'F**k You Guys!': Major Controversy Erupts Over Questionable But Costly Fold at WSOP
James Caputo, for the second straight day in the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event, found himself part of a controversy in one of the biggest tournaments in poker history.
The poker player played a wild hand against vlogger Ryan Depaulo and Andre Moreira on Day 2b of the $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament in the Bahamas. About 10 minutes lapsed before the hand concluded, thanks in large part to the players engaging in a heated argument and the floor manager being called over to offer a ruling.
A little backstory first before we get into the hand that will have poker fans debating the ruling: Caputo, who has next to no recorded live tournament cashes, made a preflop mistake on Sunday in how he raised that inadvertently allowed David Benyamine to double-up against another player. That hand pales in comparison on the controversy scale to the incident Caputo found himself in on Monday.
Controvery Sparks at World Series of Poker Paradise
Level 15 (25,000/50,000) had begun in the juiciest event of the WSOP Paradise schedule. PokerNews reporter Connor Richards spotted some commotion over at Table 124, and he came to find a dispute had ensued involving Caputo, Depaulo, and Moreira about the hand they were playing.
Moreira opened to 100,000, and Depaulo called from the next seat before Caputo three-bet to 200,000 behind him. Moreira called, and Depaulo back-shoved for 1,175,000. Caputo called, and Moreira then re-shoved for over 3,000,000.
This is where things got a bit crazy. According to footage captured by Depaulo, Caputo said something to the effect of him being all in against Depaulo but not Moreira and tabled A♦5♦. The dealer interpreted this as a verbal fold and mucked his hand, leaving Moreira and Depaulo to respectively table J♠J♣ and K♣K♠.
A confused Caputo then argued that his hand should still be alive and that he would've called. Depaulo told him he had folded, but tablemate Martin Zamani came to Caputo's defense and said he never verbally folded.
"Don't listen to him (Zamani), he's biased," Depaulo told the floor.
"How am I biased?" replied Zamani. "Do you wanna bet on it?"
"He said, 'I'm not calling that.'"
"Dude, he called with ace-deuce earlier. You know he wasn't trying to fold."
Several f-bombs flew, and they only picked up when the floor told Caputo that he would have to surrender 1,175,000 and wouldn't even get to see a flop. Finally, a board was run, and it came out as you probably guessed, giving Depaulo top set, which would have lost the hand because the unpaired board showed three diamonds, a flush for Caputo if his hand hadn't been mucked.
Depaulo, however, scooped the massive pot, and it was the second day in a row Caputo's unintentional actions allowed another player to win a big hand.
"F*** YOU GUYS!" Caputo screamed before slamming a stack of around $50,000 cash on the table.
"I'm sorry," said Depaulo. "It sucks for you that you folded."
"I didn't fold," Caputo replied. "Why don't we go to the video tape."
Depaulo, on his second bullet thanks to the split purchase of Alan Keating and Daniel Negreanu, was up to around 70 big blinds at the time. Moreira took a massive hit and was down to 20 big blinds after losing with pocket jacks. Caputo, despite the unfortunate situation, was still in good shape with 60 big blinds.
Depaulo shared further details of the incident from his point of view. He insists that Caputo, an inexperienced player, clearly folded his hands. The poker vlogger shared a video clip he took from his perspective during the hand.
In a separate tweet, Depaulo claims that Caputo was asked before the cards were mucked if his intentions were to fold, and he responded, "yes."
The WSOP Paradise Super Main Event smashed its $60 million guarantee by more than $12 million with 2,891 entrants in the field by the time registration closed on Monday. A prize pool hadn't yet been released by the time this article was published. Alex Livingston, Faraz Jaka, and Santhosh Suvarna were among some of the big stacks.
Poker fans can catch all the action throughout the tournament right here at PokerNews.
