Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

I've never seen this type of mistake before, and I'm curious what the proper floor ruling would be. This took place at Turning Stone Casino.

I am in a heads-up pot in a NL Hold'em game, and my opponent is first to act. The river card comes out, and my opponent thinks and announces "all-in" (which is heard by everyone on our side of the table). He then grabs a randomly-sized stack of his own chips and pushes them in the middle of the table.

I deliberate for some time, and announce "call". The cards are revealed, and I have the winning hand.

I start stacking my chips in even piles to determine the amount in my stack... when the dealer abruptly reaches across me to my opponent's chips, grabs the stack that he had put in the middle of the table to represent his all-in bet, and pushes me the pot before either of us have time to react. Of course, we have a problem -- neither of us remember our exact chip counts from the start of the hand, and the dealer has now combined all of the chips. Our stacks were close enough that we didn't even know who covered whom.

Fortunately, the opponent was a close friend of mine, and we knew that our stacks were relatively similar... and he only had a few chips left in his stack after the dealer mistake, so we just agreed to play on.

Unfortunately, the dealer was a dick about it, and was very unapologetic.

If we had called over the floor, what would they have done?

How adamant would we need to be before they reviewed the tape? It doesn't seem like there is a much better solution.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

You know the max. sentence for shooting a dealer is only 21 in days in jail. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I've never seen this type of mistake before, and I'm curious what the proper floor ruling would be. This took place at Turning Stone Casino.

I am in a heads-up pot in a NL Hold'em game, and my opponent is first to act. The river card comes out, and my opponent thinks and announces "all-in" (which is heard by everyone on our side of the table). He then grabs a randomly-sized stack of his own chips and pushes them in the middle of the table.

I deliberate for some time, and announce "call". The cards are revealed, and I have the winning hand.

I start stacking my chips in even piles to determine the amount in my stack... when the dealer abruptly reaches across me to my opponent's chips, grabs the stack that he had put in the middle of the table to represent his all-in bet, and pushes me the pot before either of us have time to react. Of course, we have a problem -- neither of us remember our exact chip counts from the start of the hand, and the dealer has now combined all of the chips. Our stacks were close enough that we didn't even know who covered whom.

Fortunately, the opponent was a close friend of mine, and we knew that our stacks were relatively similar... and he only had a few chips left in his stack after the dealer mistake, so we just agreed to play on.

Unfortunately, the dealer was a dick about it, and was very unapologetic.

If we had called over the floor, what would they have done?

How adamant would we need to be before they reviewed the tape? It doesn't seem like there is a much better solution.

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Are you saying that your stack got mixed in with the chips in the pot, or just your opponents chips got mixed in with the pot. If just your opponent's then the pot size can be calculated by going back over the action and any extra chips obviously werere your opponents stack.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

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Are you saying that your stack got mixed in with the chips in the pot, or just your opponents chips got mixed in with the pot.

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The messy pile after the dealer got involved contained

1) my entire stack, which I had pushed in the middle when making the call

2) the pot

3) the random stack of chips that my opponent used to represent his all-in bet

... so there was no way to retrace the action without knowing stack sizes. Sure, we could isolate the amount that was in the pot before the mixup, but that still wouldn't change the fact that we wouldn't know what of the remaining mass of chips had belonged to me before the hand, and what had belonged to my opponent.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

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If we had called over the floor, what would they have done?

How adamant would we need to be before they reviewed the tape? It doesn't seem like there is a much better solution.


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I'm not sure the tape would have helped. Is it good enough to determine exact stack sizes. My guess is that they would let the play stand, for lack of any better alternative. However, I could see a lot of screaming on both sides.

Unless there's a standard procedure, I'd let the play stand, and comp both of you dinner at TS lovely (gag) buffet or something like that.

You know, my biggest problem with this is that the dealer didn't admit his mistake. I mean, all of us are human, and if he admitted screwing up, let it go. But the dealer clearly screwed up, and should admit this.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

He then grabs a randomly-sized stack of his own chips and pushes them in the middle of the table.

Tell your friend to put all his chips in next time. It's this kind of BS move that causes many of the misunderstandings at the table.

Put it this way, he is against a different opponent. That player claims he is only calling what was put in the pot (he has the losing hand in this version), since he did not hear your friend say "all in" (which is heard by everyone on your side of the table), but not by the dealer or the other player.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

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You know, my biggest problem with this is that the dealer didn't admit his mistake. I mean, all of us are human, and if he admitted screwing up, let it go. But the dealer clearly screwed up, and should admit this.

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Mine too.

If the dealer had just admitted the mistake, I'd have chalked it up to human error... but his insistence that it was my friend's fault was a bit much. Dealers are responsible for controlling the table, and he definitely did not control the table here.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

[ QUOTE ]
He then grabs a randomly-sized stack of his own chips and pushes them in the middle of the table.

Tell your friend to put all his chips in next time. It's this kind of BS move that causes many of the misunderstandings at the table.

Put it this way, he is against a different opponent. That player claims he is only calling what was put in the pot (he has the losing hand in this version), since he did not hear your friend say "all in" (which is heard by everyone on your side of the table), but not by the dealer or the other player.

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Point taken -- but the two of us are experienced players who have been in this cardroom many times and are very capable of following the action at the table. His mistake, while certainly an ambiguous move on his part, is very far from the worst thing I've seen at a live NL game.

Dealers are responsible for maintaining order when a new player makes a string bet, counts out his stacks incorrectly, acts out of turn, raises less than the minimum, shoots an angle, etc etc etc.

My biggest problem with the dealer's error, as I said before, was the fact that he was so adamant in pleading his innocence.

My second biggest problem was the fact that even if he thought my friend had put out a precise bet amount, I had already pushed my entire stack into the center of the table and begun counting it... and the dealer literally pushed my opponent's chips into my hands while I was doing this. Clearly, if he had been paying proper attention, he would have noticed that something didn't jive with his interpretation of the action... and at least asked what I was doing pushing my whole stack in the center to count it.

Even if the mistake was as much my friend's as it was the dealer's, I'm curious what the floor would have done here.. any input?

Corollary
 

Similar, more clear-cut situation:

Player A has $150 in his stack. Player B has $600.

Player B says "all-in" and intends to toss out two black chips ($100 each), but throws out a black and a red by accident ($100+$5).

Player A says "call", and puts out $105.

Player B says "I pushed all-in." Player A says "no, you bet $105."

Assuming that at least three other players heard player B's all-in verbal declaration, what happens here?

Re: Corollary
 

[ QUOTE ]
Similar, more clear-cut situation:

Player A has $150 in his stack. Player B has $600.

Player B says "all-in" and intends to toss out two black chips ($100 each), but throws out a black and a red by accident ($100+$5).

Player A says "call", and puts out $105.

Player B says "I pushed all-in." Player A says "no, you bet $105."

Assuming that at least three other players heard player B's all-in verbal declaration, what happens here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Verbal declaration is binding. Player B said all-in. It's all-in.

Re: Corollary
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Similar, more clear-cut situation:

Player A has $150 in his stack. Player B has $600.

Player B says "all-in" and intends to toss out two black chips ($100 each), but throws out a black and a red by accident ($100+$5).

Player A says "call", and puts out $105.

Player B says "I pushed all-in." Player A says "no, you bet $105."

Assuming that at least three other players heard player B's all-in verbal declaration, what happens here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Verbal declaration is binding. Player B said all-in. It's all-in.

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What if Player B said all-in low enough that only the players near him could hear, and the other player could not hear it. This happens all the time.

Re: Corollary
 

A good habit I have gotten into is if someone declairs "AI", I always ask the dealer "is that an AI bet?" even if the declairation came of a loud player that everyone on the next table heard it too. This way, there is no way it can be missed.

Re: Corollary
 

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A good habit I have gotten into is if someone declairs "AI", I always ask the dealer "is that an AI bet?" even if the declairation came of a loud player that everyone on the next table heard it too. This way, there is no way it can be missed.

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I've actually gotten in the habit of saying "I'm all-in, I call" when calling all-in bets in heads-up pots... this removes ambiguity also.

Of course, if you do it when the pot is not heads-up, that's a different matter.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

you know, i've heard the same exact thing. but the problem is that after you shoot one, you want to shoot them all (the bad ones, of course) so by the time you're done you have to serve at least 21 YEARS.

Re: Corollary
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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Similar, more clear-cut situation:

Player A has $150 in his stack. Player B has $600.

Player B says "all-in" and intends to toss out two black chips ($100 each), but throws out a black and a red by accident ($100+$5).

Player A says "call", and puts out $105.

Player B says "I pushed all-in." Player A says "no, you bet $105."

Assuming that at least three other players heard player B's all-in verbal declaration, what happens here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Verbal declaration is binding. Player B said all-in. It's all-in.

[/ QUOTE ]

What if Player B said all-in low enough that only the players near him could hear, and the other player could not hear it. This happens all the time.

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The poster above specified it was loud enough for at least 3 other players to hear. Three players hearing something is generally enough to conclude that it was said.

Re: Corollary
 

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The poster above specified it was loud enough for at least 3 other players to hear. Three players hearing something is generally enough to conclude that it was said.

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Randy -

if someone called you over about the situation in the OP, what would you do as the floorperson?

-dB

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

Simply shoot the dealer, as I said earlier the maxium plenty is 21 days in the can [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

What I want to know is, did you tip the dealer? We haven't had the Monday Morning Tipping Thread and this just might suffice.

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

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What I want to know is, did you tip the dealer? We haven't had the Monday Morning Tipping Thread and this just might suffice.

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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hahahaha

nh [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I did not tip the dealer -- I play at Turning Stone pretty regularly, and I won't tip him for awhile.


edit: because he was a dick about it and denied doing anything wrong, not because he made a human mistake.

Re: Corollary
 

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The poster above specified it was loud enough for at least 3 other players to hear. Three players hearing something is generally enough to conclude that it was said.

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Randy -

if someone called you over about the situation in the OP, what would you do as the floorperson?

-dB

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I have faced a very similiar situation as the original poster posted. It was a touranament (4 players left) and there was an allin bet and call and the players had small and very similiar stacks and the dealer pulled both stacks into the pot without seeing which one was bigger. I told the players to go ahead and take a break (live game you can set teh amount in question aside, but this was a touranment with a player possibly eliminated) and i called survelience (note: this is the only tiem i have gone to survelience with help with a decision; other calls to survelience have always been to confirm somethign i saw on the floor). I was lucky because there was a survelience supervisor that also played poker so he reviewed the tape with me and we were able to make a very good guess as to what the stack sizes were on the river.

If this were a live game or if survelience had been inconclusive the players that lost the pot should be treated in a favorable manner (the winner of the pot just won a pot so they will be happy wiht a fair solution). In the OP since the amount of chips the loser of the pot would have remaining is unclear I would leave him with the maximum he migth have left. Basically I would get a good estimate (table concenous and dealer observation) of how much more he owed and mkae him put in around 2/3 of that amount (find a round number that is clsoe to what he owes, but is clearly a less than what he owes). He has no complaint that he got cheated, the winner has a little bit of a complaint but he just won a pot and received compensation that is fair to everyone involved.

Re: Strange NL dealer error with stacks- what should floor do here?
 

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Tell your friend to put all his chips in next time. It's this kind of BS move that causes many of the misunderstandings at the table.

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This isn't always so easy in a cash game. Does the rest of the table want to sit there and wait for the players all-in bet to be officially binding by him putting what can be 3 or 4 racks of chips into the center of the table? I've seen some 2-5 games where they only keep nickles on the table and in the rack, so you get a $3000 stack and it's quite a bit of work to move those chips in. Players and dealers need to be more conscious of the potential pitfalls that can occur in these situations. I bet both Doyle Brunson and Brad Berman are a hell of a lot more careful with their all-in bets after their mishap.