Tournament rules question from WSOP circuit hand

[SeriousStudent]

Specific hand is immaterial.

Two players heads up.

Player number 1 goes all in.

Player 2, who always has a battery powered fan at his seat, and wears an Armenian Airlines baseball cap, says

" If you want me to call, I will call",

looks at the all in player for a moment,

then decides to show the all in player his hole cards.

Then he pushes his chips in to call.

Dealer calls for a ruling. Armenian Airlines guys says to tournament director that its just his bad English, when he said If you want me to call, I will call, that meant he was committed to call and he was just showing his cards to the other player joking around, certainly not to get a reaction before he decided. It was just his bad English phrasing.

He is a tournament regular pro or semi-pro who know the tournament director from prior events.

Tournament director said he would let the call of the all in stand, but penalize the player if any other issue came up.

All in player loses, and is busted out.

I am new to these bigger dollar tournaments. Is this a typical ruling?

[2005]

No, this is wrong. If you willingly expose your hand, you should be penalized. You're speaking of Chris Grigorian and his English is good enough to talk about a million words per minute, it's good enough to understand what he was doing there. He messed up then realized afterwards that he did and tried to get out of it. He definitely should have been penalized.

Gavin

[SossMan]

I really think that this depends on how long it was between he exposed his cards and pushed in his chips. If it was one after the other, then I think that this is fine. But if it was even three or four seconds, then I think that he should have been penalized.
One could argue that when he says,"if you want me to call, I will call" can be construed as a binding call. But if he says that, shows his cards and immediately pushes his chips, it would be fine.
Seems to me that if the dealer called the floor, then there was more than a few seconds in between him showing his cards and pushing his chips.

[KKsuited]

I've played with the Armenian Express a few times and he seems a little like someone who would pull a move like that.

Although I will say, the first time I playes with him, he had to ask me about 4 times if I wanted a last longer bet before I understood what he was saying. I didn't take the bet in case you were wondering.