I just read Mike's book so I have empathy towards him because his emotions are not normal.

But like someone else said, stack your chips and get ready for the next hand.

Tournament poker is nerve racking, maybe Mike should do something else for a living.

I think everyone here agrees the floor guy was being a red ass high school PE teacher, but Mike is a handful

When a child behave as a child...when a man...behave as a child.

This spot easily could've been avoided if Mike would just act like a professional and an adult.

Apparently you haven't been to a live sporting event before. There is a different set of rules for fans and players and this stands true for poker as well.

A penalty like this might be in order only if a prior warning was given.

Notwithstanding that, I do think the penalty was excessive.

It was pretty bad. Mike put a giant boom box on the table playing "Happy" by Pharrell Williams, then he put on that ridiculous hat that Pharrell wears and started dancing.

Apparently you've never been to a golf tournament, or tennis match, or chess match. If you obnoxiously yell in someone's backswing, they hall your ass out. At WSOP Europe the rail was required to be completely silent, as is the practice in Europe.

All I am saying is that if players can't celebrate, then fans that are 20' away shouldn't be able to heckle, scream at the top of their lungs, drink beer out of a shoe and yell and do weird personas where they yell a catch phrase after ever hand regardless of how mundane it is. It's annoying and makes it very hard to concentrate. Why can the rail do whatever they want but if a player celebrates because they just won a 200K $ equity hand, they are given a 1 orbit penalty. Doesn't add up, why are they penalizing the player if they don't tell the rail to shut up.

More drama for the movie-No doubt

I can see why you don't like it

Hasn't Mike confirmed he has bi-polar? Apparently he went on a super high from nursing that short stack for so long, being in the zone and then winning that big pot, then the penalty put him in a negative state and he tilted away all his chips.

No. Your argument is extremely weak. Players in almost every sport are held to a much higher degree of required behavior than fans. Even in golf and tennis. Go ahead and respond. Unless your response is completely ridiculous this will be my last post on this subject.

We might agree on this. Mike's punishment was overly punitive.

I read that there had been ongoing issues.

Who the player is is irrelevant, in my opinion. If you are going to play the game, you should know and abide by the rules. You should also learn to keep your cool.

No you are wrong, it's not an argument, it's a fact: in Europe, at the WSOP ME they didn't even allow a public rail for exactly the reason of disruption, especially since there were Brits at the FT as they knew it would have been a total circus full of drunks yelling at the top of their lungs after every hand, only one person per FT player was allowed to view the FT which created a quiet FT and was consistent with silencing the players from celebrating as well.

If they are going to keep players from celebrating then they shouldn't have a rail full of drunks being as loud as possible after every hand, just like they do @ WSOP Europe. And again you are wrong on other sports holding players to higher degree of behavior than a player, if Tiger Woods wants to talk in his own backswing they don't kick him out of the tourney, if you are there yelling in his backswing you will be removed from the golf course.

Also, poker isn't a Nascar event, it's a game that requires intense focus and deep concentration, this is one of the reasons for the excessive celebration rule as it can be unfair to other players, doesn't make sense that the railbirds get to interject when players can't.

I get the rule and the facts, but I disagree with your player versus fan scenario and, even though it is easy to do, I am not going to start bringing out absurd examples like your Tiger Woods example.

As I sated above WSOPE didn't disagree with me, they limited attendance of the rail at the WSOPE ME FT because they knew it would be extremely disruptive to the players as Brits are notorious for rowdy rails, this is the same reasoning behind the excessive celebration rule for players. It is extremely inconsistent that they police the players in the US but not the rail as they do in Europe when the rail is way more disruptive.

"Uncle Ron", the persona that annoyingly excessively celebrated during the Helmuth/Forrest match was asked by the players to stop but he was allowed to continue. None of the players asked for the Mouth to be punished yet he received a harsh penalty, this is inconsistent logic.

I know at most sporting events I attend such as soccer, football and hockey the fans can do many more things than the players without repercussions. Yelling trash at the referee as an example or in football celebrating euphorically after a touchdown.

In poker, it seems that you would like to see the fans held to the same rules as the players. I personally wouldn't care to see that for many reasons.

LOL at Mikey's tweet. Of course Negreanu or Ivey would never get this disgusting ruling. They'd never act like such a horse's ass in the first place.

I didn't come into this thread to debate you, or even address you at all, you decided to sardonically shoot down my opinion by sarcastically remarking that I never went to a sporting event, which is obviously absurd.

I am addressing the issue brought up by the OP by making the observation that the players, as demonstrated in this case, are policed to a greater extent than the rail with regard to disruptions and excessive celebrations; this is completely inconsistent, especially since the same company does it differently in Europe and that often times the rail is far more disruptive than any one player could ever be.

That's funny. I actually deleted that from my post as you were quoting it in hopes of being a bit less sardonic.

As far as the earlier sardonic. That happens in forums and sometimes one must respond to it. Glad you did.

To be fair, Nascar probably requires intense focus and deep concentration..perhaps even more focus than poker. Also, at a Nascar event a fan could be as loud as physically possible and the drivers still wouldn't hear him because they are wearing ear buds, the engine noise is deafening, the events are outdoors, and the arenas are huge (ie a track can be 1.5 miles long).

Your argument makes no sense. You state that players are held to a higher degree of behavior than fans (which I agree with), but then you state that Mike's punishment was overly punitive? I could care less if Mike is Bipolar, win the hand and act like a man, and sit down and shut up. Act like you've been there before.

He is good at providing ridiculous examples to defend his points. Almost brilliantly funny. The Woods example followed by the Nascar example. I missed that one as it was an edit. lol.

Excessive celebration is what made the 2007 Main Event such an entertaining ME to watch. Removing player celebration from the WSOP made the subsequent main events boring and did nothing to help the game.

The WSOP needs to take a hard stand on this issue and fire this tournament director immediately. I don't care how much experience he has but mistakes like this are NEVER acceptable.

Audience celebration can most certainly be detrimental to the players and the viewing experience as well. I for one wouldn't mind seeing the Hinkles banned from all future rails and I don't think anyone that watched that stream would disagree with me about that.

It makes sense if you understand that I was not commenting on Mike's punishment in relation to the player versus fans discussion.

I have two distinct beliefs:

1) Players should be held to a different degree of behavior than fans.

2) In spite of 1) I think Mile's punishment may have been too harsh if he was not at first given a warning.

Pretty sad to read about. http://www.pokernews.com/news/2014/0...tion-18516.htm

You guys remember the good old days when watching the WSOP was a blast. A ton of characters with catchy nicknames and bold personalities. Matusow and Hellmuth blowups. M'fer Humberto shoving a plastic chark in people's faces. The most profound strat discussion was Norman Chad telling you to never fold a straight flush draw. People running around like they're having the best and worst times of their lives.

When someone loses or wins a big pot and is emotional on the screen the viewer gets sucked in and feels it with them much more than a cordial handshake and "nice hand" before walking off.

Now nicknames have been replaced with screen names and people who know what they're talking about are adding some commentary.

That's what the general public likes to see. That's the experience they're looking for when they decide to take a shot at the series one year. Not some complicated mathematical game but a circus where any player can win.

As a penalty for the bad ruling and then changing the reason for the penalty they should give Matusow everything he's asking for. In addition any time Matusow feels like it when he's near the TD he's allowed to skip around in a circle singing "na na na na na na you made a horrible ruling" and they should put that **** on TV during the main event.