A poker thriller unfolded in Manila during the APPT Main Event final table.
Four players remained in the tournament, and the hand was pretty standard to start with. There was a preflop raise and a call, followed by a bet and a call on the flop, before the action reached the river.
On the river, Seunghyuk Jung went all-in, but did so by betting a single chip. The chip happened to be worth the same amount as his flop bet.
Fernan Co, the other player in the hand, thought the bet was 500K rather than all-in and instantly called, only to discover that Jung had verbally declared all-in. and that he was now out of the tournament in fourth place.
Some players are saying this is the biggest misclick in poker history. It is a perfect example of why this year at the Tournament Directors Association (TDA) Summit we changed the rules for how you are allowed to go all-in.
Why did this rule ever exist in the first place?
Why did we have a rule that allowed you to do something that, visually, was drastically different from what you were saying? And why did we let that stand?
It’s something that has existed in poker for a very long time: you could say ‘all-in’, put just one chip into the pot, and still be all-in.
The other player, Co, should have waited and clarified the action before putting his chips in. A lot of things could have gone differently here and resulted in a different outcome.
He probably wouldn't have misclicked, and he would still have been in the tournament. Who knows? But the fact is, this rule shouldn't exist in the first place.
The new TDA rule states that if you are going all-in, you must either put all of your chips into the middle or declare yourself all-in and put in nothing. Now there's no confusion.
In that case, there's not one chip sitting in front of you where another player can think that that's the bet and call, only to then find out after the fact that it was, in fact, an all-in.
This is a rule that should have been changed a long time ago.
Rules shouldn't exist because 'that's the way it's always been'
What I'm hoping happens here is that this concept of putting in one chip and declaring yourself all-in goes away entirely, because eventually players who do that will be angling.
Right now, putting out one chip after declaring all-in is permitted under the rules used in many tournaments.
But if the new TDA rule is adopted, players will have to adjust. What was once accepted could increasingly be viewed as an angle if a player deliberately misrepresents the size of their bet.
And if you do something that's no longer permitted, you shouldn't be able to benefit from the confusion it creates.
Of course, this is going to take a little bit of time to sink in. Poker has operated this way for a long time, and old habits don't disappear overnight.
But I don't think we should keep rules simply because 'that's the way it's always been.' If a rule creates unnecessary confusion, we should change it. What happened at the APPT is a great example of why the TDA has done exactly that.
You shouldn't have something sitting in front of you that looks vastly different from the actual size of your bet. Perhaps the other player didn't hear the verbal declaration. Maybe they're hard of hearing. Maybe the all-in button didn't come out quickly enough. You never know.
The simplest solution is to remove that ambiguity altogether.
Justin Hammer is the Live Events Director for PokerAtlas, an online tournament director for the Texas-based poker app Hijack, and a tournament director at Thunder Valley Casino Resort. He also works as a consultant and is a minority owner of Desert Bluffs Casino in Kennewick, Washington.
For more info visit PokerAtlas.com, HijackPoker.com, and bluffs.poker. Follow Justin on X.
