Maurice Hawkins won his 18th World Series of Poker Circuit ring in Baltimore by taking down the $1,700 Main Event last week, which briefly put him into a tie with Ari Engel with the most ever, but it came in an event marred by a serious mistake with three players left that left the poker world collectively wringing their hands and shaking theirs heads.
Divyam Satyarthi was knocked-out in third place in a hand he should have won. Short on chips, he jammed from the small blind with QcTh, and Hawkins called with Ah3s. Satyarthi hit his 10 on the flop, that also contained two clubs. A 4c on the turn gave Hawkins the wheel draw, which he hit on the river with the 5c.
This also gave Satyarthi a queen-high four-flush. But the dealer declared Hawkins the winner while quickly scooping up Satyarthi’s cards and mucking them, and that was it for Satyarthi, who failed to notice he should have scored a double-up and live to fight.
Instead, he headed to the cage with his pay-slip for $64,458, about $30,000 less than second, and just under $80,000 less than what Hawkins would win for taking down his sixth WSOPC Main Event.
The video can be found here.
Dealer mistakes happen, and this is yet another reminder that players are responsible to protect their hands, even from those who are supposed to be in charge. Still, it’s apparent that the tournament directors at Baltimore Horseshoe made a mistake by not assigning a floor person to put another pair of eyes on the final table to ensure something like this wouldn’t happen.
As it was, only the players, the dealer and a WSOP tournament reporter were watching, and everyone missed it. Brought to the attention by the tournament reporter and Hawkins long after Satyarthi was incorrectly knocked-out (the heads-up match went five hours), the floor ruled that nothing could be done and reminded everyone that it is the payer’s responsibility to protect their hands at all times.
Satyarthi did speak up immediately, but was incorrectly corrected by the dealer, who mucked the cards extremely quickly. Floor was then called to help Satyarthi with his pay-out, but the hand was not reviewed as heads-up play began.
‘Take that, haters’
The elimination gave the final two players about the same stacks of eight million with blinds at 40K/80K/80K. It would take about five hours before Hawkins had all the chips of the 468 entries.
While Hawkins was trying to tie the WSOPC Ring record, Chalifour was working hard to get his second one. He won a $580 buy-in event at Foxwoods in 2016. And he gave arguably the best WSOPC player a run for his money by turning heads-up play into a marathon.
“He kept getting lucky on me. I couldn’t bluff him, I couldn’t make the best hand and I couldn’t suck out, so that was the situation,” he told the WSOP. “But I go to the zoo a lot and the one thing I learned at the zoo; you have to play with your food before you kill it. And that’s what I did.”
Hawkins is not shy about reminding people he’s one of the greats currently working.
“Put me up against anybody. I am the most consistent poker player that ever gonna live,” he told WSOPC reporters. “I got patience. I’m a psycho. I got game theory, I got luck and I got God. Can’t be stopped. I feel like I am in a class of my own. No disrespect to Ari, I love the guy. But I am where I’m supposed to be.”
It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic, or that one of the best poker rivalries now taking place are between Hawkins and Engel.
Hawkins’ win in Baltimore put the two in a tie — yet again, on the top of the WSOPC wins list — which was immediately broken this weekend by Engel in a $500 buy-in event that took place online in Pennsylvania. Engel won his 19th ring, beating Michael “ArnoldSlick” McNeil heads-up. His username is “Ngingn,” and he won $10,140 in the event that attracted only 86.
McNeil himself has five WSOPC rings — all won online playing on WSOP’s client in Pennsylvania.
Engel is not only in the lead over Hawkins with hardware. He also has four bracelets to Hawkins’ none, and his $8.9 million lifetime cashes beats Hawkins’ lifetime tourney earnings of $6.2 million.
“If you are against me, you better jump on the bandwagon now. Either that or turn off the news! Oh and one more thing, I back myself. So take that haters,” he told the WSOP.
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