A Little Re-Entry Controversy
Tommy Vedes checked the 
flop and the next player bet 1,100. Phil Ivey called and then Vedes check-raised to 3,000. The original bettor made the call and Ivey folded.
The turn was the 
and Vedes bet 6,200. His opponent raised to 16,200 and then Vedes shoved all in for approximately 55,000. His opponent called.
Vedes tabled the 
for a flopped straight and his opponent the 
for a combo draw. The river bricked off with the 
and Vedes won the pot.
Vedes' opponent was all in for a little less than 50,000 and therefore was eliminated. This all took place after the re-entry period had ended, but the table told the man he should re-enter. He seemed happy to do so and the floor was called over. Unfortunately, the player was told that he couldn't re-enter because Level 5 had started and the re-entry period was officially over. Re-entry was set to be open for the first four levels and through the last break.
David "Doc" Sands did what he could to voice his opinion to the floor from an adjacent table. Even David Williams, Dan Smith and Vedes tried to persuade the floor a little bit into allowing the player to re-enter. In the end, the floor told the player he could try and go to the registration desk to re-enter if he wanted.
About five minutes later, Mike "Timex" McDonald and Jonathan Duhamel showed up between the two tables with new tournament tickets in their hands. Smith asked McDonald if he had gotten back in and McDonald said yes. This struck a cord with some of the players as now they thought no one else should be able to come back into the tournament. Many of them wondered why McDonald and Duhamel were let back in while the other player was told he couldn't. It was pretty apparent that the players' eyes, McDonald and Duhamel were a couple of the last players they'd like to see re-entering.
Even though McDonald and Duhamel did not show up to get their tournament seats from the floor staff until roughly 10 minutes into the level. It's also of note that the registration desk for the tournaments is on the other side of the building, so it does take time to facilitate everything over there and then get back over to where the tables are.
A few players even went on to comment and suggest that the tournament staff should adjust the rules next time around and have re-entry and late registration open for the entire Day 1 and up until the start of Day 2. One problem with that would be that a lot of players wouldn't bother showing up on time for the event, so things could get a little tricky.
One thing is for sure and that's that PokerStars and the EPT are always listening to player feedback and doing what they can to adjust their events for the better. With many of the high rollers voicing their opinion, surely this would go on their list of things to look at and could possibly be tweaked for next season.
We'll see if we can dig up any more information on this story.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
130,000
70,000
|
70,000 |