Matoson complaining about the clock causing her tournament life after being taunted by the british guy. When actually she is complaining about her being a bad poker player. never seen a penalty so dumb. had a big laughter after Oliveira flopped trips

Kassouf has always been painful to watch, but I think the bearded guy making abc jokes at every opportunity then laughing at them himself may have him outkicked

Keating irritated me to no end. The producers probably were like - "Hey, check out this quirky guy with the wacky beard. The viewing audience will love him. Get him on the featured table." But at best he's polarizing - who over the age of 25 finds him anything but insufferable after more than 5 minutes? I'll take ten Kassoufs over one Keating on my WSOP coverage any day.

I get why the floor people would want to reign in Kassouf a bit but Jack Effel is a tool who seemed to have no clue what was going on and no interest in having an honest discussion with Kassouf about it.

I thought Effel came off the worst of anyone on the show.

I agree, and not just because it looks like he's slowly on the verge of putting back all that weight he lost a few years ago.

Keating is such a douche. I did enjoy Weisner's laugh when he got it in bad.

The worst thing about Kassouf is that he only has about 20 stock lines that he rotates. Once you played with him for a couple of levels, you've heard them all and it just gets more and more tiresome.

Played with him a couple of weeks ago in London and he was using the same lines he was using the first time we played a couple of years ago.

However, if you let it tilt you, it says more about your game than his.

Could someone explain to me why Koussef got a penalty? Yes, his verbal diarrhea is annoying and tilting, but at no point was there anything he did that warranted getting a penalty. At no point did he do or say anything hostile or insulting to Matuson that was shown on the broadcast.

Multiple times, he shuts up when requested, only to have Matuson immediately reinitiate conversation with him and directly ask him questions. And then each time Koussef has the audacity to respond to Matuson's questions, the floor immediately gives him warnings for talking?? And then in the end, he gets penalized by Jack Effel for a round for "taunting" because he hand motions the same line he has been repeating, "If you fold, you show, then I show"? WTF, are they just making rules up as they go? That seemed arbitrary and capricious to me.

Hey guys be honest with me, Are we all 100% sure that Par Linde is not just a wigged Edward Snowden faking an accent?


And am I the first person to make that joke?

Matuson runs a WSOP dealer academy. That's why. Kassouf actually did break a rule in all that but it certainly wasn't "taunting."

While the thirst for integrity in poker is a nice thing....people need to understand folks are playing for millions of dollars here. Was calling for clock a richard move? Sure. But so is throwing inside near someone's head in baseball. Doesn't mean its illegal or even bad. Just part of the gamesmanship of poker, and this episode really is a lesson for those who might have a hard time dealing with this stuff.

As a side note: LOL at her thinking the dude calling clock made her fold QQ.

Kassouf doing this to Vanessa Selbst is hilarious, btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7OUw6DsamE

It's the Jamie Gold rule: you can't talk about your hand when a decision is still pending. Before in the old days, you could get away with this if you lied about your hand......but after Jamie manipulated the rule (most of the time by having it in 2006), the WSOP just nixed most table talk all together including talking about pot odds, percentages, etc. Even the "I'll show if you fold" line is frowned upon, although you don't get a direct penalty for it as supposed to what Koussef said, "I have you beat here".

The rule also has history with Mansour Matloubi, who once shoved on a player with an underpair, and showed his opponent AA while the person was thinking about calling (b/c Mansour, a nit's nit, didn't want to gamble for the big pot and just wanted to take down what was currently in the middle).

I think you're both right and wrong.

Rule 113. Table Talk / Disclosure: participants are obligated to protect the other participants in the Tournament at all times. Therefore, whether in a hand or not, participants may not:
a. Disclose contents of live or folded hands.
b. Advise or criticize play at any time.
c. Read a hand that hasn't been tabled.
d. Discuss strategy with an outside source while involved in a hand.

Although Kassouf denied that he broke the rule, you could say that he did as he said he had the nuts on a number of occasions in a previous hand (when he had the straight flush).
However, that's not what he got the penalty for, as far as I could tell.

Jack appeared to be applying Rule 47.

'Any participant who taunts another participant through theatrics or gestures or engages in any form of inappropriate behavior intended to disrupt other participants in the tournament will be subject to penalty in accordance with Rules 40, 111, and 112.'

He went out of his way to use the word 'taunt' with regards to Kassouf's actions. Wrongly, in my opinion.

https://www.wsop.com/2016/2016%20WSO...nt%20Rules.pdf

I would agree with your assessment, although I just thought that Jack was lumping in the two rules together. Either way, it looked as if Jack was an elementary school teacher looking to give one of his preschool students a timeout in the corner.

I haven't seen the entire episode but I thought someone said that there was a rule against influencing somebody else's action.

Is there really such a rule?

Jack looks like an *******. Stacy Matuson looks like an *******. Will Kassouf looks absolutely fine.

"That was 100% taunting."

Under what definition of the word taunting? Good lord.

No. Otherwise checking, betting and folding would be against the rules.

Hard to say. But Vornicu did not seem weak to me during that tank. The hand was hard to figure, as it was so uncommon for any of them to ever just call preflop, so harder than normal to put him on a hand.

+1. Kassouf was not taunting so saying he was 100% taunting (and basing a penalty on that reasoning) is the biggest whiff possible.

Effel does have a hard job enforcing gray area situations like that. The rules are absurd and it's hard for even an experienced live player to know where the line is. Especially when transitioning from cash games to tournaments where the rules are different. Why are we making it complicated for players (and viewers)?

How about we go back to: you can say whatever you want during a heads-up pot but don't cross the line of good taste and decorum. When someone does cross that line give them a warning or penalty depending on the egregiousness of the breach. End of rule.

For me its simple, whats more entertaining to watch, Kassouf or Linde, no contest really isnt it?

Yeah, Ill take Linde over an annoying douche any day.

A possible explanation for the Kassouf penalty is that they didn't air the entirety of the interaction and he may have said some more over the line things that were cut from the clip.

Kassouf was being an annoying ****

That whole thing was a ****show. Not a single person came off well. Just terrible poker. What person (amateur) watching this would ever wanna be involved in that? Embarrassing.

tony gregg's hero call with the KTo was sick.