Worst ruling ever
Apart from Vegas, Barcelona is the foreign destination I’ve played the most abroad. I have a lot of memories both good and bad from Spain. It was in San Sebastián I got the worst ruling of my career.
The hand started with the big blind not realizing he was big blind, looking at his cards, and folding. Everyone else followed suit so it folded to me in the small blind. I therefore assumed his hand was dead and went through the formality of shoving to pick up the blinds. Or at least that’s what I assumed would happen. What actually happened was the big blind lurched forward to retrieve two cards from deep inside the muck. Presumably, his original two but who can be certain? Having ascertained that both of those rescued cards were Kings he made the call. As my mind reeled from what I was witnessing, the dealer banged out a flop turn and river and was pushing my stack to him quicker than you can say Floor!
By the time I found the TD myself and explained what had happened it was too late
At this point, I finally did get round to expressing the opinion to the dealer that it might be a good idea for her to consult the floor on this one. She either didn’t understand (she provided no evidence at any point to suggest she either spoke or understood a word of English) or decided the best line here was to just ignore the confused looking foreigner, and ploughed on with dealing the next hand. By the time I found the TD myself and explained what had happened it was too late and my elimination from the tournament was confirmed.
EPT Barcelona 2016
The 2016 edition of European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona lives in my memory, and that of many others, as the worst EPT ever. Fittingly enough, Stars chose the occasion to announce they were killing off the successful EPT brand in the form of new global poker championships or some such nonsense that didn’t last long. The event lives in the memory for interminable queues, 10am starts, everyone in a bad mood, and maybe the worst idea ever (also known as “the refund of shame”: they decided to pay 20% of the field but the min cash was just money back).
Ironically, the event turned out to be pivotal to the careers of both myself and my VegasSlotsOnline and Chip Race colleague David Lappin. We both reluctantly wrote blogs venting about how badly run the whole thing was and how Stars under Amaya had lost sight of player development experience. I say reluctantly because we had long enjoyed Stars events, and felt that writing such blogs could be career damaging (Stars had been stringing us along for years suggesting they might make us team online pros at some point). As it happened it actually worked out well for us. After the blogs went viral to acclaim for their focus on player experience, Unibet decided to hire us as ambassadors as it fitted with their vision.
To Stars’ credit, they took the criticism on board, and since then have brought their own world class dealers, floor staff and other staff to their events in Barcelona, rather than relying on the locals. As a result, all the recent Barcelona events I’ve attended have been impeccable, and I’d almost forgotten how bad things were when it was left to the locals.
Bad boy Lappin
Those of you who watched the episode of The Lock In we made during the recent Unibet DeepStack Open (UDSO) in Barcelona will already be aware of the incident that resulted in David’s first ever full orbit penalty in the tournament. The matter of whether the offence was egregious and the punishment fitting has already been litigated by more qualified commentators than me like Matt Savage, so I won’t dwell on that (for the record, even Lappin accepts his behaviour was petulant and the consensus is that some punishment was warranted but a full orbit a little disproportionate, and the other player involved should probably have incurred a penalty too, or at the very least a warning). What interests me more here is how the matter was handled. From the next table, it seemed to me it was handled very poorly: the entire exchange between floor and dealer was in Spanish, which David doesn’t speak. Then without being given the chance to give his side of the story, he was simply hauled away from the table and penalised.
About a week later I saw how such cases should be handled, in my opinion. At the next table to me in the ACOP championship at the Dublin Poker Festival, voices were raised as an argument escalated rapidly between two neighbours. Top American TD Brannon Kingston put on a masterful display of how to defuse tension from start (his opening was “How can I help?”) to finish (after hearing out both players the situation de-escalated on its own as both came to an agreement on how to behave going forward), more mediator than enforcer.
The wrong way and the right way
On the bubble of the UDSO Main Event in Barcelona, I started to film for my Instagram story only to be told in no uncertain terms “no filming allowed!” Obviously, I’m more than happy to comply with local regulations, but as I looked around the room, I couldn’t help but notice many other players were filming, and not being told to stop. When I recounted this to Brannon and his partner TD Shawn the following week, they agreed all rules should either be enforced on everyone, or not at all. Brannon said he doesn’t even bother trying to force that one anymore:
That ship has sailed. It’s in organizers’ interests to have their events promoted.”
In Barcelona, four Irish made the last twelve of the Main Event, so David and I were quite keen to rail when we could. Although we were clearly behind the rail, the TD came over to tell us we couldn’t. A perplexed David asked if the rail was just for decoration then, to which the curt reply was Yes. There seemed to be no point arguing the case, so we did what any self respecting pair of poker Karens would do: we went off and talked to the manager, in this case UDSO tour organizer Alex Henry, who had a word with the TD to remind him the purpose of rails. A total absence of rails completely detracts from the atmosphere at an event.
In Dublin, Lappin was railing the final table, but (ever the limit tester) from the wrong side of the rail. Brannon came up with an ingenious way to resolve the situation. Rather than getting into a protracted discussion/argument with the ever argumentative Lappin to get him to move behind the rail, he simply moved the rail around him, taking the common sense approach that whether the rail was 11 metres or 10 from the table was of no great importance.
These gripes about Barcelona may seem petty to some readers, and individually I’d agree, but cumulatively they add up to a degradation of vibes and player experience that turns at least some players away. A few told me they’d never set foot in Casino Barcelona again. In a time when the post pandemic live boom seems to be petering out to some degree, organizers and staff should be doing everything they can to retain and attract players rather than drive them away.