OMG wow. That was handled in
the most awful way possible. Longish post follows, for those that can't be bothered though here's the Cliff Notes - I think de Wolfe is in the right and Reinkemeir is an angle shooting douchebag of the highest order.
Here's why. The relevant Tournament Director's Association rules:
1. Floor People
Floor people are to consider the best interest of the game and fairness as the top priority in the decision-making process. Unusual circumstances can on occasion dictate that decisions in the interest of fairness take priority over the technical rules. The floor person’s decision is final.
29. Killing Winning Hand
Dealers cannot kill a winning hand that was tabled and was obviously the winning hand. Players are encouraged to assist in reading tabled hands if it appears that an error is about to be made.
Robert's Rules give us a few more things to think about:
(from Dead Hands section) 2. Cards thrown into the muck may be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game. An extra effort should be made to rule a hand retrievable if it was folded as a result of incorrect information given to the player.
(from Showdown section) 1. To win any part of a pot, a player must show all of his cards faceup on the table, whether they were used in the final hand played or not.
(from Showdown section) 2. Cards speak (cards read for themselves). The dealer assists in reading hands, but players are responsible for holding onto their cards until the winner is declared. Although verbal declarations as to the contents of a hand are not binding, deliberately miscalling a hand with the intent of causing another player to discard a winning hand is unethical and may result in forfeiture of the pot.
(Emphasis added by me in all cases)
There's a couple of things to think about here. First of all, de Wolfe pushed his cards toward the burn cards, not the muck (which is in front of the dealer, not under the pot). Whether that makes a difference I don't know, but I think it's negated in either case by the second point, which is this:
The dealer STOPPED de Wolfe mucking the hand and then exposed both cards.
Under TDA Rule 26 cited above, I don't see how there's any way the pot can go to anyone but de Wolfe. The winning hand has been tabled (twice FWIW, considering he already showed a king) and the dealer can't kill it. de Wolfe tried to, but the dealer
stopped him.
This is backed up by Robert's Rules. Dead
hands rule 2 indicates that the cards can be retrieved as long as they can be identified (and de Wolfe's definitely can) particularly in situations where the player was given incorrect information. And while we dan't hear what Reinkemeier is saying to de Wolfe after he shows the king, it can't have been anything other than incorrect information to make him muck the hand.
Both hands have been tabled, de Wolfe's is clearly the winner and why the pot was given to Reinkemeier is beyond me. Even if it's a slight technical breach of some rule, Rule 1 dictates that the floor person should consider fairness
above everything else in their decisions. I don't see how you can take fairness
and the rules into consideration and then still award the pot to the angle shooting douchebag. He's seen the king and he
knows he can't win the hand. His hand should go into the muck right there. Yet he hangs onto his cards and tries to talk de Wolfe into mucking instead. This isn't a mistake, it's 100% angle shooting and if I were the tournament director I'd be penalising him, not de Wolfe.
As a postscript I can't believe de Wolfe, who's supposed to be a professional, fell for something as lame as that.
