2 things to note:

1. It's against the WSOP rules to record video or audio while the tournament is in progress. It's definitely illegal for the players to do. I'm not sure what the rules are for those on the rail.

2. This wasn't a final table. It was an unofficial final table in the evening. They were 10 handed, played until an elimination and then came back the next day to play the final table.

Mod, please quickly delete this boring troll.

deleted "troll" quote

damn ! I debated using "trash can"

U win nicejob

sure. i agree that the TD should have handled things differently, but life isn't fair. sometimes if you act like a complete *******, people aren't going to rush to your defense even when they have a moral or professional obligation to do so. that's how life (and human nature) is. it's a tough lesson to learn the hard way, i know i've had to in the past.

people who act loud and obnoxious on the rail are the nut lo- close to impossible for me to feel any sympathy for this dude when he's proudly been on the other side of it.

pretty sure he had like 8bb, which, in addition to doing the exact same thing to other people in the past, makes it even more unbelievable the way he's carrying on about how badly he got ****ed and how hes such a victim and everybody should break out the fainting couches for this THEFT of equity

lol gmafb

If you like someone you find a reason to cut them some slack. If you don't, you find a reason not to. Human nature. Evidence - this thread.

Douches are still entitled to the same standards and treatment as non douches. The moment we start applying different levels of standards to people depending on our own assessment of their behaviour is the moment those standards become pointless and irrelevant.

His complaints, which I feel are justified complaints, are that he was having the time of his life from an enjoyment and happiness aspect and that this was spoiled/near ruined by the way the floor treated him, sided with the rowdy railers and then called security on him who stood over him while he was playing.

Also that he was embarrassed in front of his friends and made to feel like he was the person at fault when he wasn't.

He also makes a valid point about the "butterfly (flapping its wings) effect" which I believe is a valid one as any small change in timings to any given situation can and often does change all future events. E.g. in this example, the dealer would be shuffling the cards slightly differently had there not been the interruptions for the incident.
Butterfly effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

Regarding his bust out hand..... pretty sure he open shoved A3o when he had 8 or 9 BBs, plus there were obviously antes in play, and the BB was sitting out. Well this was obviously the optimal play, even if the BB wasn't sitting out, except in an ICM situation where there's another stack with 1 BB remaining who is UTG etc, which there wasn't.

The whole table was pretty shallow (perhaps in both senses of the word, lol!) so ICM fluctuations were big meaning a 9 BB stack was by no means out of contention for the top 3 spots.

He was unlucky that two other players both had AK and the board bricked off against him.

Yes so had that shove got through or he had doubled or later doubled and gone on to place 4th or something then yes he would likely have made much less of the incident, but he still would have raised it IMO because what happened to him was not right.

he's entitled to it, but idk wtf anybody expects me or anybody else on 2+2 to do about it. is it important enough or is luke likeable enough that i should take minutes out of my day to pen a letter like the OP? (i'll answer that for you- no)

There are TONS of people video blogging. EVERYONE has a phone that records video. Even if you took 1-2 minutes of video. People tend to be more on your side when they see it.

And if you're videotaping and a WSOP official asks you to stop just say, I'll stop recording as soon as you stop the taunting.

Whoever rail it was. He should have asked them to stop.

this is a guess and completely inaccurate. like many of the others, he had a very playable and active stack for many hours and was taunted, bullied, intimidated and discriminated against for many many hours.

everyday employees make errors that cause customers damage in one form of another, weather its financial, emotional, or other ways. this is a large corporation and one of its employees broke the law. remedies exist to cure and in more ways than one to rectify.

the conduct of the damaged person has nothing to do with the loss. everyone reacts differently, some people only were taught one way to respond.

the entire matter is very clear and easy to rectify, its only a matter of mitigation to resolve to the parties involved satisfaction.

it's not a guess, it's the stacksize that he was reported to have brought into the day

ultimately, it doesn't matter. i don't care. i should (and will) stop posting itt. you guys can soak in the outrage all you want.

When it was 10 handed though he was 4th in chips last I saw on the update on WSOP coverage, without any updates for at least an hour or so when it finally updated again they had reached the final and he went from 4th to 8th in chips with very few BBs left. I assume this is when this entire incident occurred. I could be wrong but WSOP was updating/reporting things almost every 5-10 mins when it was 10 handed and all of a sudden it just stopped reporting hands until they reached the final table for the next day. Before that they were constantly giving just about every action that was happening on both tables so I was sort of surprised when I saw the chip counts went from him being 4th place with a healthy stack to the second shortest without any hand coverage. Wished they would have shown everything take place on stream.

Gee, Sage, thank you so very much for the parenthetical explanation of exactly how the action of a butterfly's wings is the salient aspect of the chaos theory phenomenon known as the butterfly effect. I've always wondered how and why butterflies were chosen to represent this theory. Now, thanks to you, my curiosity has been satiated. I will forever be in your debt.

Nice sarcasm but....... the reason why I briefly explained it is that most but not all people have heard of it, some people dispute it as a sound concept, and in particular I have heard poker players on a number of occasions say how unlucky they were to have not backed someone who then won big having been offered some equity to buy, when in fact in nearly all cases had they backed the player then the butterfly effect would have been present.

I seriously doubt that you've ever "briefly explained" anything in your life. And your response above to my little humorous dig at your penchant to explain absolutely everything is a good example.

thx for the post puckster. i think people are focused on whether Vrabel or Affleck is a douche but i think the one thing to take away from the OP is the fact that it corrupted his WSOP experience, it is UNPLEASANT for the average decent person to see a poker tournament including crowd taunting,imo.

not to go on a tangent, but i told the floor at Hawaiin gardens in LA a few months ago that if they did't kick out 2 women at the table i would never return (one of them threatened to shove cards up some kid's ass, the other was constantly cursing dealers, constant verbal harassment...saying things that would have gotten most men punched tbh...not to mention the colluding of course). the floor twice came to the table and said "everyone please calm down" lol. i picked up and left.....if there is a chance that OP, or some other wsop FAN, would not return then it is a serious concern

to be fair to the floor, this is not something they have to deal with in any regularity probably, they know how to give warnings/penalties to players but not to spectators. this needs clarification for the future.

He has tweeted probably 10+ times in his hundreds of tweets this week that the floor man who didn't kick the rail out cost him 6 figures in equity (along with a hefty amount of continued insults at diff parties involved). Also he keeps tweeting how WSOP hasn't contacted him yet, wtf does he expect them to do? Pay him out equity he thinks he is owed or phone him to say they are firing a veteran floor man ? Retroactive ban on affleck and his gf?

Noted, but I'm still surprised there's no footage.

*high five*

This.

There are so many players who could have kicked up this fuss over one thing or another in various tournaments over the years. Even if I wanted to get behind his cause, I'd in no way support the argument that this cost him the tournament or he was thrown off hands.

The butterfly effect can be maddening to think about, but it is very real. There are a million tiny little things that make up the outcomes of reality, particularly when it comes to games that rely on probability.

As a thought experiment split the world into two realities.

Reality 1: Player A throws cards into the muck.
Reality 2: Just as Player A is about to much, a cocktail waitress with nice big ass walks by. Player A turns his head to look (subconsciously) while he is mucking his had it goes off into a different trajectory.

In both realities the dealer scoops his hand and puts the cards into the shuffle machine, however the cards are now in a different order. From this moment on the card distribution of the two different realities diverge. Now multiply this by all of the other players doing all sorts of random things that change the course of history. None of this is really worth thinking about, but in life changing events like WSOP Main Event etc, one minor butterfly effect situation can make or break your entire poker career - and you will have no idea about it, eitherway...

Your dig was funny(ish) but discounted some important factors. You are among a growing number of NVG posters who criticise other posters' style of or length of post rather than discuss the issue of the thread. In fact, one of the early posters ITT criticised the length of the OP as did a later one. It's a societal thing of people having a lower attention span than in previous years through texting etc. When I text I use "sup?", "cu l8r" etc as much as anyone, but this is not texting, this is a serious discussion.

I agree that he could have handled it much better and that his "demands" are unrealistic. I said as much in a friendly Twitter exchange with him. The problem is that his first response and first few Tweets were quite understandably emotionally charged, so once he'd started off in that vein it becomes difficult for him to back track or to adopt a softer and more conciliatory approach.

I mentioned in a Tweet to Luke that he deserves some compensation, e.g. $10Ks worth of food, drink and accommodation comped plus an apology and that the WSOP are likely viewing the situation as a personality dispute rather than a ruling or equity influencing dispute which is why they'd never pay out a very big amount of compensation or admit any liability or negligence.

I do believe that if he wrote a more measured letter to them or someone representing him did so on his behalf then maybe the WSOP would give him some kind of undisclosed compensation with a no admission of liability and secrecy clause attached to it.

But whilst he is on the all out attack as he is now, I think they will just pretend nothing ever happened and possibly use his *current* tirades as a retrospective justification for them not treating him even handedly during the comp.

From a business standpoint the WSOP will always survive because it is so iconic and historic, in the same way that people will always visit The Statue of Liberty or Buckingham Palace. However, for all 3 of these, if standards start to slip in various areas and certain endemic problems are not rectified then it will lower attendance and cause some damage to the brand.

I am in support of Luke's case but one has to be practical and tactful when trying to effect change and when putting one's case forward for compensation.

Regardless if Vrabel is a douche or Affleck is fat, they weren't the only ones at that table. I would not want to be in seats 8 or 9 while 10's friends are harassing 7. This was seemingly a horribly uncomfortable situation, made worse by the TD attitiude. If I'm at the FT and there's a lot of money on the line, I'd be pissed that some guys hometown friends will not shut up.
Anyone remember the WPT event where ones guys drunken rail was allover a guy named Goldberg. They wouldn't shut up and every player and announcers were talking about it til someone told them to zip it.

No, it's not just a societal thing. That's part of it, and sometimes people do dismiss good posts with a rather unneeded "tl; dr". But the reason you hear this so often is that you do tend to go on at much greater length than you need to, and often to explain the extremely obvious that probably didn't need any explanation whatsoever. But I've also seen some lengthy posts from you that were pretty good. Now, you can just ignore those criticisms and continue to post the way you do - if that's the route you choose, expect said criticisms to increase and posters to skim past your posts more often. Or you can take some of it on board as legitimate and give it some thought before your next diatribe. And this is coming from someone who's been guilty of many posts that could legitimately have been "tl; dr"ed.

As for the butterfly effect, what of it? Yes, the cards dealt could be changed by almost any action - for the positive, or the negative. Who cares how the random deal is randomly changed?

And FWIW, I'd suggest that this statement: "when in fact in nearly all cases had they backed the player then the butterfly effect would have been present" is quite inaccurate. But that's a debate for another time and place.

Yes some of my posts could be shorter, but this is a disease on NVG of people criticising the length or style of post, or the grammar or spelling. I see it hardly at all on other non 2plus2 forums. Definitely a correlation here on 2plus2 of the average age of people (relatively young) with many of them having little patience to read more than a few short words, and of some poker players, for whatever reason, having destructive personalities IMO.

Note that your post above is reasonably long. It needed to be to make your points as indeed is the OP's letter which it also needed to be, the latter of which at least 6 posters ITT have criticised regarding its length.

I thought the first 5 paragraphs were largely unnecessary but isn't this, and other recent discussions derails.