The “Slowroll” to End All Slowrolls
The “Slowroll” to End All Slowrolls

At the Irish Poker Open over the weekend, Andreas Gann (pictured) of Germany dished out the slowroll to end all slowrolls. Right or wrong, intentional or not, it was a slowroll, but it has certainly gained the attention of our community, so we wanted to highlight what happened. The full video is given at the bottom of this article. When you’re done watching the five-minute hand, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Old school Irish player Donnacha O’Dea raised to 100,000 pre-flop with A-6 of clubs and Gann called 75,000 with K-Q of diamonds after about 45 seconds of deliberation, visibly looking nervous. The tournament was eight-handed at the time, with well over $200,000 going to the winner. The commentators on the Open’s live stream even pointed out that Gann was up against the legendary O’Dea, so we can only imagine what was going through Gann’s head.

The flop came 6-A-8, all diamonds, and Gann checked. O’Dea put Gann all-in, but rather than insta-call with the nuts, Gann sat and thought, much to the ire of the announcers. Comments from them during his 60-second tank included:

“If there’s any justice, an ace is going to roll off on this river.”

“This is absolutely disgraceful. Donnacha O’Dea is from the old school. He’s a legend and an absolute gentleman and this is horrific.”

“He deserves an ace here. I don’t care. Ace or six. This is appalling behavior.”

“Any ace or any six will be cheered by the world.”

“That is just shameful. I cannot believe that.”

After deliberating for a minute, O’Dea (pictured) called and flipped over his hand, much to the dismay of his tablemates. O’Dea remained quiet and, as we could tell, didn’t say a thing, while the rest of the table ripped into Gann, shaking their heads in disapproval and looking perplexed.

As luck would have it, a six ripped off on the river to give O’Dea a winning full house, leading to a thunderous applause and cheers from the announcers. Gann seemed to take the beat in stride. One announcer heralded, “That’s what you get. You go on a slowroll with the absolute, stone cold nut against a gentleman of Irish poker. That’s what you deserve.” Wow. We can’t imagine Norman Chad or Lon McEachern dropping that kind of bombshell on ESPN.

One of the stream’s announcers later gave . There were also rumors that Gann had misread his hand, although he looked back on several occasions.

PocketFiver Darryll DFishFish wrote a blog about the incident, calling the announcers’ behavior “out of line.” He shared his insight into what Gann might have been thinking: “You were completely present in the moment, unaware of time as it passed. Feeling a combination of nervous, anxious, and excited, the last thing on your mind was malicious intent. If someone told you that you did something wrong, you wouldn’t begin to understand why. From your perspective, you played a hand, flopped the nuts, took a few moments to fully realize and enjoy what was happening, and got your money in the middle.”

Here’s the video. What do you think?