In a bizarre turn of events, a poker player has walked away from a poker tournament during the heads-up battle. William Pinkerton abandoned his challenge against Jacob Mitch with a stack of more than 10 big blinds before shocking onlookers by leaving without even asking for a chop.
The event was the $400 buy-in Potomac Winter Poker Open and, admittedly, the situation wasn’t a good one for William Pinkerton. He was 6-1 behind in chips but clearly not an experienced player who understands how quickly the situation can change.
William Pinkerton Walks Away from Heads-Up Battle with More than 10bb
Wtf did I just read, the guy got to heads up and just gave up didnt even get a deal aaaa what???? #seeyaguystheretomorrow @PokerNews @MGMNH_Poker pic.twitter.com/cl0iqOBsk9
— Aubrey Williams (@TheAwwbrey) February 2, 2023
PokerNews managed to track down Jacob Mitch to get his side of the story.
“Yeah, I definitely haven’t had that happen before. It was extremely odd. As soon as the guy busted in third, the guy who I was heads-up with looked at my chips and said I’ll just take second.
“I said what do you mean you’ll just take second and his response was, ‘You have way too many chips, there is no way I can come back. I said okay, GG.”
The pay jump was significant too, with almost an extra $10K on the line. $22,298 for the winner and $13,582 for second place.
Mitch added that Pinkerton had told him that he is at flight school training to be a pilot and only plays poker for fun.
Obviously, social media was awash with surprised poker players commenting that they couldn’t believe what happened. But it’s clear that these bizarre tales of players failing to understand the reality of the situation are more common than we mostly think.
Jerod Smith wrote about how he was once requested by the chip leader in a heads-up battle to just give him the win for nothing.
One of my first ever live tournaments, I was super short, 4/4, and 1st knocked 2nd and 3rd out. He suggested I take 2nd and give him 1st and I was like “why the fuck would I do that?” He got super pissed and didn’t understand why I wouldn’t. I asked the dealer to explain to him.
— Jerod Smith (@jsmith84poker) February 2, 2023
He added:
“He felt that he did me a favor by knocking out the other two guys, so I should just give it to him. I told him he did that for him not for me lol. He also said “people chop all the time!” I said this isn’t a chop.”
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