The Case of the Vanishing Ace

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Level 16 : 1,500/3,000, 400 ante

Shannon Shorr and Laz Hernandez on Day 2 of the 2014 Borgata Winter Poker Open WPT Main Event

Laz Hernandez has been living a charmed life of late, storming out to a huge chip lead on Day 1a of this WPT Main Event Championship and running even hotter here today.

Toward the end of Level 15 a hand went down that seemed to confirm Hernandez as an unstoppable force, when he caught a miraculous ace on the river to crack Shannon Shorr's set of jacks - pushing over the 700,000 chip plateau in the process. With his table situated right along the rail, and his mountainous stack attracting attention all night, a cheer could be heard when the ace fell down from heaven, giving Hernandez a set with his on the board to come back from the brink against Shorr's .

Unfortunately for Hernandez, what may have been the defining moment of a life-changing tournament run never should have happened. Here's what went down:

Shorr opened the betting with a 5,100 raise, only to see Hernandez three-bet to 15,100 as the big stack bully. After a flat from Shorr the flop fell to give him top set, and he tapped the table to set the trap. Hernandez fell right in with his bullets, blasting away for an all-in bet that was for 42,300 effective.

The snap-call by Shorr should have signaled to Hernandez that his monster was now second-best, but he stood in triumph anyway, tabling his aces believing them to be the winner. As he did so, Hernandez managed to drop one of his cards to the floor, which attracted the attention of tournament Andrew Wong to resolve the situation. A quick ruling by Wong resulted in Hernandez' fallen ace being restored to its rightful place on the table, all while Shorr asked for the dealer to burn and turn, as he was merely sweating two outs twice to score the double up.

The dealer turned the and burned a card before dropping the river card down, with the arrival of the causing the aforementioned outburst along the rail. Hernandez had hit his gin card to continue an improbable tear through this extremely tough field, while knocking off another skilled pro to boot.

Unfortunately for Hernandez, a table filled with pros like Shorr, Nick Guagenti and James "Big Show" Caldarero astutely noticed something was amiss, and with only two burn cards separated from the deck, it was clear that a dealer error had occurred at some point. Tournament Director Tab Duchateau was consulted to sort through the mess, and it was determined that after the previous card down discussion was settled, the dealer forgot to burn a card before the turn. Thus, the order of the turn and river were incorrect and Hernandez' ace on the river was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Hernandez briefly disputed the ruling, before being convinced by his tablemates that the two-out shot would never have come through if the deal was correctly conducted. Duchateau ordered the deck to be reconstructed using the previous sequencing - meaning the was now burned before the turn and a new roll out would take place. When it was all said and done, the turn came and the river , leaving Shorr out in front with top set and Hernandez second-best with the best preflop hand in the game.

All told, situations like this occur quite often and the incident was just one small segment of a long poker tournament. But for Hernandez, who looked to all the world to be carried by the inexplicable force known as momentum, such a sudden end to his untouchable run through this Main Event had to have been a jarring experience.

We'll see if he can maintain his composure and maintain his still healthy stack during the last level of play tonight, or if being snapped back to reality disrupts his focus.