There is almost never a good time to get ill, but on the eve of the final table of a WPT Main Event with $750,000 up top must rank among the worst for a poker player.
That’s what Austrian pro Roland Rokita faced last month, an acute case of testicular torsion almost scuppering his bid for glory, with Fedor Holz tweeting out the emergency news…
Roland Rokita is WPT final table 2/6 and just got to hospital with a severe emergency operation. Do you know who is in charge for the tournament? Can someone help? It’s supposed to start in two hours.
— Fedor Holz 🐧 (@CrownUpGuy) March 9, 2021
Roland Rokita in severe pain
At the time, it wasn’t known what exactly was wrong with Roland, but this week he revealed to his Pokercode community blog the painful problem he faced.
“At the day of the final table, I woke up and had pain in my testicle, and I called my brother,” he explained to Pokercode’s Hill Kerby.
“My brother is a doctor, and he told me to immediately go to the hospital to check it because there is the danger of testicular torsion.”
That’s exactly what the doctors diagnosed, and now he faced a dilemma – have an immediate operation and miss out on the WPT Venetian $5k Main Event final table, or play through the pain and risk losing his testicle.
Holz’s tweet got several responses, players, friends and officials working behind the scenes in an attempt to accommodate Rokita’s unusual and unpleasant situation.
Discussing with Venetian and WPT now.
— Matt Savage (@SavagePoker) March 9, 2021
In fact, the tournament had already just recovered from a controversial decision, with Jared Jaffee taking a huge swipe on Twitter at everyone involved, the WPT’s Executive Tour Director, Matt Savage, chief among them…
Just wanna send out a huge FUCk You to @SavagePoker @WPT and @VenetianPoker ….. I’ll be writing a post about the disgrace of they all are
— jaredjaffee (@jaredjaffee21) March 9, 2021
WPT final table agrees on a one-hour delay
Meanwhile, with his back by now apparently more painful than his injured ball, and the other players agreeing to a one-hour delay, Rokita swallowed some painkillers and rejoined his colleagues at the final table.
A few hours later, Rokita had bagged 3rd spot. He pocketed $363,235 after his pocket fives failed to hold up to Joe McKeehen’s overpair. The 2015 WSOP Main Event champ himself then fell to Qing Liu.
Fedor, in the meantime, was keeping Twitter poker fans updated…
They didn’t want to postpone, he went from hospital, played, finished 3rd and went back to hospital right after it
— Fedor Holz 🐧 (@CrownUpGuy) March 10, 2021
It might all have ended there, a lucky escape and a career-best tournament win for the young Austrian pro, more than doubling his lifetime earnings.
Unfortunately, on double-checking with a urologist a few days after the event, it transpired that the offending testicle would indeed have to be removed.
Rokita flew back to his homeland for the operation, which thankfully seems to have gone very well. Kerby reported, “Roland found himself with almost no pain from the procedure, even less than a week after it happened. There are also no future complications that could be tied to it all.”
All’s well that ends well, but for Roland Rokita it will almost certainly be the single most unforgettable poker tournament of his career.
