7 Of The Most Controversial Poker Hands In History – Casino.Org News

Poker is a veryexciting and highly emotional game. With all the massive pots, big bluffs, andtough river calls, its both fun to play and entertaining to watch. Withemotions running high at all times, you never know what to expect.

For the most part, players try to stay in control and keep in line with written and unwritten poker etiquette rules. However, every now and again, someone crosses that fine line.

In this article,well look at some of the most controversial hands that have taken place over theyears.

Some of them were caused by deliberate attempts at angle-shooting, while others came about due to a mistake or lack of attention.

Either way,these controversial hands are both educational and fun to watch. They dontjust teach us about dos and donts at the poker table, they also show why youshould never let your guard down.

Staying sharp,focused, and in the moment is your strongest weapon in a poker game.

Well start thislist of controversial poker hands with a hand from the 2009 Main Eventinvolving Estelle Denis and a beautiful pair of pocket aces.

Sitting onsomewhat of a short stack, Estelle must have been thrilled to peak down atpocket aces after JC Tran made a raise to 32,000. She promptly moved all-in,pushing her stack of chips to the middle, neglecting to protect her cards forjust a moment.

That moment was enough for the dealer to sweep her cards and put them into the muck.

It only took Denis a few seconds to realize what had just happened, but it was already too late. Her cards were already shuffled into the rest of the discard pile.

Since her handwasnt easily retrievable, the floor made the only decision he could. Estelleshand was declared dead, and she had to put 32,000 chips in the middle to matchJCs original raise.

This doesnt sound really fair, but the rules of poker are quite clear on this point since its the players responsibility to protect their cards at all times.

If the dealermucks ones hand by accident and cards cant be easily retrieved, thats theend of the discussion.

Of course, thedealer should have paid more attention and if he did this wouldnt have happened,but dealers are just human beings.

Mistakes anderrors will always happen, and the best way to minimize them is by players anddealers both doing their part.

An unpleasantand slightly controversial situation for sure, but also a good lesson as to whyyou should always protect your hand.

Poker rules arevery clear when it comes to verbal declarations.

If you announcea call or a raise, it stands. You cant change your mind a few seconds later.That only happens in movies that didnt have a good expert advisor.

Ivan Freitez isclearly well aware of this rule, and he tries to take advantage of it in one ofthe most controversial poker hands weve seen over the years.

Having filled upon the river and holding the virtual nuts, Freitez announces a raise overEugenes river bet. However, he only throws in the calling chips and then triesto explain he just wanted to call.

Obviously, Freitezknows that this wont fly and that hell be forced to make a raise.

Hes justpulling an angle shoot to confuse his opponent and squeeze some extra value onthe river. The floor is called to handle the situation, and he confirms Ivanhad done this before with very strong hands.

Despite allthis, Eugene ends up making a call since its just a min-raise, and he has apretty strong hand in absolute terms.

This hand hasreceived quite a lot of coverage over the years, and its been the topic ofmany discussions.

Its a clearexample of an angle shoot, especially since its not the first time Freitez hadtried to pull a stunt like this.

The tournamentdirector and other players at the table are clearly disgusted, but there isntmuch to do to actually punish the offending player.

While Ivansactions are clearly unethical, he didnt really do anything to break the rules.

He pretended tohave changed his mind, but he announced a raise and eventually put in the chipsto make the raise.

Id say the tournament director did the best he could to punish Freitez by telling Eugene that this was his trademark move and that he was likely holding the nuts.

When you playlive poker, its easy to get your chips mixed up and put out a bet larger orsmaller than youd intended. It happens all the time.

Usually, it isjust a laughing matter, but sometimes it can create a bit of controversy.

In this handfrom Shark Cage, Negreanu opens from the button, holding a very strong startinghand: ace-king. But, instead of making it the standard 2.5x or 3.x, KidPokermakes it 11x.

He immediatelystarts laughing, letting everyone know he made a misclick, and he didntwant to make his raise so big.

This is a veryinteresting situation.

The firstquestion is whether Negreanu really made a mistake, which is entirely possible.

The second, moreimportant one, is if he would actually let everyone know about it if he had arelatively weak hand, and the answer to that is probably no.

This creates atough spot for Silverman, who has a king-jack, a very solid hand against abutton raise.

If Daniel trulyhas all the hands hed open from the button in his range, then the decision iseasy: Move all in, pick up all the extra chips in the middle, and punish theCanadian for not paying attention.

Thats exactlythe route Silverman ends up taking, and hes not thrilled to see hes upagainst it when cards are turned on their backs.

Of all the handsin this list, this one is probably the least controversial.

Even if Danieldid what he did on purpose, there is nothing really wrong with it.

If youre goingto take a professionalpoker player at his word and base your decisions on that, you might beplaying the wrong game.

Even if yousomehow missed all other hands in this article, youve probably seen this one.

It involves two of the most colorful characters in all poker, Tony G and Phil Hellmuth and Gs actions are definitely a bit controversial.

The setup issimple.

Hellmuth isplaying a short stack in a cash game, and Tony is annoyed by it. He wants toget Phils chips to try and force him to rebuy or leave the game.

When he looksdown at AK in the double straddle facing an open from Phil, the opportunitypresents itself.

Tony effectivelymoves all in, and Hellmuth, sitting with AJ, faces a dilemma.

He knows he isup against a wild player who also has beef with him. But, to add to thecontroversy, Tony G declares he didnt look at his hand before moving all in.

After giving itsome thought, Phil decides to take Tonys word and make a call, as his AJ isway ahead of two random cards G is claiming to have. However, he soon gets thebad news accompanied by the needle from Tony.

Hellmuth seemsto be in shock that Tony G would lie about his hand, but Tony doesnt seem toagree. Of course I lied, he replies. Its poker, Phil!

Its not a nicemove to pull on someone, and you probably shouldnt do this at your local cardroom.

But, at the endof the day, we are getting back to the previous advice of never taking pokerplayers words at face value.

Id call thisone more of a level than an actual angle-shoot. The hand is only controversialif you think Tony G is someone whod never do something like this, but youcould only think this if youd never played against him or seen him play.

Remember how wementioned that verbal declarations are binding in poker? Sometimes, that canlead to awkward situations even when neither player is trying to shoot anangle.

Where words areinvolved, theres bound to be some miscommunication every now and again.

Hossein Ensanfound himself heads up for the EPT title against Gleb Tremzin. The situationdoesnt get much more intense than this.

Both players arezoned in and focused on trying to win. And then, this awkward hand happens:

The two get intoa bluffing war on the river.

Ensan makes thelast raise on the river, thinking hes bluffing. However, he has the best hand,and Tremzin is holding two napkins. He sees Ensan pushing chips forward and,thinking he got caught with his hand in a cookie jar, says, Goodcall.

The confusionensues as Ensan turns over his measly pair of fives, saying, you win,assuming Tremzin called his raise with a stronger hand. Then Tremzin tables hisnapkins and repeats, yes, good call.

The floor iscalled over to clear the air.

Tremzin saidgood call, but Ensan thought he just said call, and thinks he should putthe rest of the chips in the middle to match the raise. Gleb is adamant that hecouldnt have possibly called a raise with eight high.

As the floortries to figure out how to best go about this situation, Ensan puts a stop toit and declares he doesnt want any more chips. Its quite clear that there isno way Tremzin wanted to make a call with his hand and he doesnt want toangle-shoot his way to a victory.

Now, I dontknow if there is karma, but Hossein Ensan didnt just go on to win that event.He also triumphed in the 2019 Main Event, pocketing $10,000,000.

The man has anunorthodox play style for sure, but no one can call him an angle-shooter thatmuch is clear!

This hand thattook place between Dario Sanmartino and Nick Marchington with 11 players leftin the 2019 WSOP Main Event might be one of the more controversial ones wevehad an opportunity to see over the years.

The hand causeda lot of debate in the poker community on who was right, who was wrong, andwhat should have happened.

The basicbreakdown is this: Sanmartino opens the hand with pocket tens. Marchingtonmoves all-in on top of his raise with pocket queens. Dario asks for the count,the dealer announces 17 million, and Dario puts out the stack of chips,indicating a call.

However,immediately after, another player notices a mistake and says Marchington hasmore. As it turns out, the all-in is for 22.5 million, not 17.

Cards are stillhidden, and Dario isnt really complaining. He nods his head and doesnt say aword.

Then, hands aretabled, he sees hes up against pocket queens, and the chaos ensues.

Dario claims heshouldnt be forced to call a bet because he was given the wrong count.However, several floors come over and confirm that the call stands.

Finally, JackEffel, WSOP VP, is called to the table, and he makes the final ruling. The callstands, and the hand will play out.

Jack explainsthat its the players responsibility to make sure the count is correct and toverify the information before making a committing action.

He says its inthe WSOP rulebook, and there is really nothing to discuss.

However, whatgot some players really upset was his final comment. As he was walking away,Effel said: Youre calling 17 million; youre calling 22.

Many interpretedthis as if to say that the size of the bet didnt matter.

Of course, ifpoker is a skill game, the bet size matters a lot, and the difference of fivemillion at this stage is quite significant. This controversial hand started aseries of outraged tweets and videos discussing the subject.

In the end, despitelosing the hand, Sanmartino ended up going all the way to the heads up in thatMain Event. He finished runner up, as he lost the final skirmish to none otherHussein Ensan.

We cant makethe list of the most controversial poker hands without mentioning the one thattook place between Will Kassouf and Griffin Benger in the 2016 Main Event.

Leading up tothis point, Kassouf has done a pretty good job getting under other playersskin with his antiques and speech play.

That, combinedwith the high pressure of running deep in the biggest poker tournament on theplanet, contributed to the heated atmosphere and the not-so-friendly exchangebetween the two.

Wills behaviorat the tables is a bit questionable, but hes not breaking any rules. To tryand antagonize your opponent with words isnt the most ethical thing in theworld, but its not forbidden, either.

If there is one questionablething, its how long Kassouf takes to act, but it is a big decision, andplayers are within their rights to call the time to address this issue.

So, Bengersreaction seems somewhat excessive.

For me, the realquestion here has always been whether Griffin really meant what he said or ifhe wanted to turn the tables on Kassouf. If he could get Will to think hesannoyed, he might think that Benger is raising him lightly and come over thetop with a weaker hand.

Of course,Griffin doesnt know that Kassouf is sitting across the table with pocket kingsand that all chips will end up in the middle regardless.

The wordexchange that comes after the inevitable happens and the cards are tabled ispretty entertaining.

In the end, itwas pretty much the biggest cooler you can experience in Texas Holdem, so allthe drama surrounding it was unnecessary.

But at least itmade for good TV.

Regardless ofthe stakes and players, controversial hands have always happened in poker, andthats not about to change. Its a highly emotional game, after all, and thereis usually money involved.

Put these twothings together, combine it with rules that arent always perfectly clear, andits almost impossible to avoid controversy.

If you do play regularly,some of these situations can be valuable lessons for the future.

The best way to avoid controversy at the poker table is by staying alert and paying attention to everything thats going on around you.

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7 Of The Most Controversial Poker Hands In History - Casino.Org News