"arguing" may have been the wrong word if you're being pedantic, but "feuding" certainly. He'd been talking trash to Hawkins, Hawkins presumably being his normal self was talking back. Certainly wasn't friendly table talk.

also, as far as his command of the english language and intentionality... https://twitter.com/DutchBoyd/status...62675528945668

Thus far it has included (1) blatantly making this issue about politics and (2) shrilly and repeatedly wondering why black people can call other black people a certain term while white people cannot.

The reason black people might use the N word among friends would seem pretty cool if any of you muppets could use logic well. It's a jab at the nasty people that gave the word its original meaning; the urban areas took that word and made it their own for them to use only-- like turning a negative into a positive. I would also guess that as an entire race, more than half of all black people AREN'T okay with it being tossed around either, fwiw.

What a pussy.

How does he even survive in the real world, or is he so good at poker (or a degen) that he's sheltered from having to deal with life?

LOL we got a bad ass
here...

Not sure this is going to work at the WSOP.

What other words will get you DQ'd?

Maurice is the poster boy for histrionic personality disorder. I hate playing with his personality type at the table... although it's kind of funny when there are two of them at the table at once. They always go to war. Fun to watch.

Just n word with hard er

Everything else is fine, even call a women a fat C word is no problem

I was having a conversation with Tony Burns (from SHRPO) about it, and he said all racial slurs would result in an instant DQ from the Seminole Hard Rock.

Glad to see that MH did not cash in the main event.

I will post a long version of this from the perspective of someone who's both had to deal with Maurice on the felt, AND deal with him on the management side. Now that I've said that I'll say that Maurice is about as bad for the game as humanly possible - and this does not matter for the ruling being made. The only thing that this should affect is whether Maurice is let in the door. I don't believe any poker room should let him play, and were I a director of poker operations he wouldn't be allowed in the door or given any chances. Russ Hamilton would be another example on that list off the top of my head.

(Fair warning I will be using graphic language to illustrate the points - I hope that's OK)

So here we are, as a Tournament Director facing a situation where we need to rule. We have to stop talking about how Maurice carries himself, who he is, because all that matters here is that he's black, and someone just called him a N*****. So lets examine how we need to handle that:

Disqualifications are extremely delicate situations for many reasons. You let this person play in the tournament, so you need to have a very good reason to take their equity away from them. In fact, even though it's not common practice, in my opinion anything that you disqualify someone from a tournament for should usually result in a lifetime ban. There would be a few exceptions, but if someone does something so bad that they're being DQ'd they should not be allowed to go play blackjack at the same property the next day.

Here's a short (but not exhaustive) list of things that would definitely result in a DQ:

-Cheating (that can proven like Lusardi'ing chips)
-Physically assaulting someone
-Threatening to do harm with the ability to carry it out (I will send a nuclear missile to your home is not the same as - I'll stab you in the parking lot)
-Destroying property
-Being too intoxicated
-Playing in a $100,000 buy in but registering for a $100 buy in.

Here's an even shorter list of what would end up in removal from the tournament, but would also possibly constitute a refund from the casino:

-Medical problems
-A novice player taking their chips to the bathroom

So what we have so far isn't any of those, but lets show some examples of other penalties. The 3 kinds that I've been involved in most recently are 3 hands, 1 and 2 rounds. I will say that once you get one of the penalties and then do the same thing you go up a category, all the way to a DQ. Again these lists are examples and not exhaustive.

Warning:
-Saying **** to no one in particular when you lose on the river.
-Acting out of turn, but not in a way that affected action.
-Speaking a language other than English (or whichever other one is specified).
-Very clearly accidentally exposing a card (hits someone's hand)

3 Hands:
-Intentionally exposing a hand, but not intentionally affecting the action (not knowing there was a player still in the hand and showing and folding your BB).
-Acting out of turn in such a way that you affect the hand. (Hellmuth last night)
-Excessive celebration that disturbs the room.
-Violation of an accepted etiquette with malice (IE: Slowrolling someone).

1 Round
-Berating a Staff Member (possibly without being vulgar - you're the worst dealer on planet earth you need to go somewhere else and get a real job)
-Berating another player (possibly without vulgarities - you're a complete idiot, how can you call there moron)
-Intentionally exposing a hand and affecting action (showing your kings in a 3 way pot when the Ace comes on the flop).
-Intentionally slowing down the pace of play.
-Vulgar celebration or postmortem.

2 Rounds
-Vulgar Berating of a staff member. (Piece of **** dealer **** you)
-Vulgar Berating of another player. (**** you you ****ing idiot)
-Intentionally causing a misdeal. (exposing your card and saying it was the dealer)
-Intentionally misrepresenting a hand at showdown.
-Carrying on anything that they were given a 1 round penalty for during the penalty period.

And the DQ's were listed above.

So this Maurice situation is very tricky. We are absolutely in 2 round penalty territory AT LEAST. So the question is, do you Disqualify and then ban the racist player for this statement? There are a lot of factors here that have all been discussed in this thread that could be used to help this decision, the most important of which is this person's possible lack of grasp of the nuance of English.

However taken aside in a vacuum, if this player has committed no other offenses in this event - do we take this and go straight to a disqualification? It's a very difficult line to find, and in an event like the WSOP with reputation on the line, the social pressure to go with a DQ is immense. You don't want to put your company in the position of defending a racist, especially when there isn't really a specific precedent for this.

In the end though - I don't think there's many combinations of words, including most other racial slurs, that we'd be having this debate about. "**** you you ****ing piece of **** **** nugget *****" would result in a 2 round penalty. So we have this very offensive specific phrase. Does this phrase, this one word, stand alone to escalate past the 2 round penalty and into the DQ and subsequent ban from all of Caesar's properties?

I personally don't believe so.

I think this should be a 2 round penalty, and if there's ANY push back from the player that continues to cause a disruption you escalate as you normally would. This is before you factor in the important information that this was not his first language. I know a few swear words in Spanish, and I know how to bumble my way around a conversation. I do not know if I use a word that is supposed to be bad in Cuba in Spain that it carries such a different connotation that it would be the only phrase that would get me thrown in jail. Now as an intelligent rational emotionally stable human, I would just avoid saying those words entirely. This is a very emotionally volatile spot.

In summary I hate that this sounds like I'm defending a racist, and honestly I'm just glad there were consequences. Phil Hellmuth went off on a guy on TV and got his lawyers to get him out of the penalty the next night. Consequences are a necessary piece of the incentive puzzle to keep people from doing things like this racist idiot did.

BUT - from a completely logical, place of experience as a manager in poker, a disqualification and subsequent ban is too far, and I don't believe that a DQ that is based around malice should allow the player to continue to gamble on property.

Youve had a busy afternoon.

Are you looking to be a tournament director?
The more rules about what is okay and what is not is only good for the game.

I've been one (kinda - the manager that oversees tournaments for half of the shifts, without the title). You offering? I was enjoying making no money on a podcast

Fact: DQ’d is ridiculous.
Fact: The racist slur is bad.
Fact: The punishment should be same as any bad language.
Fact: Maurice Hawkins is a piece of ****, at least at the poker tables.

The guy did not physically touch him or threaten him in violence breaking any law. Terrible what he said, but at end of day it’s just awful language & should have received punishment in that category which is like a few orbit penalty.

I’ve played with Hawkins before over the years & he’s just an awful person. It’s not even funny what he does. Guys that are known to be trash talkers or try get under people skin are not in same category as Hawkins because this guy is just ackward & abusive. It’s mostly with him like a, whoa man, that’s too far.

This guy even bothers me when he’s even at neighboring tables! I can overhear it & makes me cringe. He’s now got the public radar on him at scale & his actions/words need to be watched & adjudicated.

PSA Hawkins, you’re now on watch. Can’t cry for help being a victim after you’ve left so many victims out there. Karma catches up. Hope you change but the balls in your court.

Having a hearty laugh at the “no racism in Europe” posts and the “he prob saw it in a rap video and didn’t know what it meant” lol gtfo

Theres nothing wrong with racial slurs.

Just the same as curse words. If your offended by racial slurs then you are just sensitive and weak.

It sounds like I'm in the minority (mindbogglingly), but I've never heard that particular racial slur at the table, I would be stunned to hear it, I don't think all racial slurs are created equal, and I don't think that somehow the target of it trash talking makes it in any way justified.

Strange how so many people seem keen to put racial slurs on a par with "normal" insults. Are the "it's only a word" crowd really that ignorant of history and sociology? Surely it's not too difficult a concept to understand that different words carry different meanings, have different weights of history and in many countries different legal ramifications attached to their usage (libel, slander, hate speech etc.).

People who think they can simply live in the bubble of their own personal standards/code of behavior are as bad as the oversensitive millenial crowd.

This is wrong. You can use words in various ways. What makes it racist or not is the intention in what it is used. An example would be using the word in indirect speech (I.e. quote) - I understand that there are ppl out there that are ignorant enough to still view this as racism, but that doesn’t make them right.

whats wrong is to treat blacks differently than all other races and think slurs against them are worse than slurs against whites or any other group. no other word would get someone in as much trouble. all races should be considered equal, but i guess this is too much to ask

couldnt happen to a nicer guy.

They're gonna need to print out a list of bannable words, what if you call a gay person a fa****. Also i dont feel like getting in on either side of this but in the monster stack a few years ago someone called an asian guy at my table a c*** and only received a warning, so they need to clarify exactly what is "too far"

Uhh, yes. Many if not a majority of people do not know there is such a particular city there in Florida. Give me a break. And even then, it is NORMAL to put city AND state. For instance, if I just put Hollywood where I am from, many if not most people would mistakingly think it is California and NOT Florida (even though there is the same name city there too.)

Yes. This was my point.