re: World Series of Poker 2011

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Unless ESPN screwed up, it was. ESPN and WSOP have been careful and made sure everything broadcast "live" is actually on a 30 min delay to prevent cheating

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Matt Giannetti opened the pot with a raise from early position, and Guillaume Darcourt called a few seats over, the two men going heads-up to the flop. Only one of them has pink hair.

The dealer spread out 3h Js 3c, and Giannetti continued out with 110,000. Darcourt stacked together a raise, and he made it 280,000 to go. It was at this point that the ESPN cameras started to encircle the table, and no less than nine production personnel crowded themselves into the elbow space around the players. We found a little window to peek through just in time to catch Giannetti reraising to 610,000 with the addition of a tower of green chips to his bet. That sent Darcourt deep into the tank, and it was a long while before he uncapped his cards and slid them back to the dealer.

"Hold onto those cards," came the call from the producer, and the dealer froze. The little roving hole-card cam was brought over to Giannetti, and he gave the cameras a peek at what he was playing. Now it was Darcourt's turn, but he instead grabbed his cards and shoved them halfway into the muck. "Don't muck those cards!" the producer insisted, and the dealer pulled them back out of the deck. Darcourt told them that he was refusing to show, and it was the beginning of a long delay as nobody knew quite what to do about it. The production supervisor was called over, and he didn't seem to have the answer either. It took the addition of at least three floor men to the conversation before it was decided that Darcourt would have to show.

"It's in the contract you signed," one of them gave a stern warning.

"Show me!" Darcourt insisted. "Show me the paper I signed!" "If you don't show your cards, I'm going to give you a penalty."

"Fine! I'll take a penalty!"

At one point, they even asked the dealer to show the camera the cards, but when he tried, Darcourt snatched his cards back and covered them with his hands.

There was a several-minute standoff before the staff was finally able to calm Darcourt down enough to give in. Once he found out it wasn't streaming live, he angrily (and very briefly) flashed his cards to the camera, shoved them back into the muck, and stormed off for a cigarette.

He's still got about 4.65 million chips to come back to, and he'll have to find a way to shake off the frustration now with so much on the line.

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