This is my best attempt at a comprehensive summary of what just unfolded at the casino at EPT Barcelona. There were several other people there who can verify that everything I have written happened exactly as I said. Just putting this out there as a precaution to anyone who plays at this casino. The cash games here are not run by Stars to be clear. This is in the casino where the event is being held, but the cash games are run by the casino.

We are playing €100/€200 PLO in the high stakes section of the poker room. Two players limp in EP, I make it 1100 with KhKcJd9d in MP, Juha Helppi calls in the CO, Bullitos calls after him in the SB, and an older Spanish guy pots it to 5900 from the BB. The sizing might be a tiny bit off, but not by more than 300. Limpers fold, I call, Juha calls and Bullitos does as well. The pot is roughly 24k.

The flop is Ks9s7x. Bullitos checks, BB shoves for slightly over 10k, I jam for around 40k, Juha folds, and Bullitos calls all in for around 4k-5k. At this point we tell the dealer to stop so we can discuss running it twice. I was concerned with the language barrier so several times I clarified that we were running it twice for the whole pot. I specifically said the whole pot, run it twice, so that there would be no confusion. We all agree.

The first board runs out Ks9s7x As 4x. Second board runs out 7x 6x. BB shows AAxx, and I table my hand. Bullitos has a wrap which gets scooped. So at this point we should be chopping up Bullitos’ money as well as the main pot, and each taking back our money for the side pot. In total the main pot has around 36k in it after the flop action, so my share should be 18k. This is when the chaos starts.

The Spanish guy now claims that the casino has a rule that you can only run it twice in heads up pots, and that for multi way pots running it twice is forbidden. Because of this, he is claiming that running it twice is only valid for the side pot, and that only the first board counts for the main pot. At this point there is a huge crowd gathered, and there is lots of yelling in both English and Spanish. The dealer is a bit overwhelmed and is just kind of sitting there doing nothing, and the BB then walks away to go get a floor guy. He appears to be a local and to know the staff, but I will admit that is just my read of the stiation and I don’t know that for sure.

Eventually the floor guy comes over and takes stock of the situation and rules in my favor, saying that because we all agreed to run it twice, it was valid for the entire pot. Then they summon what appeared to be a higher up floor guy, who ruled against me. He said that because the house rule is that running it twice in mutli way pots is forbidden, that the entire main pot is awarded to the BB with AA.

Thomas Bichon, Bullitos, and especially Juha were all arguing with the floor that we agreed to run it twice, and that this guy was angling, and by ruling in his favor they are explicitly supporting cheating. I brought up the following scenario to the floor, and demanded that he get an answer from the BB. What if the board run outs were reversed, and I won the first run out and lost the second? What would happen then? I clearly didn’t know about this rule and would never have claimed the entire pot for myself. He seemed to understand that that was the key point, but still didn’t change his ruling. He asked the BB (in Spanish which I don’t understand well enough to follow what they were saying) the same question, and apparently his response was that he had no agreement on running it twice in the main pot. This was a very blatant lie, and everyone at the table who spoke English was in agreement that he was lying.

Juha was especially angry at the situation, and said he was going to take a picture. I’m not sure if he intended to take a picture of the player who was angling, or the floor, but either way the floor told him that if he took a picture he would be banned from the casino. Juha then asked the floor what his name was, and he refused to tell him. Juha asked several more times and the floor kept saying that his name was “poker manager.” No one on the staff was willing to give their name or any kind of a business card, and seemed very intent on shutting all of the foreign players up.

After all of this the floor instructed the dealer to ship the pot to the BB, and that the argument was over. Despite this still being a great game, I was too shocked and too pissed off to continue playing and left.

Anyway that is what happened, I think Juha will come to the thread to chime in as well.

Gross. Sorry to hear, man.

I think its a government owned casino (might be wrong) so yeah, they prolly dont give a **** about their rep and can be easily bribed

fact that he doesnt want to give you his name his sketchy as ****

Ridiculous, no idea how you held your cool in that spot

A lot of the horror stories you hear like this are related to running it twice shenanigans. I was aware of this and that is why I very clearly clarified that we were running it twice for the whole pot, Juha, Thomas, and David (Bullitos), can verify that we agreed on it. The rest of the table claimed they didnt speak English unless it was a convinient time for them to chime in. The dealer was very much on my side, and told the floor we agreed to run it twice, but they seemed unphased by that.

I didn't

it happened to me also in vegas this year at the ARIA 5-10 PLO.
where we had a 3way allin pre and the first guy wanted to run it twice and me and the other guy(we had a really small side pot) agreed to run it twice.

then he won the first one, and I won the second runout. (the 3rd guy who wanted to run only once, lose the first, and second:P)
now the dealer on his way to chop the pot,
than he says that we run it once for the main, and we ran it twice for the side pot(which was like 10% from the main pot).

of course if i would win the first runout i was sure I'm going to win only 50% of the pot,not like he took after he won the first runout.
it's a rule only locals can know and taking advantage of it, its so clear but the managers rule by the dry law and not thinking by sense.

the manager ruled for him. and he got the main pot and i took half of the side(which was very small).

Sorry to hear.

Not saying you did anything wrong, but how was this the first time this ruling came up? I figure earlier in the week there had to have been a 3 way all in in PLO where this "forbidden" ruling would have come up for precedence.

Disgusting angle by the regular who knew the ruling was pretty much set in stone and had the option to **** you over if he pleased.

ridiculous, I'm sorry to hear this Dani.

No wonder poker/poker players have such a bad global reputation when this stuff is so standard.

This was my first night playing cash games, I had only been playing the tournaments so far. Also they were very inconsistent with their rules. When I was playing 50/100 they enforced a rule that stated that you cant run it twice for pots less than 100bbs. Then when I moved to 100/200 (which is in a semi roped off section of the already seperate high stakes room), they seemed to drop this rule entirely.

They also have a bizarre rule where you cannot sit out your BB. As in, like in a tournament, if you are in the bathroom for your BB it gets posted and your hand is dead. Each day you get a clock for 1 hour that you can use to sit out and not get blinded off. You are supposed to get only 1 clock per day, but people were regularly getting several clocks.

My point is that rules here seemed to be enforced at the whim of the staff, nothing was consistent at all.

I got into a spot in the cashgames in this casino, where we were all in preflop for some <100bb amount. We discuss if we should run it twice, and agree to it. Both players hold up two fingers and say "two times?", and it is completely clear that we intend to run it twice. When the first run is done, the dealer continues as if the hand is over. The whole table protests, including the guy that won the first run. Eventually floor gets called, and we get told that the pot must be >100bb for us to have the option to run it more than once. Fine enough, I dont lose any EV on this ruling, as Im sure we would end up running it only once no matter who the winner was. But it appears that this is a problem in the casino. It really shouldnt be difficult for the dealer to realize that we intend to run it twice, and then be clear about the rules up front.

So the dealer didn't know of this rule? Take the picture and get banned. Why would you ever want to play there again anyway? Outing the angleshooter and the floor people encouraging it seems important here.

Also, it sounds like anything that happens related to gambling in Barcelona is sketchy. PokerStars needs to rethink holding events there.

Question: Was the inconsistency in the rules mostly in favor of local players?

Up until this point they weren't. It would be things like one dealer would let us run it twice in a 90bb pot, then another dealer wouldn't. Like I said this was my first day playing cash here so I don't have much of a sample size. Obviously in my situation with what happened it seemed like they were favoring the local player.

It almost sounds like the casino is part of the angle.

This is such a sketchy result.

Sorry to hear this. Wonder how much the floor staff got paid for helping the other guy out.
You dont hear these freeroll stories often, but when you do it really makes you consider never running it twice in plo games in casinos with ambiguous rules. Ive heard of this same thing being done the rio

Ridiculous. Wasn't there a point to get the Po-Po involved?

To be clear the Spanish player in question was some 60 year old guy who I doubt anyone here knows the name of. Him being outed on 2p2 surely means nothing to him.

The dealer was seemingly on my side and seemed to protest to the floor, but it was mostly in Spanish so I couldn't be sure.

I've played in Spain 3 times and in any controversial decision where a Spanish floor guy had the authority it always benefitted the local player.

Just to chime in, yesterday i was playing 50/100 NLHE and at the table next to mine, a PLO table, there was a 5 way ai massive pot (believe it was a 50/100/200 PLO game), and they ran the main pot and all sides twice.

wow thats pretty sick. wouldnt have imagined that this can happen in a high stakes games in a big casino :/

I was sure that this situation was going to happen at some point this week; sorry that it happened to you, Dani. I have been playing these games and they do have some bizarre rules. Not being able to run it twice in 3 way pots is very much a real rule in the casino and once management gets called there's no way you're going to win the argument since it's a government run casino. Interestingly enough, you can run the side pot twice, just not the main pot. Several times I've seen players suggest and successfully run it twice for everything but you're only opening yourself up to being angled. The floor seems to be pretty lenient with some of the bad regulations that are in place but once management gets called down they have to go by the book. For example, all week there has been a 150-300 PLO game that has been mostly heads up or 3 handed, but the regulations state that there can only be 4+ player games in the casino. The floor turns a blind eye to it but once management got called down they tried to stop it and eventually they agreed to just put a phantom stack in one of the seats so it appeared to be 4 handed. My point of all this is I really don't believe you were angled by the floor or even the management for that matter. They are just doing their jobs. The spanish guy on the other hand very likely knew what was going on and took advantage of the situation.

if i were you, i would of took my money and protested, not giving back a single cent. banned or not banned. **** them

and this people is why you should only play online poker.