Tenth Man Howard Lederer

We mentioned that a table was accidentally broken with 55 players remaining instead of 54 — creating a musical chairs-like situation where there was one more player than available seats.

The odd man out was Howard Lederer, and a table was randomly selected for him to take the 10th seat. So he was sent to Allen Kessler’s table, where he stood behind the dealer waiting for the current hand to play out, since they would need to shift everyone around the table to make room for another chair.

Howard Lederer  –  48,400  (24 bb)

Naturally, Kessler was leading the questioning about what had happened.

Lederer explained what happened with a slightly amused attitude, appearing to embrace not only the absurdity of the situation but the fact that it happened to him after he ran into problems with the chip colors earlier in the day.

A player asked why Lederer didn’t just take a break until another player busted, and Lederer said he would have enjoyed an extra break (hard to tell if he was joking or not). Another player jokingly suggests that Lederer should be automatically eliminated from the tournament for not having a seat, and Lederer rolls with the comment and says, "That seems like a fair solution."

Someone else asks what the TDA rules say about this situation, and Lederer says, "I don’t think this situation has been codified into the rulebook. What would it say? ‘When you mistakenly break a table too early …’ "

Kyle Bowker points out that this would be the first time in this tournament that there were 10 players at a table, because unlike some events, this one started nine handed. Bowker went on to say how the addition of a tenth player definitely changes the strategy of the situation.

Allen Kessler points out that a similar situation happened at the WSOP, and their solution was to bring the players back to the table that had been broken. Jason Somerville confirmed it, remembering the same thing as Kessler.

Once the hand in progress ended, players shifted to make room for Lederer to take a spot in seat 10. Someone asked if Lederer would be the first player moved, but the staff said that the usual rules would be followed, where the big blind would be moved into the next available seat. (When Lederer took his seat, he was in middle position compared to the button.)

The situation didn’t last too long, and when another player busted, Lance Steinberg was in the big blind and moved to another table.

Photo: "Tenth Man" Howard Lederer stands behind the dealer waiting for another seat to be added to his new table.