share.

In the section covering “Player Likeness and Image” -- the one covering stipulations regarding the wearing of logos -- there is a new rule appearing at the end of the section, one that will most likely be referred to colloquially as the “Phil Laak Rule.”

Rule No. 44 states that “Players may not cover or conceal their facial identity. Tournament officials must be able to distinguish the identity of each player at all times and may instruct players to remove any material that inhibits their identification or is a distraction to other players or tournament officials. Players may wear sunglasses and sweat shirts with hoods, but may be asked to remove them if they cannot be identified by tournament officials.”

For those who don’t remember, Laak played Day 1d of the Main Event last year dressed as an old man, having had a professional makeup artist work five-plus hours help construct for him a full prosthetic mask. Laak went the entire day undetected, and ended up with a fairly intriguing story to tell afterwards about what it was like to be thought of as just another nobody chasing a WSOP Main Event dream. Kind of embarrassed tourney officials, too, I think, not to mention those of us who were reporting on the ME. I did think, however, that gsqwared did a nifty job recapping the stunt at the end of the day on the PokerNews live blog, in a post titled “The Amazing Phil Laak.”

A couple of other rules, neither of them new for 2009, also caught my attention. Both appear in the section regarding “Poker Rules” (i.e., actual play).

Rule No. 72 spells out how “In limit events there will be a maximum of one bet and four raises, even if there are only two players remaining in the hand.” That five-bet cap is similar to what one finds in a lot of live games, but online players may be more familiar with a four-bet cap (a bet and three raises). I didn’t cover too many limit events last summer, and in fact cannot remember ever reporting a hand that actually went five bets. The latter half of that sentence refers to the fact that some poker rooms allow players to continue raising beyond the cap if they are heads up, something that doesn’t happen in WSOP events -- with one possible exception, that is.

The rest of Rule No. 72 reads as follows: “Once the Tournament becomes heads-up, this rule does not apply. There may be unlimited raises at the heads-up level.” Would be interesting to see a hand go down at the end of a limit event this way, although it would take a mighty unique scenario for it actually to occur.

Finally, there’s another rule in here that is not new, but I think might get some extra attention this summer, the “Approved Electronic Device Rule” (Rule No. 88). Reads the same as last year, although officials have put in bold one sentence in particular that wasn’t in bold last year.

Here’s how that rule reads: “Players are allowed to use as approved electronic devices iPods, MP3 and other music players or noise-reduction headsets during Tournament play until they have reached the money in any Tournament, so long as the approved electronic devices can not [sic] access the internet, send or receive SMS texts and are not equipped with any type of communication device. Therefore, iPhones, iTouch, Treos, Blackberrys, and other similar devices will not be allowed at any time. Once players are in the money in any Tournament, all approved electronic devices must be removed. An announcement will be made to players once they have reached the money to remove all such electronic devices. Failure to do so will results in a penalty up to and including disqualification, in accordance with Rule 53.”

Rule No. 53 is the one spelling out the various penalties tourney officials can assess, including verbal warnings, one-hand penalties, one-round penalties (on up to four-round penalties), and disqualification. That’s the rule that also notes how the WSOP will be keeping a log of all penalties throughout the series so as to be able to impose harsher penalties to repeat offenders.

This rule stood out for me because of all the recent buzz about Twitter, with some even suggesting how players sending “Tweets” about their chip counts could somehow challenge (or at least affect) conventional tournament reporting. But reading the rule, it sounds like there really shouldn’t be any logging onto Twitter by the players during play, except perhaps on breaks.

As with the no-profanity rule, I have to wonder how strictly this rule is going to be enforced, especially if a lot of players start Twittering away from the start. If I remember correctly, there were some attempts to stop players from texting at the tables early on, but I think they basically gave up trying to stop ’em after a certain point.

We’ll see if tourney officials take a different approach to the enforcement of the “Approved Electronic Device Rule” this time around. If they do, I think they should probably anticipate a lot of challenges to the no-profanity rule as well.