AC Bally's: nice room, awful floor decision.

[VarlosZ]

I sat down at a 1/2 NL game at Bally's two nights ago, at about three in the morning. On the whole, I really liked the room -- loose, affable players, smoking permitted (if that's your kind of thing), and dealers that were friendly and ranged in skill from competent to virtuoso.

However, we did have one dispute that led to a terrible decision by the floor manager. The hand in question involved the CO, button, and SB. On the turn, the SB checked, the CO bet $30, and the Button called. The SB then said "He [the Button] is on a draw, so I'm going to set you [the CO] all-in." While he was collecting his chips for the raise, the CO folded.

The problem was that the SB saw the CO's stack of about 14 chips in front of him and thought they were all reds ($5). He didn't notice that the bottom five chips were greens ($25). When informed that his bet was approximately $170, he refused, saying he never intended to raise that much, and that he would just call the $30 instead. Half the table immediately jumped down his throat, but he stood his ground, and the floor had to be called. Here we begin amateur night.

First of all, the dealer had to call for the floor about five times. He was sitting at an empty table about 30 feet away, having a social conversation with a dealer on break. When he finally arrived, he was clearly irritated and wondered out loud why the table couldn't take care of itself. The situation had to be described to him several times, and even then he seemed to have a shaky grasp of who did what. Finally, exasperated, he shoved the CO's hand back to him and stomped off without saying anything.

Because it was a such a bizarre thing to do, and because he offered no clear explanation of exactly what bizarre thing he was doing, this solved nothing. The table continued to argue for another two minutes before he finally came back. He went through the process of listening to the arguments another few times, then confirmed (angrily) that the SB was just calling the $30 and the CO gets his fold reversed. The rest of the hand was checked down (the SB wound up winning with top pair).


So, this was a terrible ruling, yes? The only rationale I can see for it would be that the SB's statement that he was going to set the CO all-in was just informal conversation (not an official declaration of a poker action), and that the CO then acted out of turn. Indeed, the SB didn't even have the CO covered.

Still, since it caused the CO to fold, I figure the SB's statement has to be taken as a bet. Does anyone side with the floor on this one?