Get him a tryout with the Carolina Panthers
We all know we’ve wanted to do it at some point in our poker lives. The temptation has been there. The vast majority of us, fortunately, have self-restraint and the understanding that we live in a society. On Sunday at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina, though, one man didn’t hold back and flipped three active tables while the tournament was in progress.
Once he finished off the third table, the unnamed man was taken to the ground by several people, one of whom took the opportunity to punch him a couple of times. That prompted the table-flipper to yell, “Get off of me! I’m not hurting anyone!”
In a video posted by tournament director Matt Savage, players and dealers could be seen looking on in shock, having no idea what to do. One player next to the videographer tried to be helpful and started tossing chips closer to the upended tables, but multiple people told him not to, or he could be disqualified for messing with chips that weren’t his, despite his intentions.
Added twist, though: according to a Redditor named “10J18R1A” whose friend was a floorperson at the event, the culprit was not even a player.
“He was literally trying to stop the tourney,” the person relayed from his friend, adding that the man was telling everyone “they were sinners and this behavior had to stop.”
Matt Savage contributes his wisdom
The natural question after a shocking incident like this is how it all gets cleaned up so the tournament can continue. Word was that it took a few hours, but tournament staff was able to use security footage to reconstruct the chip stacks from the three tables as best they could.
In the comment thread below the video he posted, Matt Savage replied to questions about the logistics of rebuilding the stacks, saying, “Have to get it as close as possible and get players to agree using cameras ant [sic] total chip counts. It’s a long arduous process and need players honesty, patience, and assistance.”
Players tend to know their approximate, if not exact, chip counts at any given time, so there could have been some consultation with the affected players once staff figured out how to recreate the table setup at the time of the disruption.
The Redditor noted that his floorperson friend said the players were generally content with how everything was reconstructed when the tournament was restarted. There was only one player who was a bit grumpy about it.
Image credit: PokerGO.com
