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Is it ever a good feeling to see your opponent turn over a royal flush? I mean, its not enough that you’ve lost a solid pot, it’s not enough that you feel stupid about calling when your opponent has the nuts, but they hit the frikkin’ royal and all you can do is sit there.
Kathy Liebert, she of the $3,000,000+ career earnings and tournament hold’em expertise, can now say that she is one of the few people in history to be relieved upon seeing an opposing royal. She happened to manage this on the biggest stage in the poker world, the World Series of Poker. Let me explain.
Liebert was tangled in a hand against unknown Jan Von Halle. Both players checked on the turn then checked on the river. Kathy revealed he cards only to see Von Halle turn over the most elusive hand in poker. It turned out that Von Halle had misread his hand, not realizing the treasure he held.
The table exploded in chatter as the tournament director was called. The official Tournament Director’s Association rules state that a player may not check or call as last to act when holding the nuts, a rule designed to eliminate soft play or collusion. “We should have given (Von Halle) a penalty” said Steve Frezer, the acting tournament director at the time, “but we let him off light with a warning.” It was determined that there was no foul play afoot, explaining the leniency.
All told, 352 players entered the $10,000 buy-in PL hold’em event, which set the record for the highest buy-in in a PLHE event. At the end of day one, only seventy were left with Liebert amongst them. If Von Halle had bet his hand properly, she might not have been.
Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com
