Koon in no way acted like a dueche. He responded to Smith acting like one calmly.

Oh course he had an axe to grind. This crap with smith has obviously been going on for a while.

When nothing happens to Smith for sucking every drop out of fun for the game to the point VIPs complain,he should be shamed for it in public. It's obvious it's been mentioned to him in private and he just doesn't care.

It may be an interesting spot but it's one Smith obviously has studied for countless hours and should know what to do with these stack depths and pay jumps.

I mean the guy has been a top tier pro for a decade but rasie,call look down at 99 with 15 bigs is gonna have him baffled?

Doesn’t matter if it is an interesting spot, the entire rest of the poker world deals with interesting spots all time without shushing the table.

Maybe some people are arguing that there really wasn’t a decision but they don’t have to be. Everyone gets how if a big pot brews to get silent but not at that point.

Learn how to think through a tiny bit of noise associated within confines of a normal poker game.

Players abusing the shot clock is equally annoying and potentially even equally time consuming as regular "tanking". Triton does a pretty good job policing that though.

Not many high rollers are using the full 30 seconds with 72o. And it's hand for hand on the bubble anyway.

Shushing the table is leagues worse.

You can always ignore/deny unreasonable requests, but it's still rude to make them because the other party has to deal with it. For example, if you ask someone to borrow money, he can always say "no." But it's often rude to ask, as it puts him in an awkward spot.

Koon was probably also concerned about the ethical norms of the games. He thinks it should be considered rude to ask for silence in this spot, and that it shouldn't be granted. Therefore he didn't want to just let it slide. Say you ate a meal with a group and when it come time to pay, someone said, "guys, I'd rather not tip on my share. I don't like tipping." You could just say, "please tip," but you might also let the person know they are in the wrong, that they are making things unpleasant for everyone and they shouldn't do this again.

Someone mentioned that Jason Koon is a brand ambassador or something like that for Triton, and if VIPs (Triton's term, not Jason's) are really complaining to Jason that Dan Smith has berated them for table talk, I can see why Jason felt need to say something.

It sounds like this is an issue with Dan Smith that has been bubbling up to the surface. And honestly, it is pretty ridiculous to shush the table in a preflop spot with ~15bigs when you are obviously in a binary push/fold decision. Smith needs to grow a pair.

Smith is clearly out of line and sucking ever last drop of fun out of the game, however what annoyed me more was Jason calling him "buddy" over and over.

Surprising how many people seem to take a side, think it's pretty clear they are both out of line.. I'm not sure how big of a factor it is, but there is a elephant in the room. It's EXTREMELY likely that Dan has swaps/pieces with/off Greenwood, O'Dwyer and Watson. And Koon obviously knows this, could be related to him being extra upset of the tanking.

Also think people make out this entire situation to be bigger than it is, dont think either of them have any issues with each other. But they are competetive and especially Koon seems like quite a intense person and not afraid to speak up.

You’ve made some excellent points here. Like others, though, I’m skeptical that anything will actually change. As the game creeps ever closer to being solved, it inevitably places even greater rewards on a robotic approach. And with the severe waning in the general-public interest in televised poker, the improved marketability that would accompany a more swashbuckling approach by some players will never produce enough $$$ to offset their loss in EV. Outside of the WSOP ME—where the buyin/satellites are within reach of a large enough pool to permit players with zaniness and gamble—I suspect that tournament poker has no television future.

I think Smith is good friends with Hecklen too so definitely could see swaps there as well.

And good lord, this had nothing to do with tanking as it's been said multiple times. Smith was shushing the table in a preflop spot.

Smith is a former chess player, no surprise that he's got some prima donna in him.

As to the specific incident - I think it's very right. Koon probably has a history of watching Smith do stuff like this and thinks he's just hollywooding in a standard spot where he's obviously going to jam or fold, but this specific spot does seem to warrant some consideration due to the marginal nature and ICM considerations.

However, with that said, the conversation didn't seem particularly loud our boisterous or distracting, so I'm with Koon on this one. Smith can figure out how to concentrate and make his decision with a bit of background noise going on.

Didn't Koon throw in a "I love you" too?

It’s not really taking a side, one issue is bigger than the other. I’m on Team Koon, I acknowledge he should have waited until after Smith played his hand. Fine, slap him on wrist and now we go on to Smith.

It’s NOT about tanking. It’s Smith shushing the table in spots where the ENTIRE rest of poker world just plays their hand. And doing other things that make so many people feel that he is miserable to play with.

Common sense needs to prevail here and the bar isn’t set very high. How hard is to just play and conduct yourself in a manner where people can just say “dude adds nothing to enjoyment” as opposed to “this guy is miserable to play with.” It’s fine if he adds nothing but if many people find you miserable to play with it’s time for some introspection.

Yet speculating about a potential "elephant in the room" and who swapped with whom and who that might have upset and whatnot apparently is not making the situation bigger than it is...

Is this actually an obvious spot? How often are players faced with a raise and a cold-call in at this point in this sort of tournament?

It seems likely this is a spot that most experienced players have a clear plan for in the face of a single raise, but maybe the cold call makes things much more complicated. It is also a pretty weird ICM spot on top of that, so I don't blame Dan for not already having made up his mind given that the action on his immediate left was pretty unexpected.

Yes, but this isn't an out of control rail where the players can't even hear what the bets are.........poker players conversing at the table preflop and Smith has five timebanks to use. As Koon said, learn how to operate.

Ugh, doesn’t matter if it’s an obvious spot or not. The entire rest of the poker world navigates these spots without shushing the table, right?

They are both social media addicts so no surprise they both talk like they are creating a sentence with the most likelihood of reddit upvotes. Hardly human beings at this point, both him and Smith.

If you do something at the table that would make poker unplayable and a miserable experience for all if everyone started doing what you are doing..........then you probably shouldn't do it.

Right that’s the standard people tried to get through to Vogelsang. But at least people could talk through his tanking lol

I'd love to see the reactions if Vogelsang started shushing players pre-flop

Wouldn’t last a level before he was hog tied with his own scarf

Just a random aside but Vogelsang has gotten absolutely cornholed playing Tritons.

He has something like 4 min cashes after playing 8 Triton stops starting in 2017.

He’s definitely down $3million and could very well be down $4million+ since most events average 1.5-2 bullets per runner.

Good but most of it is probably his backers money