Terrible ruling at Binion's last night

[dlk9s]

I'm out here in Vegas covering the WSOP and my boss and I decided to slack off and play in the 8:00pm tourney at Binion's ($60 + one $40 re-buy).

After the second break, as the cards were being dealt, something didn't feel right to me. As I scanned the table, I noticed the player in Seat 8 (I was in Seat 3, so I had a great view of everyone) was not the same one who was there before. He had the same chip stack and the original player was not eliminated, plus it seemed weird that they would move one person from the table without breaking everybody.

I actually spoke up and asked everybody to stop play for a second so I could point this out. The new kid (he looked like a kid) said the original player was disqualified, but he'd explain it fully after the hand. That was cool by me, so we continued. Nothing happened in the hand - everyone folded to the button, who raised, and I folded in the BB.

While the dealer was shuffling, the new kid explained that it was his friend who was playing originally, but at the break, security carded him. When he couldn't produce ID, security wouldn't let him continue playing, but allowed him to return to his hotel to get his ID. In the meantime, his friend was permitted to stand in as a SUBSTITUTE.

What?

Almost in unison, the rest of us called for the floor before the next hand. The tournament manager came over and said it was ok for him to be a sub. We all (some more than others) vehemently protested. After all, what if we knew, say, Greg Raymer, who had just busted from the WSOP and he was willing to sit in for us? Would that be fair?

After a couple minutes of arguing, the tournament director gave in and said the player would just be anted and blinded off. It was ridiculous.

In the end, I was never hurt by this weirdness (I was hurt by a major suckout, but that's another story), but it did make for some fun commentary for the next hour.