THE MYSTERY OF THE APPEARING JOKER
A rather bizarre and unfortunate incident occured at the final table during the Canadian Stud Poker tournament on 21st August. With only two players remaining in a heads-up final, James Butler (of Ireland) decided to go all-in against Ben Player (of England). Their respective hole cards were turned up, and after the fourth card was dealt, Player had Q-Q-J-J showing against Butler's Ace-high-only hand. Then the fateful fifth cards were dealt: a non-important card to Player, but a Joker to Butler!
The hand was declared a misdeal and the action in it void, and thus the chips in the pot were returned to the players. James Butler subsequently recovered and came back to win the tournament. On the morning of the next day, however, and appeal was filed with the MSO organizers.
Where did that Joker come from? It had been used as a bottom card during dealing to prevent peeking, but accidentally in the heat of the heads-up match been shuffled into the deck. What are the odds against it appearing as the very last card during a deal which should have decided who would receive the medals, one wonders?
Faced with this extraordinary event, the MSO organizers decided to solicit independent expert opinion, and sent off an e-mail carefully describing the incident in neutral and factual wording to Bob Ciaffone in Detroit. Ciaffone is widely regarded as an authority on the rules and procedures of poker, being an experienced player and having written the standard rules book which is followed in a great number of casinos and card-rooms in the US.
Ciaffone's reply and commentary came back within two hours. Unsurprisingly, this situation has occurred before - though as the climax to such a dramatic final in a tournament it is maybe a first - and is well covered by standard procedure:
"The following rules are taken from the Hollywood Park Casino Rulebook, which I wrote:
- If a card of a different back color or two cards of the same rank and suit appear during a hand, all action is void and all money in the pot is returned to the players involved. If an irregular card is discovered in the stub, all action stands.
- A joker that appears in a game where it is not used is treated as a scrap of paper. Discovery of a joker does not cause a misdeal. If the joker is discovered before a player acts on his or her hand, it is replaced. If the player does not call attention to the joker before acting, then the player has a dead hand.
- If you play a hand without looking at all of your cards, you assume the liability of having an irregular card or an improper joker.
Commentary
We as far as possible want an error that was in no way the fault of the player to leave the result of a deal unaffected. The presence of a joker does not affect the outcome of a hand in any way, as would something like two cards of the same rank and suit in the deck. It played no role in decisions, percentages, and so forth, and is easily handled by the process of using the
next card in a deck to replace it. A joker is not listed as one of the deck flaws that invalidate a deal, nor should it be. There would be no reason to invalidate the deal you give here, since the player with the winning hand was not even the one who had the joker dealt to him. (As you can see, the player who receives the joker does have an obligation to disclose this fact so he can receive a replacement and thus have a valid hand.) Both the explicit rules and the fairness concept require that you rule Ben the winner of the deal in question."
It did not take long for the MSO Appeals Committee to act upon this information and to come to the decision to award Ben Player the gold and James Butler the silver medal. To the credit of both players they graciously accepted the decision after hearing the reasoning behind it, Player even apologising to Butler for depriving him of the gold medal he thought he had won - luckily, no medal award ceremony had yet been held, pending the outcome of the appeal. And for the poker players it was business as usual fifteen minutes later anyway, with the Omaha tournament under way...
