For those saying the dude should have left: gtfo

Has it been established where in the world he was from? There are many reasons he may not have been able to leave. Maybe he couldn't get a flight out. Maybe he couldn't unregister & wanted to get something for his money. Whatever the reason, this nit is pathetic

Doc Sands was not in the wrong here. He handled the situation perfectly. A lesser person wouldn't have told the gentleman he'd seen his cards, regardless of whether or not it was intentional. This was just a peculiar situation all around, and Sands is being scrutinized because of he's well known.

this.

r people defending sands for real? just d riding cuz he's a "cool pro"? he offered the guy a piece and then the guy tried to dump to him. pretty blatant collusion. Whatever, not that big of a deal, but stop with these posts that they did nothing wrong.

Pretty sure Harrah's will typically accommodate people in this situation and give them a refund and take their chips out of play. I'd be interested to hear if he asked.

Doc tweeted that the man found out during level 2, what if he had doubled up etc by then?

except the OP suggests this was done only after Sands realised OP had seen it too. looking forward to hearing further clarification on this.

undoubtedly a weird situation though. amazing how live tournaments continue to throw up these unique spots.

Sounds like Doc tried an advantage play (angle) and lost.

The known chip-dumping is disconcerting and hurts every single person in the tournament. I would be livid if I was at another table and heard that was going on. Screams the perception of collusion.

It does indeed boggle my mind that the player would choose to continue playing in the tournament (without really playing in the tournament) in this situation. This isn't about whether he can leave immediately or not, it's about everything else that you need to prepare for and whatever is going on in your head.

My impression is that almost all people would do one of three things in this situation:
1.) I think many people would just leave their stack and never come back without telling anyone at the table what happened.
2.) An exceptionally composed person might leave their stack, and try to talk to the tournament director, explain their situation and ask to withdraw.
3.) I can also believe there would be some people who would try to put this out of their mind for the rest of the day, play poker as well as they could, and get experience out of their WSOP trip, even if they have no chance of cashing.

But even if you chose the third option, why would you sit there and slowly dump chips? I don't understand how you are going to "get something for your money" if you aren't even really playing your hands. Obviously, he's not in any mental state to get the experience that he paid for.


BTW, I don't really find the so-called "chip dumping" issue all that relevant...none of the players involved are in the tournament anymore, and the particular facts here sound so unusual that trying to figure out the right ruling for the future is pretty pointless.

I would be much more interested in hearing from Doc Sands about whether the guy tried to unregister, and whether there was discussion about that at the table.

I doubt Barth will need to clarify much more, as he wrote, "Knowing I am aware of what was going on, Doc turned to the man and said, 'Sir, I just want you to know before I act, I saw your hand.'" [Emphasis mine.]

I could be taking the grammar too literally, but as written, it means Doc divulged that disclaimer because he knew Barth was a witness. Written another way, the sentence becomes "Doc knew I was aware of what was going on, so he turned to the man and said..."

The entire post is well-written, which tells me Barth used the participial phrase to mean exactly what you think it means.

A couple other things:

This is probably the one point where Sands should have "acted nobly" in regard to tournament rules and the intentions of his seat neighbor. Thanked the man? I agree 100 percent with everyone who says Doc -- or anyone else within earshot -- should have spoken up as soon as the hint of chip-dumping surfaced. This is that point, and it took place long before the "All you have to do is raise, If you raise I fold" comment.

(The funny thing is that Doc DID raise and the guy did NOT fold. I'm shocked, shocked at the dishonesty.)

Finally, the OP asked if he "had a responsibility to report the situation." I'm not experienced enough with live play to know, so I'll ask the collective: what IS the protocol?

Put another way, if you were in Barth's situation, what would you say at the conclusion of the hand, if anything? Obviously, it won't undo the action. And, at risk of being results-oriented, it did not end up helping the intended beneficiary of the play. The instigator (Seat 7) is supposedly leaving, so penalizing him accomplishes nothing.

This is way off. Irrespective of his father passing away, amateurs have no clue or any care about collusion or the severity of their actions at the table. Poker is just a card game that they do for fun on vacation. This is a generalization, obviously, but you still can't reasonably say the guy is cheating scum.

Why does it matter if he had doubled up? The only issue would be if he had a very short stack by then, and was still asking for a refund of the full buy-in.

Fixed.

Haha, I wouldn't go THAT far... for one thing, how many people even realize this happened? If this had taken place much deeper in the tournament, especially in front of the ESPN cameras (which would have been moronic by all parties), then yes, it might become the big story of the 2013 WSOP. But it happened early on enough that I doubt anyone -- including most of us -- will put an asterisk on the final outcome due to this incident.

Doubt the TD could give a refund. Would open it up to everyone's sob stories. My dog just died and I have to leave. My kid broke his arm and is in the hospital.

Things happen in life. That is life (and death!)

He tried to help ONE person in the tournament which is absolutely collusion.

I certainly don't think this guy is scum at all, but I don't think this is correct either. The reason his actions are excusably here is precisely because of the very usual situation trumping considerations of poker ethics.

However, generally speaking, ignorance of what constitutes cheating should not be an excuse to cheat.

We can imagine that a billionaire might enter the Main Event playing poker for the first time and decide to dump off their chips to their friend just because they felt like being generous. He might have no idea that this is cheating, but I still think that this person is a cheater, and should not be allowed to enter future tournaments.

When you enter a major poker tournament, you have some responsibility to know the rules, and if you don't, to bear the consequences of your ignorance. Anyone who enters the WSOP must realize that it is serious business for many, many people involved, and not "just a card game that they do for fun on vacation."

def standard....esp if UTG just said he wants to dump his chips to you

Only thing I feel the need to add is that I don't think Doc calling pre with A7 is at all a problem if he assumes the guy is on ATC and the rest of the table knows it too. Frankly I'm surprised he didn't three bet.

I would actually be surprised if the TD wouldn't give a refund under this particular set of facts.

You can create a hypothetical controversial situation in which someone might ask for a refund, and reasonable people could disagree on whether it should be given.

But this isn't one of those situations.

I think Doc Sands handled it the way he should have. He let the guy know that he saw his cards. Then when he jams he expects the guy to fold. The guy obv thinks he is drawing dead and thats why he calls. Doc sands didnt do anything wrong. A player revealed his whole cards, Doc used the information available to him to come to the decision that shoving was the best option. The only person who did anything wrong was the guy who tried to dump his chips. Very unfortunate incident for Doc IMO. He doesn't need any extra help in accumulating chips.

Even if it happened much deeper in the tournament, I can't imagine it would be the biggest story coming out of the event. Remember that guy a couple years back who blinded off on Day 6 because his wife's religion wouldn't let him play poker on the Sabbath? Neither do I! (Or rather, I vaguely remember it happening, but I don't remember the guy's name or even exactly what year it was.)

Here's how Sands explained it on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Doc_Sands/status/355027448917790720

I had my dad pass away suddenly and for like 48 hours you are in a state of shock and you can't really think clearly and you have no idea what to do. If he was in vegas by himself and couldn't leave until the next day, I'm sure he wouldn't want to just be alone in his hotel room all day/night by himself. I'm guessing he stayed not for a main event experience or anything, he just had no idea where else to go or what to do, and it's wrong of anyone to blame him since he's an amateur player. As for doc, bahhhh that's a pretty ****ty spot to be in and think its up to the dealer, all the players at the table to tell the guy once its clear he has punting in his mind that you can't just blatantly chip dump to someone or get the floor involved to talk to the guy about the situation and try to decide the best course of action from there. Maybe no one said anything beause all the players at the table were hoping the guy would punt to them? I'm guessing a lot of the players were hoping that they would get easy chips from this guy which if that was true would be just as big of a dbag move as anything else.

I don't disagree with this. He should be on the hook for whatever he did wrong IMO, but I don't think it's fair to say he's a scumbag either. He thought he was doing something nice, but he was pretty ignorant to the rules.

Ignorance definitely doesn't excuse cheating, but there's a monumental difference between this random newb giving his chips away at the main event and Haseeb Qureshi chip dumping to Girah to win the Lock challenge thing. He shouldn't be characterized the same way Haseeb is even though they're guilty of similar crimes.

I would be really curious about this. Has any refunds ever happened post-tournament play? A serious situation has had to have happened multiple times.

I think it would be much worse if a close relative was in the hospital dying, rather than dead. That seems to be a much more urgent situation.

Then his stack is worth >10k and he'd not gain equity from abandoning stack and taking refund. More likely the TD could accommodate.

Silence speaks.