Player Disqualified from the Main Event
Over at 2015 World Champion Joe McKeehen's table in the Brasilia Red section, George Belianin has been disqualified in the 2019 WSOP Main Event after not even one hour of play on Day 1c.
According to several players at the table, after winning a small pot, the #5 seat George Belianin reached out to his left-hand neighbor's stack as well and scooped up his entire stack in the process to add it to his. Allegedly, Belianin did so with a smile on his face.
Belianin subsequently got disqualified for stealing another person's chips at the table and will not be active in the 2019 Main Event anymore. It was the Vice President of the World Series of Poker Jack Effel who came over and escorted Belianin out of the tournament area. His chips will be taken out of play, while his buy-in stays in the prize pool.
Effel later spoke with PokerNews and weighed in on the decision:
“Here’s the thing, you’re playing the Main Event you can’t touch other player’s chips. The chips that you have in front of you are the ones that belong to you, you shouldn’t be touching chips that don’t belong to you. Plain and simple. Discussing beyond what was seen at the table, everybody saw the exact same thing – he took the chips that were next to him, they didn’t belong to him and you can’t do that when you’re playing the Main Event.”
When asked if Belianin was also 86ed from all Caesars properties Effel added the following: “I’m not going to speak on security concerns, but obviously if you break the rules and take chips you’re not going to be allowed to play in the tournament and you can face all consequences as a result of being disqualified from the tournament per our rules.”
Another player at the table, Tom Peterson, also gave a first-hand account of what transpired:
“The guy came in and sat down at Seat 6. The dealer told him to get in Seat 5. He didn’t speak a lot of English, he was from another country because he had a passport,” Peterson explained when asked to recount what happened. “He said, ‘I want to play. Deal.’ The dealer said, ‘No you need to move.’ …He finally moves, plays a couple of hands, plays them well, loses both of them. Then like in the seventh hand he wins the pot: 1,600 in the pot - one black chip, one pink chip, one yellow chip. The dealer pushes it to him and he just grabs the other pile and puts it right into his without hesitation. The floor came over and they DQed him.”