Controversy Ensues After Poker Pro Mucks a Chop at $1M Guaranteed Final Table

A participant on the primary hand on the ultimate desk of the LAPC Commerce Basic, a $1 million assured event, made a pricey error when he folded a chop in a large pot.

The $1,200 buy-in tournamment wrapped on Tuesday with Fausto Valdez beating out 1,444 entrants to win the event for $252,840. He defeated Erick Ordonez heads-up for the title at Commerce On line casino in Los Angeles.

Ordonez, a California poker participant with simply $123,000 in prior dwell event cashes recorded by The Hendon Mob, benefited from a mistake his opponent made earlier on the ultimate desk.

Poker Participant Did not Catch the Chop

Poker professional Jared Griener, who completed in seventh place for $42,990, shared a controversial hand on X from the ultimate desk. The hand, with 9 gamers remaining simply after the session started, had a board of 8♦9♦Q♦10♦ and a pair of,200,000 within the pot, the equal of 10 huge blinds.

Duey Duong, holding Ok♣Q♣, wager 500,000. Ordonez, who had Q♠Q♥, made the decision. The river was the 4♦, which introduced a fifth diamond on the board. Neither participant held a diamond, so until one participant wager and the opposite folded, this hand was destined to finish in a chop. Or, so that you’d suppose.

There could be no river wager, as each gamers checked. Ordonez rolled over his set of queens that changed into a neighborhood flush. However his opponent, apparently unaware the flush on the board performed, mucked his playing cards face-down, giving Ordonez the three,200,000-chip pot.

Duong, as Griener identified in his tweet, is an skilled poker participant with over $1.3 million in prior dwell event cashes. Griener, Utah’s all-time cash chief, took problem with another gamers on the desk calling Duong out for mucking his hand and inspiring him to point out his playing cards at showdown.

Griener, in the course of the livestream on the Bally Poker Reside YouTube channel, advised one other participant “if a participant by chance mucks, do not inform him to desk his hand.”

“I believe it is type of soiled,” Griener continued.

The talk on the desk over alerting Duong to show his playing cards over continued for a couple of minutes. The error was pricey because it left Duong with 2,775,000 chips as a substitute of 4,375,000 had he not mucked his playing cards, leaving him with the second-shortest stack on the time. Ordonez, however, moved as much as 8,825,000 chips, placing him at an above-average stack.

Duong would inevitably bow out in sixth place for $52,050. Ordonez reached heads-up play and trailed almost 2:1 in chips to Valdez, who would end the event off when pocket kings held up in opposition to queen-jack.

Ordonez went residence with $177,270, and the blunder by Duong actually helped. The 2026 LA Poker Basic (LAPC) runs by way of March 1 in Southern California.