Jen Harman and the straight flush.

Much as I hate to admit it, I strolled over to the WPT forum on 2+2 after I watched the two main event episodes Tuesday evening. I came across this thread (warning, show all selected)about Harman and her reaction to the queens full being beat by the straight flush. In addition to the invariable discussion about her attractiveness was the quesiton of whether or not she was out of line in her reaction.

Just from my perspective, I don't think so. I think that she was clearly fuming from a sick beat, and latched on to something Corey Zeidman said ("Looks like it's an early day for me, I guess I'll go do some sightseeing.") He said this after he had verified his hand and just before pushing his chips in, while shaking violently. It was a dick move, sure, but I think he just had no idea how to react because he hit a miracle card to make the stone nuts to, clearly, come from miles behind to win. As I said, his hands were shaking violently, so it's fairly easy to interpolate that he wasn't thinking clearly as he said what he said.

Still, Harman can't be expected to shrug off the beat. Yes, she's an experienced pro. Yes, she's taken sick beats before and will take them again. But not on the featured table an hour into the Biggest Tournament Ever. Her reaction, in my opinion, was completely acceptable and much less than what others would have done in her situation.

Looking at it from my seat, when Arnold Spee, in my opinion, completely overplayed his AK, I was left with 2K. I don't remember doing anything other than shaking my head, looking over at Matt and Kevin on the rail and saying "I was right." I then sat back down and tried to nurse my stack back. Though I felt the table was good, with only two grand left at 25/100/200, I could not afford to steam even a little bit or take a couple hands off.

Now, had Spee said something like "Jack Five? Are you kidding me?" I may have said something, I don't know. I think in many ways he realized he was lucky; he grimaced when I turned over the J5 because I think he knew he got outplayed.

It's a different situation, to be sure. However, just as this was probably the biggest tournament Harman had ever played, it certainly wasn't the biggest stakes she'd ever played. She was in the group against Andy Beal, so she'd played 30K/60K cash stakes. This was clearly the biggest stage I've ever been on, so it may have meant even more to me than her.

Ok, this post started out really well, and just degenerated into me not really getting anywhere. Let's wrap it up quickly.

In sum: Harman's actions were acceptable.