An interesting situation arose during the $250,000 Super High Roller at the World Series of Poker last week, first reported in a comprehensive X thread by a dealer who worked the final table.
I should preface this by saying I don't have any insider information about what actually happened. I'm taking it at face value that the hand occurred as described.
But the situation is this: What happens if two players bust in the same hand, and one of them started the hand ‘with more chips’ but, due to the big blind ante, ended up with fewer chips when there was an all-in?
Apparently, the floor staff disagreed on how the situation should be handled. I believe there is only one correct answer here.
And when it comes to big blind ante conversations, I feel like people tend to focus on one moment in the hand instead of considering the bigger picture.
Let’s break it down
Let's say you and seven of your buddies went to dinner every single night, and they got the same thing, and it was $10 a person, for a total of $80.
At some point, one of your friends says, "I have an idea. Instead of all of us fumbling through $10 bills trying to pay for it, one person pays $80 for all of us, and then we’ll just take turns."
After seven nights, it's the eighth person's turn to pay, and they say, "Hey, why are you asking me to pay $80? My meal is only $10."
If you look at it like an individual event, one might say it's not fair. Why are you asking this person to pay for everyone?
If you look at the whole sequence of events, it's fair to ask them to pay for everything – the only reason they have the $80 is they've saved it every single meal for the weeks before.
It's the same thing that's happening with the big blind ante in this hand. You can't look at it like one specific situation and then say, "It's not fair because they pay it and then they have less chips." Part of the reason they still have more chips is that everyone else has already paid the ante in previous hands.
Cut to the chase
There's a very easy way of looking at it. If those were the only two players in the hand and they went all-in, which person would win?
It would be the person with the most chips at the time of the all-in.
If I have more chips, we go all-in, and I bust you, you're out and I get to keep playing.
The same thing happens if it's a three-way all-in. One player busts first because they have fewer chips, then the other player is eliminated because they have fewer chips than the surviving player, but more than the first player.
The number of chips that you have at the start of the hand doesn't actually matter. The number of chips that you have at the point at which you go all-in is the only thing that matters.
In the future, I hope this helps any debate about who should get the higher finish in a spot like this. The correct ruling in this situation is that the player with the most chips when the all-in occurs receives the higher finishing position.
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.
