Storms & Calm Waters

[user4144]

A kafuffle on one of the tables lured me over like Hellmuth to a TV camera. When I arrived, it quickly emerged that the root of the problem was an exposed card, the river being dealt before Christian Harder had been given the chance to act.

The board at the time read {6-Spades} {10-Diamonds} {4-Hearts} {J-Hearts} , and Richard Grace had led out for 2,500. After the next player made the call, the dealer committed his dastardly deed, but the difficulty with this situation was that only the caller had seen the card.

"We have a right to see the card too," claimed Harder.

"He has an advantage because he knows we don't have that card in our hand," added Grace.

After a back and forth discussion, the tournament director made his decision: "What's going to happen," he ruled, "is that that card will be taken out of play, and that if you [Harder] decide to call, the card will be exposed, as you're only affected if you decide to continue with the hand. The question here is whether you are entitled to see the card at this point in time, and you are not, as there is no purpose to it."

In the end, Harder did indeed make the call, and the {2-Clubs} was revealed (Yes, an anti-climatic card, I know). No burn card was produced, the dealer instead shuffling the remaining cards (which appeared rather fiddly as it was a depleted deck), and dealing the river card: the {4-Clubs} .

After the storm on the turn, it was calm waters on the river, the action checked around allowing Grace to pick up the pot with {J-Diamonds} {A-Clubs} {3-Clubs} {9-Diamonds} .