When Poker Goes Wrong

When playing online poker you're always a bit weary as to whether you’re playing against a hacker, cheat, or a bot, not being able to see your opponents can have you wondering, so seeing news of something going wrong online can cause even more anxiety.

So why not get a good idea of what could go wrong and try your best to avoid it (if you can)!

Here are some online poker errors.

ACR Duplicate Cards

One ACR player recently went to reddit to show proof that AmericasCardroom cheats.

The image they posted showed the community cards with 2 K♣ and 2 J♦, as any poker player would know, there is only 1 of each of these.

As well as this, even if it was correct, the wrong player won the hand with 9 of Hearts and 10 of Diamonds, while the other player that posted this held K♦ and 8♥.

However, the log of the play showed that the actual cards dealt were A♣ on the turn and 10♠ on the river, giving their opponent the win.

Let’s hope this glitch doesn’t happen to the player again!

GGPoker Award Poker Pot to the Wrong Player

Over a week ago the GGPoker site was down and for a good reason.

During one online game at GG, a player was awarded the winnings despite having the worst hand.

The community cards were K♠ 6♦ K♣ 7♣ 5♣, with the losing opponent holding Q♠Q♦ and the winner with 10♠10♥. There is a clear winner here, but a glitch on the GGNetwork leads to the pot falling into the wrong hands.

GGPoker posted an update on the situation to the GGPokerCommunity subreddit,

“There was a conditional bug that made the system recognize the game as Flip&Go, and discard one card. We have fixed this buy, and refunded all such cases”.

There was a conditional bug that made the system recognize the game as Flip&Go, and discard one card. We have fixed this buy, and refunded all such cases.

It seems that this was not the only error during the tournament, as one player replied to GG’s post saying, “I saw a thread in r/poker where in a 10k QQ lot to TT”.

However, they fixed the buy as soon as it arose, gaining the trust back from its community.

Now it's time to move onto the real life live poker fails, where anything could happen!

Two of the same cards Dealt on the Flop

At the 2022 WSOP and minor controversy arose at the $1,000 buy-in Million Dollar Bounty Event.

Post flop came down to 5♣-3♠-3♠, which of course is out of the ordinary, how do you get two of the same cards in the same set!

Despite going through deck inspection, it still somehow made its way onto the table, but these things happen and it is not the first time it has happened at the WSOP.

Duplicate cards at the WSOP

During the 2014 WSOP, a similar thing happened at event #37.

Christopher Ruby lost the event and snapped a photo of his exit hand, which he later discovered in the image that there were 2 Q♥.

Some claimed it may have been photoshoppped due to no one noticing the issue during the actual event, which is slightly surprising.

Estelle Denis’ Doesn't Protect her Cards

Unfortunately, at the 2009 WSOP, on day 5 of the Main Event, Estelle Denis’ cards were accidentally taken away by the dealer.

She had checked her cards to find pocket aces one of the best ranges of hands, when Tran raised the action to 32k, she then quickly moved all in, immediately her cards were scooped up from the poker table by the dealer.

She was told her cards were dead and she should have been protecting them, the 32k she had raised also stayed in the pot so she walked away with 110k and finished in 203rd place, safe to say she was no longer in it for the long run.

Miscalculation at WSOP

At the 2019 WSOP Main Event, Dario Sammartino fell victim to a miscalculation of chips.

Sammartino was playing with 62.2 million and was all-in against Marchington. Sammartino had pocket 10s and asked for a count. The dealer announced that Marchington had 17.2 million, when in reality he had 22.2 million.

The blinds were 400/800k, Sammartino quickly called thinking it was only going to cost him 21.5 big blinds. After the mistake was revealed, of course he was quick to complain.

The floor was called and ruled against Sammartino, telling him his verbal call must stand.

His pocket 10’s failed, and so he continued to complain despite the ruling being correct, as when you play poker it is the players responsibility to protect their hands even if the player is given the wrong information from the dealer.