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You are the Tournament Director: Verbal Action Is Binding

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We are in the later stages of the WSOP main event just a few places off the money. The button raises pre-flop and the big blind calls. The flop comes down 10, 6, 10. The big blind bets out, the button makes a big raise and the big blind moves all in. The button jumps up from his seat and moves away to a nearby wall where he stands with his head in his hands for over a minute. You approach him and explain that he has to make a decision. He says ‘fold, fold, fold’ and then moves back to the table. He looks at the chip stacks and notices that his opponent has a lot of small denomination chips. He realises that the final re-raise is only a small percentage of the previous bets and now a call is a distinct possibility. He asks for a count of his opponents stack. What do you do?

Matt:
That was the biggest decision of my life actually, it could have been ruled the other way I really to this day feel like it’s a close call because you know he’s talking away from the table but a verbal declaration in turn is binding so in that instance I folded his hand and to Russell’s credit he fought back from that and made the final table, he had him beat, he had Julian beat and Julian would have been eliminated not winning 1.1 million dollars and history would have been changed but definitely I think that verbal declarations in turn are binding so therefore he has a dead hand.

Thomas:
Verbal goes and is binding!

Jack:
Verbal bets are binding. The announcement of folding takes precedence. Dead hand.

Liam:
I accept his first ‘fold fold fold’, he’s folded. That did happen.

Mel:
The verbal declaration of saying fold is good enough. You need to be strong and tell the player that verbal saying fold is the action taken. Hand over.

Marty:
His hand’s dead he’s folded. There’s no dispute. I make a ruling in the Poker Den that you do not stand up at any stage while your chips are in play except an all-in. I don’t want players trying to intimidate their opponents like that.

The Mob Verdict

This happened in the WSOP Championship event in 2002. The button was Russell Rosenblum and the big blind was Julian Gardner.

All our tournament directors are in agreement here. Matt acknowledges that it’s not easy but the rule is that ‘verbal declarations in turn are binding’. It was a fact that Julian’s re-raise contained a lot of small denomination chips and that Russell had overestimated the amount. We believe that Julian had pocket sevens and Russell pocket jacks so it was a defining moment as Julian went on to finish second for $1,100,000 and Russell 6th for $150,000. The full result can be found here.

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