[dankhank]

i made a trip to foxwoods for the first time in several months this week, and unfortunately had a bad experience in literally my last orbit of the trip. i felt very helpless when it happened and am wondering if i could've done anything differently. also, i simply want to post about it to vent, and to point out the quality of dealers at foxwoods.

so this afternoon i'm playing in a 2-5 NL game, killing time just before i head home. an early position player raises to 15, a few people call, and i see QQ on the button and raise to 65. the original raiser calls, all others fold. flop comes T84 and i bet 125. my opponent calls, leaving him 150 behind. i have him covered by a lot. turn is a blank, he checks, and i say all in and wave the back of my hand towards the center of the table, as people often do when declaring themselves all in.

(i verbally declared all in because all i had left in front of me were stacks and stacks of red chips, and it seemed much easier to verbally state something, rather than cut out $200 or so in reds and push them to the center. in retrospect however, i realize the dealer, a cute young woman named johana, was probably too inexperienced with poker to realize that it would be a natural move for me to move all in verbally there. also i don't talk loud at the poker table, and in fact earlier in the hand when i raised preflop she didn't hear me say raise, and my neighbor had to confirm i did say it.)

as soon as i say all in and wave my hand, the dealer burns and flips over the river, a jack. i say "wait wait what are you doing" and my opponent, who heard me say all in (as did the people sitting next to me at the table) also tells her to stop. the dealer says she didn't hear me say allin, and thought i said check instead.

the floor is called over and he gives the ruling i expect: the jack should be put back in the deck, the deck reshuffled, and a new river card comes out. my opponent says, "i have a problem with this, because that jack helped me." i knew i was ahead on the turn, and this comment leads me to think he has AJ. however, i don't know for sure - i figure maybe has JJ, and the J gives him a set that beats me. anyway, i just stay quiet as i don't see what i could do to change anything. before he made that comment i really wanted the river to stay, and even after he said it, i wouldn't have complained if the jack stayed and we flipped. my opponent indicates at some point that he was going to call before the dealer burned and turned.

as the dealer reshuffles (she does this wrong also and the floor basically guides every move, since she is flustered) and burns i say, "no ace please," since i figure that's what he's looking for. oh, and i flip over my queens before she deals, so he knows what he's chasing.

the new river is the so-called prettiest card in the deck, the ace of spades. my opponent says, "i got you" and flips over AJo. i'm steamed and say to the dealer something about how she can't be making mistakes like this, that we're playing for a lot of money here. she is still shellshocked i guess, i sort of am too, and it takes me a second to realize i need to push some of my chips across to mr. AJo. i ask how much, the dealer says "i dont know" and eventually i figure out i owe 155, to complete the ~$750 pot going his way.

i stand up and walk away to whine to the floor for maybe 10 seconds, saying, "i have to b*tch about this a little, that was f'ing ridiculous," and the floor agrees he would be mad, but i can tell he really doesn't care at all. i say to him, "cmon man, put her at a [censored] 2/4 table, she can't cost people money like this." my neighbor at the table says how it sucks as i rack up my chips, but i'm not expecting any sympathy, this is a poker table, i get it. i leave without playing another hand as i'm really mad and don't see how any good can come from staying.

anyway, it was a tough feeling to get screwed out of a pot by such an inept mistake. i normally don't play that "small" at foxwoods, and for the rest of my trip i don't have any complaints about the dealers who were on the "hold'em back wall" of the room (this table was in the middle of the room). in fact the dealers were better than usual. a few of them i recognized from six months ago - good dealers such as john, jason and kristian. i am quite sure that with another dealer, the whole situation wouldn't have happened. however after my experience at this table i suspect the dealers are much worse in other parts of the room.

it really sucked, not being able to do anything. i could've gotten angry and made a scene, or i could've b*thced out the dealer and made her feel bad (maybe i did a little), but i am just not that kind of person. in fact i was standing there and i was like, i don't even know how to make an angry scene. i don't have the energy for it. i haven't yelled at another person in years. i wasn't going to beg for a comp or for my opponent to give me some of the pot - i'm not that kind of person either. so meek old me, i just took it from behind and went home quietly, although i did swear under my breath as i walked through the blackjack and pai gow tables.

in retrospect i can think of a few things i might've tried differently to perhaps make the situation better for me (and mainly here i was trying to devise ways to get myself some of the pot), but i would be curious to hear how other people might respond in this spot, before i give my thoughts.

i am doing this partially to vent and partially to comment on the quality of dealers at foxwoods - because i think they deserve it. the mistake this dealer made is simply unacceptable. the dealer turnover at foxwoods is huge, and quite frankly, in the future i see mistakes of this magnitude happening more often rather than less.

anyway, eventually i got home to cambridge and i was able to count my blessings and do some drugs, and the whole incident is starting to slide off me like all the other bad beats to which i've become accustomed.