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

[dtbog]

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.

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

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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.

[dtbog]

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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.

[KenProspero]

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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.

[AngusThermopyle]

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.

[dtbog]

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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.

[dtbog]

[ 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?

[dtbog]

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?

[jedi]

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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?

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