Just curious have you played any WSOP events this summer? Maria can muck her hand, there is no angleshoot, shes not attempting to win the hand in any way. I literally have seen this scenario at least 100 times already this summer. It was a slight dealer error, but who cares. OP freaked out b/c it wasn't mucked... OK.. Its not Marias fault.

The 'must show hand to win pot' rule should stipulate only if two players are remaining in the hand to avoid the open muck exploit. It may not be an angle shoot but it's exploiting one of the dumbest rules on the books - that you can open muck after the river instead of showing down and still get to see your opponent's cards.

Edit: Actually as the rule is written Maria CANNOT muck her hand without violating the rule and should receive a penalty.

Ironically Maria was in violation of this rule. As the rule is written, if you muck the river when you should table it you are in violation. I'm not arguing that this is how the rule is enforced, but as it is written the open muck exploit should be penalized.

I have known Maurice since 2006 when I met him at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood Fl - back then you could only play sngs and cash games with a max buy-in of $100 I believe. Maurice would grind all different amounts of the sngs however he usually played the $500's and $1000's.

To sum up Maurice and I think I am being pretty accurate:

1)If he doesn't know you and you are not a "well known" pro, he will initially treat you like crap(always exceptions but not too often). He will criticize your game, try to embarrass you at the table and generally hope you play badly because of it. Maurice imo has a unique style and part of his style incorporates his table talk/image. The Jeopardy theme song hum by him is well thought out because ultimately he wants the op to act faster and get him annoyed and off his game in the process. I believe Will "The Thrill" is another guy who uses his table talk in a different way but also has some similarities to Maurice - he will be very loud and sometimes obnoxious to push people to call his big shoves(when he usually has the nuts or close to it).

2)Once you get to know Maurice and he has played with you before, he doesn't act like that anymore for the most part. He will be very friendly and affable with you at the table - almost building a hush hush alliance where he is overly friendly, not wanting to have you go against him. Believe me when I write this, Maurice would be a great politician - he can make you feel like you and him are best friends at the table in no time.

Overall, definitely sorry OP had the "bad" Maurice experience but believe me when I tell you this(and you already know this from other posts about him), you are not even close to being the only one he has done this to.

Maurice Hawkins is an acquired taste - I am very friendly with him and am that way because I know he won't do that crap to me anymore(he did back in '06). He also knows exactly what he is doing with each and every player at the table to get any kind of edge he can in the psychological sense. This year he finished 1st in the 1 million Guarantee $580 circuit event in February at the Palm Beach Kennel Club for $160,000+, he made a semi deep run I believe at the Borgata WPT $15,000 main event in April and he finished 9th in the Milly Maker a few weeks ago for another 6 figure score. Don't expect him to change his table presence anytime soon.

Hollywood

As a pro playing a big event I'd chew Maurice out for poor behaviour and give him some stick afterwards, then not call clock on him later.

As an amateur, as above, but then I'd call clock on him as you did, OP.

Your case is made weaker for the Maria stuff but then again I can see how you'd see things like that.

Im a plo cash reg from miami florida and didnt ever experience maurice hawkins **** talking till i started playing live mtts about 6 months ago and the guy is clearly out of line. im always nice to everyone at the table and i usually keep to myself but this guy constantly crosses the line. The ego on this guy is pathetic he is also completely full of himself. I know for a fact prior to his palm beach score he was broke. I remember being in a hialeah park playing 10/25 plo and he was coming over to my table to get stake money for 2/5 nl from a fish/thug in my game. And from what i heard from a friend in the 2/5 nl game with maurice hawkins the guy is a huge mark. this guy obviously just went on a mtt heater. But in a year or two he will be back to strolling around the casinos in miami looking for someone to put him into a 2/5 nl game.

Well played. If someone calls the clock on me after such a short period of time I will spite call clock all day long after that. Only thing missing from this story was you slow rolling him with the nuts when he shoves all in.

just made a tl;dr FYP

amazed that one of his poker buddies hasn;t said "Hey Maurice, maybe it's a good idea to make new/bad players WANT to come back and put some money in the poker economy.

+1, guy seems alright. i'm gonna automatically side with him because i can't stand the way that scrubs angle to try and keep from having to show their hands when their bluffs get called down.

OP, i'm sorry that these clowns made your experience such a trying ordeal. you were absolutely in the right in all of the described incidents, and i can confirm from experience that 1) wsop dealers are terrible, unlike anything in this world, and 2) there are tons of circuit travelling "pros" (mostly a bunch of backed wannabes who really aren't even good at poker) who most definitely share a cliquey/high school mentality where they think they're cool because they travel around to play poker and they go out of their way to treat anybody who isn't part of their "in crowd" like a lowlife peasant.

try not to let it discourage you, unfortunately part of playing live poker is having to find a way to deal with scumbags who act like children.

Confirmed angle shoot. Also like the part where Ho is not obligated (agreed) to speak up when another player is acting out, but is obligated to defend a dealer who is not going his/her job in a professional manner, of which actions were directly caused by Ms Ho and her "unclear" fold.

blah ****ing blah

your bet was called, table your ****ing hand like a professional is supposed to.

I actually find this interesting.

She goes out of her way to be uber PC about how her and Maurice are totally not friends and basically says she doesn't need to do anything to help out random guy when her not friend is being a total dick. But she goes out of her way to say OP is a dick to the dealer who everyone here seems to think was totally incompetent.

Once it's obvious the dealer doesn't know she has mucked it is her job to clarify that she's just holding her cards in hopes of getting information from him while concealing her own. It's within the rules and bad form, pretty much the definition of angleshooting.

racist ban imo

and selbst coming in here pulling the sexism card when her friend is clearly angleshooting is utter bs. D Negs doesnt pull this crap, hence why hes a great ambassador to the game.

This happens all the time. Someone "folds" by saying something like "you got it" or by slightly pushing their cards over the line (still within reach) and when the other player shows a worse hand the first player grabs their hand back and turns it up, which usually ends up in a rewarded pot.

This is 100% the dealer's fault in this situation, as she should have pulled Maria's hand into the muck and pushed the pot over.

Also, in the video Maria says that WSOP rules say that you have to show the winning hand whether or not it's an all in situation. Can someone confirm this? I was pretty sure that if you are heads up, and a player mucks, the other player does not need to show their hand to be awarded the pot.

Tournament poker sounds fun and friendly.

this isnt even about Maria. Its about Maurice. Maria could have been a solid example and told Maurice to tone it down. Negs would. Marias whole ordeal could have been avoided had she just threw her damn cards into the muck, like a previous poster stated. No point in verbally saying ur good. Toss the cards, gg, nh. Next hand. Cmon

Vanessa, I don't fully agree (and I believe I am paying attention). I should clarify that I do agree with you that poker is full of blatant sexism, way beyond what would be tolerated in the corporate world or any normal work environment. Also, 2+2 (including itt) is infused with sexism to such an extent that most people don't seem to notice it. However, I just don't think OP criticising Maria in his account is an example of that. Note that Melanie was also a female at the table who he didn't materially criticise and for all I know there could have been others. Note also that it was not OP who made the comments about the source of Maria's money. Therefore I don't think its fair to say she was singled out by OP because of her gender. OP had reasons (from his pov) to include her in his story:

If there is to be a complaint about sexism by OP then inclusion of Melanie who had no part in the story apart from being part of some supposed "clique" and her presence being a suggested reason why Maurice (who I don't know but sounds like a tool) was playing up. Also, this quote:
If there is any OP sexism in respect of Maria then it is far milder than that I imagine she (sadly) encounters every day at the poker table. The interview she and Melanie did is more sexist than anything OP has said.

btw, I do agree that it is ridic for OP to criticise Maria for not speaking out against Maurice, and to that extent he singled her out.

I have great respect for you Vanessa and believe you do a lot to promote the interests of women in poker. I also agree with the thrust of your views about sexism. Having played poker with her only a few times I also agree that Maria is a very pleasant person and a strong poker player and has always acted very professionally in my experience. She is extremely popular with the other players as well as the peeps holding cameras. As you can see, I agree with you on a lot more points than I do not. I just feel sexism by OP is the wrong battle to fight.

behind op 100%, definitely think the spiteful 2minute clock call was warranted. The river check check thing needs to be cleared up, extremely muddy subject and etiquette changes from area to area/ country to country. Would have probably got a slap if you asked for an automucked river bluff to be turned over in london a decade ago.

Different but awesome situation postsaver http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr2agX80ZyE

2014 WSOP, Rule 71: http://www.wsop.com/2014/2014-WSOP-Rules.pdf

Showdown: In a non all-in showdown, if cards are not spontaneously tabled, the Floor People may enforce an order of show. The last aggressive player on the final betting round (final street) must table first. If there was no bet on the final street, then the player who would be first to act in a betting round must table first (i.e. first seat left of the button in flop games, high hand showing in stud, low hand showing in razz, etc.) Players not still in possession of their cards at showdown, or who have mucked face down without tabling their cards, lose any rights or privileges they may have to ask to see any hand. The winning hand must be shown to claim the pot. If a participant refuses to show their hand and intentionally mucks his or her hand, the participant in violation will receive a penalty, in accordance with Rules 39, 107 and 108.

Thanks. So it is on the dealer to fully muck a mucked hand. Or her hand should have been declared dead and OP could have shown anyways.

This is easily the best post of the thread.

what kind of scumbag is doing everything in his power to make the recreationnal player feel bullied/unconfortable. It was obvious OP was not a reg on the circuit and maurice just went for it, classless piece of ****