“Dead hand” … “Call, call”
Ladies and gentlemen, another controversy has surfaced at the 2026 World Series of Poker. And while it did involve a hand that was dealt, rather than the usual Martin Kabrhel antics, it was not a mistake by the dealer, but, rather, the floor.
Patrick Leonard was the unfortunate victim. He initially tweeted about it on January 24, saying that he was all-in on the river on the bubble of Event #62: $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em and the lone opponent left in the hand tanked for six minutes. The floor was called over and gave the person 30 seconds to make a decision.
Eventually, the time ran out as the floor counted down from five seconds and declared the hand dead. But to Leonard’s surprise, the player made the call after the floor said the hand was dead. Another floor person was consulted and they let the call be made, to Leonard’s disappointment.
Video tells the story
He then posted two videos that someone else at the table recorded, showing what happened. In the first, eight-second video, the floor can clearly be heard counting down and after “one,” he says, “dead hand.” The person recording then immediately tries to guess Leonard’s hand, since the hand was done and Leonard was presumably the winner.
But right as the man is finishing his guess, a voice from off camera can be heard saying, “I call, I call.”
In a 34-second follow-up video, Leonard is calmly arguing with the floor that the hand was dead. The floor (presumably, the man is off camera) said, referring to timing of the call with the announcement of “dead,” that it was “right on it.”
It sounds like another player said that the call was before the floor declared it was dead, and, of course, the opponent said he made the call in time. Leonard said he knew that the call was for sure made too late and that the video being taken by another player would back that up.
In the end, Leonard lost the hand. Commenters on X were surprised by how friendly and calm he was in the video, to which he said, “I was actually super chill because I thought 100% would be ruled correctly.”
Poker pros side with Pads
If there was someone in the replies who wasn’t on Leonard’s side, this writer didn’t see it. Josh Arieh commented, “Not only shame on the floor people. Shame on the player as well for cheating you.”
Poker Hall of Fame nominee Scott Seiver took a friendly jab at Leonard, saying, “Truly with no offense to you, but there is no world where I don’t stop the tournament until the right ruling is made. Security would need to be called to remove me from my seat.”
Joseph Cheong: “Pads is just too nice. Def also calling every single td at the venue. This is ridiculous.”
Galen Hall questioned if anything can be done if the floor makes a clearly incorrect ruling, like deciding a straight beats a flush, and scolded the rest of the players at the table for not speaking up.
Image credit: PokerGO.com
