Prahlad Friedman Explains Controversial WSOP Poker Call on ESPN
One of the most controversial plays at the 2010 World Series of Poker occurred on Day 2 B of the event, between poker professional Prahlad Friedman and Ted Bort. The hand involved a last second call made by Prahlad Friedman that was declared dead even though Friedman made the call in time as read by the dealer. In the play, Friedman went all in and had everything at stake, and if his call was wrong he would have been busted. When the hand was declared dead, Friedman escaped with his money which he would have lost since he held a 9-5 against Bort’s J-9.
Prahlad Friedman recently came on ESPN’s Inside Deal and explained the whole event. During game play, Bort made his call, which left Prahlad Friedman with 10 seconds to make his move, at which point, Friedman waited for the last second and then made his call.
According to Friedman, “Anyone knowledgeable about poker and poker rules can understand where I’m coming from, especially in this situation. I said ‘call’ at the very last second because I honestly didn’t know what to do, not because I was pulling any kind of angle or anything like that.”
When watching a replay of the event, it is possible to note that the call was indeed made within the last second mark. However, after the hand was declared dead, the players at the table reacted in an outburst beginning with Mike Mustafa who shouted at the WSOP floor staff that Friedman should have been eliminated.
Friedman responded to this when he went on air by saying, “Everyone argued that I should have been out of the tournament, but I don’t know that it affected play from there on out. Everyone just went back to normal. In my mind, it felt like I was freerolling because the ruling could have gone both ways.”
