Moments before the Day 3 dinner break in the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, controversy struck at one table inside the Horseshoe Event Center.
As the field was heading to break, a possible angle shoot occurred, and another player who wasn’t even in the hand had to be escorted out of the room and was penalized.
How the Hand Transpired
Action folded around to Rayane Bouieb on the button, who raised it up. The small blind folded to the big blind, who then flashed his hand, which was Jx2x. But he hadn’t technically folded his hand even though it is against tournament rules to expose cards in the middle of a pot.
Moments after the cards were exposed, the preflop raiser tossed his cards into the muck. The big blind then argued to the dealer that he hadn’t folded his hand.
The floor supervisor was called over to rule on the controversial situation, and he determined that the pot should be given to the big blind. But another player at the table who wasn’t involved in the hand — Thomas Zanot — was none too thrilled with the ruling or the big blind’s behavior.
PokerNews observed Zanot angrily criticizing Bouieb, which got him in some hot water with the tournament staff. Security was called over to the table to politely escort Zanot out of the area. He was given a one-round penalty to be served after the 75-minute dinner break.
“It Was Very Clear”
As he served out his one-round penalty, PokerNews interviewed Zanot to learn more about what transpired at the table. He noted that Bouieb didn’t speak English and said he wanted to speak up against what he saw as an angle.
“The button (Bouieb) doesn’t speak English, so he said please help me. And I tried to help him, but I was fired up … I was obviously very upset. I’m like, are you kidding me? … I’m trying to help this guy out.”
Zanot said he didn’t think there was any question that the big blind had meant to fold his hand.
“It was very clear,” said Zanot. “He picked it up and showed it to the button like ‘I don’t have a defending hand. Good job.’ And he’s like ‘floor’ and just f***ing scums for four and a half big blinds.”
In January 2023, Zanot won a $6.4 million Pai Gow Progressive jackpot at Flamingo Las Vegas, just a tad more than what second place will pay in the Main Event.
Angle shooting refers to a tactic where players attempt to bend the rules to gain an advantage. It’s not explicitly cheating but is generally viewed as unethical or unsportsmanlike behavior in the poker community. Examples of angle shooting include making misleading statements about a hand, intentionally displaying a hand, or exploiting an ambiguous rule.
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