Poker Pro Disqualified from Tournament Due to Aggressive Behavior

An angry poker player just blew his chances to win a World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) after being aggressive toward his fellow players and the tournament staff. The report suggests that alcohol might have been involved.

The Player Was Agitated and Confrontational

PokerNews, which broke the news on the matter, reported that the Norwegian player Birger Larsen, one of the participants in the €5,300 PLO European Championship in Prague, was disqualified after exhibiting aggressive behavior toward other players and tournament staff.

According to PokerNews, this happened during the second day of the event. While Larsen held 30^th place out of 379 for EUR 13,000, the incident prevented him from advancing further.

PokerNews noted that Larsen’s aggressive behavior started around the time his chips had dwindled. According to some of his tablemates, he might have been drunk. As a result, Larsen received a formal warning from the floor manager, after which he proceeded to win an all-in. Despite his impressive recovery, Larsen continued to behave aggressively and received a one-orbit penalty.

Instead of calming down, Larsen became even more confrontational. A video of the incident shows that Larsen was clearly agitated and argued with tournament officials about his penalty. He slapped the hand of a fellow player who tried to calm him down and proceeded to sarcastically mock the WSOP staffers who gave him the penalty.

Larsen Could Have Significantly Increased His Lifetime Winnings

According to PokerNews, Larsen is no stranger to poker and boasts an impressive $800,000 in live tournament earnings. Had he remained in the tournament, the Norwegian could have added another EUR 395,000 to that figure, as well as a gold bracelet.

Unfortunately, his short temper deprived him of this opportunity.  

While PokerNews understood that the player’s chips were removed from the tournament upon his disqualification, it couldn’t confirm whether the disqualification was a one-off event, or whether Larsen would be banned from future WSOP tournaments.