Uh…what just happened
Another dealing controversy has arisen at the 2026 World Series of Poker. In the end, it seems like more of an oddity or minor mistake than a full-blown problem, but it is weird, nonetheless.
Poker pro Dario Sammartino sounded the alarm on social media, which was then picked up by fellow pro David Lappin. Sammartino said that the automatic shuffler embedded in the table appeared to deal the exact same cards in the same order two hands in a row during the $10,000 Mystery Bounty event.
He explained that in the first hand, he was dealt J-5 offsuit in the big blind, and in the second hand, the person in the big blind also got J-5 offsuit. Both times, the player in the cutoff got A-7 offsuit and the button received K-6 suited. And in both hands, 2s-3s-4s came out on the flop, followed by K and J (he did not specify the suits of the latter two cards).
Another credible witness
Sammartino said, and even those who don’t understand the math would likely agree, that the chances of that happening on shuffled decks is basically zero.
Some theorized that it was probably just a case of new decks inadvertently being put in play without being shuffled.
But then poker pro Loni Harwood Hui chimed in, saying that the theory was incorrect. She was at the table and could corroborate Sammartino’s account, but clarified a bit, saying that the first hand in question was using the red deck. They then played a regular hand with the blue deck, but it was the next hand, with the red deck, that came out the same as the one two hands prior.
Dealer misclick?
Thus, while this is just a guess on this writer’s part, as I was neither there nor an expert on WSOP shuffling, I’m wondering if the dealer didn’t accidentally hit the “sort” button the shuffler.
The World Series of Poker uses the DeckMate2 automatic shuffler, which uses cameras to determine that all 52 cards are in the deck before shuffling. The process of evaluating the deck and shuffling it takes just 22 seconds. It can also sort cards in three different, pre-determined orders.
As can be seen in the video above, the machine has a safeguard to make sure the dealer doesn’t put the sorted deck in play, but perhaps that feature wasn’t working, or neither the dealer nor anybody else at the table noticed that sort mode had been activated.
The strange thing, though, and what makes my theory weaker, is that the sort mode would have had to have been turned on multiple times or left on through multiple hands. The former would be an unfortunate coincidental flub by the dealer. The latter – and I don’t even know if it’s possible – would mean that the blue deck would have also been sorted. Or at least, I think that’s how it would have worked?
At any rate, no matter how dumb my ideas are, it will be interesting to see if the WSOP investigates to get to the bottom of things. It’s not the end of the world and it doesn’t sound like anything was wrong after those couple of strange hands, but it would still be good to know what happened.
The post Same Cards Dealt in Same Order in Two Different Hands at 2026 WSOP appeared first on Poker News Daily.
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