Controversy Ensues After Poker Pro Mucks a Chop at $1M Guaranteed Final Table
A player on the first hand at the final table of the LAPC Commerce Classic, a $1 million guaranteed tournament, made a costly error when he folded a chop in a sizable pot.
The $1,200 buy-in tournamment wrapped on Tuesday with Fausto Valdez beating out 1,444 entrants to win the tournament for $252,840. He defeated Erick Ordonez heads-up for the title at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles.
Ordonez, a California poker player with just $123,000 in prior live tournament cashes recorded by The Hendon Mob, benefited from a mistake his opponent made earlier at the final table.
Poker Player Didn't Catch the Chop
Poker pro Jared Griener, who finished in seventh place for $42,990, shared a controversial hand on X from the final table. The hand, with nine players remaining just after the session began, had a board of 8♦9♦Q♦10♦ and 2,200,000 in the pot, the equivalent of 10 big blinds.
Duey Duong, holding K♣Q♣, bet 500,000. Ordonez, who had Q♠Q♥, made the call. The river was the 4♦, which brought a fifth diamond on the board. Neither player held a diamond, so unless one player bet and the other folded, this hand was destined to end in a chop. Or, so you'd think.
There would be no river bet, as both players checked. Ordonez rolled over his set of queens that turned into a community flush. But his opponent, apparently unaware the flush on the board played, mucked his cards face-down, giving Ordonez the 3,200,000-chip pot.
Duong, as Griener pointed out in his tweet, is an experienced poker player with over $1.3 million in prior live tournament cashes. Griener, Utah's all-time money leader, took issue with some other players at the table calling Duong out for mucking his hand and encouraging him to show his cards at showdown.
Griener, during the livestream on the Bally Poker Live YouTube channel, told another player "if a player accidentally mucks, don't tell him to table his hand."
"I think it's kind of dirty," Griener continued.
The debate at the table over alerting Duong to turn his cards over continued for a few minutes. The mistake was costly as it left Duong with 2,775,000 chips instead of 4,375,000 had he not mucked his cards, leaving him with the second-shortest stack at the time. Ordonez, on the other hand, moved up to 8,825,000 chips, putting him at an above-average stack.
Duong would inevitably bow out in sixth place for $52,050. Ordonez reached heads-up play and trailed nearly 2:1 in chips to Valdez, who would finish the tournament off when pocket kings held up against queen-jack.
Ordonez went home with $177,270, and the blunder by Duong certainly helped. The 2026 LA Poker Classic (LAPC) runs through March 1 in Southern California.
LAPC Commerce Classic Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fausto Valdez | $252,840 |
| 2 | Erick Ordonez | $177,270 |
| 3 | Phuoc Hong Nguyen | $115,000 |
| 4 | Thang Tran | $85,210 |
| 5 | Lihao Shen | $64,380 |
| 6 | Duey Duong | $52,050 |
| 7 | Jared Griener | $42,990 |
| 8 | Kevin Khuong | $34,070 |
| 9 | Kurt Esbenson | $25,290 |
