$3,500 WPT Poker Showdown Championship
$2,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6:  400/800 with a 800 ante
Day 1B Entries:  968

Update:  During the dinner break, Tournament Director Jason Heidenthal determined that the unknown player was Alcides Gomez, and he contacted Gomez to let him know he still had chips. Gomez has retaken his seat. More details available by clicking here.

An unusual situation happened at Table 18, and it’s one most of us have never seen before.

Eventually, most poker players see somebody get it all in and lose a pot, then walk away assuming they’re eliminated, only to find out they survived with a couple of big blinds.

This was similar to that, but with an important twist.

According to the players at the table, three players saw a flop of . Ken “Teach” Aldridge bet, Michael Gonzalez raised, and the unknown player moved all in. Aldridge folded, and Gonzalez called with for a pair of sevens with an eight-high flush draw and a gutshot straight draw.

The unknown player turned over for an ace-high flush draw, and needed to improve to stay alive.

The turn card was the , and the river card was — the .

Gonzalez slapped the table in frustration when the river card hit, while the player who won the pot quickly walked away from the table.

Everyone at the table was confused for a few moments, wondering where he was going, until they realized that he thought he was eliminated and he was leaving the tournament — and he never came back.

The theory among the players at the table is that the unknown player misread his opponent’s hand and thought he had flopped a straight instead of a straight draw, so in his mind he needed to catch a heart to stay alive with a flush. When he paired his ace on the river, he thought he was still losing to a straight, so he took off.

Nobody at the table knows who the player is or how to get in touch with him. But at the dinner break, the abandoned stack is worth 125,600 (126 big blinds).

Missing Player  –  125,600  (126 bb)