Impressive Sportsmanship from Hartmann

There was a commotion at Table 9 in the back of the tournament room. When we arrived, the floor staff at the scene was awaiting assistance from a superior. What had started with a simple raise and reraise, quickly turned into an interesting situation.

Pascal Hartmann had opened with a raise to 6,500 from the hijack seat, and then Jiachen Gong reraised from the cutoff seat to 16,500. But that's when everything that was "normal" about this hand stopped.

In the process of the next three players folding, the dealer also mucked the cards of Gong. The button had tossed his cards to the muck, but the cards of Jonas Christensen from the small blind and Saar Wilf from the big blind had been pulled together with the cards of Gong. This is why the floor staff had been summoned to the table. After supervising tournament staff member Luca Vivaldi arrived, the situation was explained and he told the table the plan of action.

Vivaldi verified with the dealer that he believed Gong's cards were amongst the six cards that included Christensen's and Wilf's, but were separate from the rest of the muck pile. Vivaldi's course of action was to speak with Christensen and Wilf privately off to the side of the table in order to get their exact holdings. If he could confirm those hands were in the pile of six, he would then ask Gong his exact cards. If his two were the remaining two cards, they would be awarded back to Gong and the hand would continue. Call it a reconstruction.

Vivaldi first spoke to Christensen, then looked in the pile of six, verifying Christensen's cards were indeed in there. He then spoke to Wilf, who admitted before that he might not exactly be able to remember his hand. Wilf mentioned he could remember the rank, but maybe not the exact suits. After Vivaldi got word of Wilf's hand, he looked in the pile, but couldn't verify Wilf's exact cards. Because of this inability to determine who held each of the six cards, Vivaldi ruled that Gong wouldn't get his hand back.

Hartmann now had the option to call or raise, knowing he'd then automatically win the hand as Gong didn't have cards. Instead, in what turned out to be an impressive sign of sportsmanship, Hartmann and Gong exchanged a few words that we couldn't hear and then Hartmann folded, giving Gong the pot. Gong collected the chips, shook Hartmann's hand, and thanked him, while the rest of the table and those watching commended Hartmann on handling the situation with class.