Player Loses Connection ...And $80,000
It is every player's worst nightmare: heads-up in a huge tournament and your internet goes down...
24 October 2007
"Call it greed or whatever, but I wasn't playing this thing to NOT win $200,000"Danish poker pro Søren Kongsgaard is cursing his Spanish ISP after he lost connection when heads-up in the $1 million guaranteed on Full Tilt this week.
Søren, a serial casher in live tournaments including the PokerStars-sponsored EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo this year where he finished 3rd for an $800k pay-day, was battling it out with a player called Chris Vaughn aka “BluffMagCV” when his internet went down.
He had been playing for around 10 hours in the $535 buy-in tournament and was heads-up (from 2,152 starters) when the lost connection put him out of the tournament.
“I wasn't able to get my connection back, and since I only had around 50 times the big blind and the antes were high, it didn't take long before I had lost my chips,” Kongsgaard told poker site pokernyhederene.com.
“That's just the way it is, there is nothing you can do about it. But I guess the player on the other side was happy about it.”
Kongsgaard still cashed for $121,588 so it wasn’t a bad night’s work but he is still left wondering what might have been. The other player just played on as normal, stole all Kongsgaard’s blinds/antes, and took down first place prize money of almost $200,000.
That will no doubt be the easiest $80k that Chris Vaughn, who works on Bluff magazine, will ever make.
Of his controversial decision to play on despite his opponent losing connection Vaughn said: “I know this is a sensitive issue. In poker, you take advantage of every situation. I realise a lot of people will be upset, but I had nothing to do with his internet going out.
“I would expect the same thing to be done to me. Call it greed or whatever, but I wasn't playing this thing to NOT win $200,000. I feel it was the smart poker decision and stand by it. I apologise if it upset anyone. It obviously wasn't personal in any way.”
Would you have played on in the same circumstances? Write and let us know below…
23/10/07
Soren Kongsgaard: might think about investing in another internet connection in the future