I visited OceanView cardroom in santa cruz recently, to check out their 1/2 spread limit game. its 100 buyin, 1/2 blinds, and you can bet 2-100 dollars at any time. $6/half hour time collection probably makes this near-unbeatable. but there were some big time fish.

sounded pretty cool cause its hard to find NL around here, and this is pretty similar.

They started up a new table and i joined for $100, after about 30 min of not playing any hands, I picked up a hand, looked down, noticed a nail mark (like someone had pushed their nail into the card) and thought to myself 'i wonder if this is an ace' I turned it over and it was.. great someone marked the card apparently.

I had AK so i put the A under the K and continued the hand. I lost the pot, and afterwards informed the dealer 'the ace of clubs is marked' he began to shuffle the deck when someone else repeated what I had said, i guess he didnt hear me. He couldnt see the mark, I showed him where it was, and he said 'well i dont see it' and shuffled and dealt the next hand, as he began the deal (with the same deck) I said, "your not going to change the deck?" (getting ready to leave at this point) he calls over the floorman who replaces the deck after I explained the issue.

I'm pretty much ready to leave now, but I picked up KK next hand UTG+1, UTG raised to 10 I reraised to 40, BB calls, UTG+1 moves in for 56 (raising 16) I asked the dealer, "can i raise?" He looked at me like i was an idiot, "of course you can raise" he said.. correct me if I am wrong but UTG+1 made an imcomplete bet and I shouldnt be allowed to reraise? anyways I moved in for 90-something and got called by BB who had AA, UTG+1 didnt show cards, i lost my stack and left after asking the floorman if he had noticed the marked card, he replied without looking up 'yeh'.

so i dont think I will be returning there, just thought I would share my experience incase others were considering it.

(also didnt look like the table was under the watch of a security cam.. maybe I just couldnt see it)