| APPT Sydney $15000 High Rollers: lol fightaments |
[Dec. 2nd, 2009|12:24 am] |
I've been playing live poker for over ten years now. Maybe 200 hours or so per year over that span; it's hard to say. And today was most likely the most colourful day of poker I've ever played in my life.
Not the poker itself mind you, that was quite mundane. Apart from a very brief heater about three hours into the day, I did nothing of interest at all. I did not play a single big pot, mostly missed flops badly and did a lot of folding, and finally ran my KJ into KQ. No, the poker was pretty uninteresting.
What was interesting was this. PokerNews asked me for an eyewitness account as I was two seats away the whole time, and they pretty accurately transcribed what I told them here:
Star City Brawl
Believe or not, a fist fight (albeit a one-sided affair) just broke out inside the Star City poker room. Our media desk is situated just outside of the poker room and upon hearing several cries for "Security!" and "Fight!" media row emptied itself to find out what was happening.
Inside the poker room, the scene was an ugly one. An unidentified and heavily tattooed man (who was not playing in either event) was on the floor and virtually mangling a player we've identified as Mark Ericksen, who had been playing in the high roller's event. Security was on the scene in a hurry and managed to separate the two men, but not before Ericksen's face received quite the battering.
Team PokerStars Pro Terrence Chan was sitting at Ericksen's table when the incident took place and we asked him to recount what happened. Without quoting Chan directly, here's the gist of what went down:
The unidentified man (we'll call him Mr. X) approached Ericksen's table and initiated a verbal altercation in which he told Ericksen to (paraphrased): "Stay the f*** out of my business." The two exchanged a few more words before Mr. X took a swing at Ericksen, connecting with his face. Mr. X then walked away from the table and it appeared (to Chan) as though the situation had resolved itself when Ericksen stood up and told Mr. X he was a "f***ing rat."
At this point, all hell broke loose. After throwing and landing several punches, the two hit the ground where Mr. X continued his assault of Ericksen. With each punch he threw, Mr. X yelled "Rat! Rat! Rat!"
Chan also explained that one of the tournament directors who stepped in (fully intending to help), grabbed and restrained Ericksen from behind, not knowing that he hadn't thrown a single punch and was actually the one being assaulted. After a long minute, Mr. X was escorted out of the poker room while Ericksen was tended to by security personnel.
The players in both tournaments were then sent on an impromptu break while the matter was investigated. Play has since resumed throughout the room.
Of note, Ericksen's chips have been removed from play and his money refunded, based on the premise that the incident did not involve another player or event staff member.
"I thought the fight was tomorrow night," joked one player during the break, referring to the Roy Jones Jr. v. Danny Green boxing match scheduled for tomorrow night.
"This was the undercard," replied a member of the media.
So there's one thing to take away here. As well-intentioned as it might be, don't break up a fight if you're not totally sure you can break it up fairly and effectively. It's easy to be a critic from where I was standing, but there were actually two people grabbing the arms of the guy getting the pounding. Why? It's quite simple -- the other guy was big and scary. And swinging. The guy being assaulted was covering up and simply trying to defend himself the whole time and it was his arms they were grabbing, because instinctively it's easier to grab the not-scary guy who is not winging punches. It turned what was most likely a mismatch to begin with into a completely unfair fight.
I really hate to be very critical here because I know everyone involved was well-intentioned. And most importantly they were not trained security guards; they were poker floormen. It's not in their training or their job description to break up fights. But please, don't break up fights unless you know you can do it fairly and effectively.
(Suffice it to say, I have a whole new respect for hockey linesmen today. Any hockey fan knows that the vast majority of the time, linesmen do a *fantastic* job fairly and efficiently breaking up a fight -- by waiting until both fighters are tired and then interceding at the exact same time on both participants.)
I was also asked like four or five times on the break why I didn't jiujitsu the attacker. (Yes, people who don't train like to use "jiujitsu" as a verb.) I thought about it. I really did. I got up from my seat and was right behind the guy and could have easily jumped on his back to RNC or t-shirt choked him. But this wasn't my fight and as bad as I felt for the guy I didn't even know his name. While it's noble to defend a stranger in a street fight, it's not really particularly smart. This guy was unquestionably unstable -- he continued yelling at the security guards who finally got him under control. I'm also very lucky I didn't -- unbeknownst to me, I would have been ejected from the casino and been kicked out of the tournament. This is, evidently, a security policy of the casino. I know this because I was informed that the victim of the assault was not allowed to continue in the tournament despite having 27,000 chips (the ended up refunding his buy-in). Apparently, if you are in any physical altercation at all -- even if you are simply defending yourself, as this guy was -- you will be ejected from the casino for a minimum of 24 hours. That this is incredibly unjust and incentivizes people to return violence with violence should be obvious, but we should be used to bizarre casino regulations by now, right?
So anyway, both of the tournaments are put on break for about 20-30 minutes. Then, maybe two hours later, incident #2!
It is folded around to the SB, who limps. The BB checks. They both check down an ace-high board, like A8552 or something. The SB shows AK! This looks pretty shady to me, but I don't say anything. 15 minutes after that hand, the exact same pattern repeats itself; this time the AK belonged to the BB, who checked preflop and checked every street in position after flopping top-pair/top-kicker.
This time I can't let it go, I call the floor and the TD Danny McDonaugh, and a warning is given. These two guys have absolutely no idea why I'm causing a fuss. The SB is telling me it's none of my business if I'm not in the hand. The BB even tells me "he's my buddy, I don't want to bet him." When Danny comes over, the BB changes his story to "I was trying to trap him", making it obvious that he knew what he was doing was against the rules. But I really do believe these two idiots are so completely clueless that they don't know why what they're doing is wrong.
The SB is telling me over and over to "take a breath" and "calm down". Then he challenges me to go outside, while the TD and the floor are still there! This is pretty amazing. They must have spiked the casino water supply with testosterone or something, wtf...
Anyway, while I would have loved nothing more than to give the guy the surprise beating of a lifetime, but again -- not so smart. I still had chips, I'm in a foreign country, I'm an FPP qualifier for the main event; just a few of the reasons why it'd be dumb to beat this guy up.
But if he wants a sanctioned, legal fight (MMA is legal in Australia), well, I'm down! :) |
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