One player (and one dealer?) per hand

Thanks to a horrible mistake by an experienced dealer, Michelle got ripped off of a big pot in our Muck session the other night, a swing that made the difference between a winning and losing session for her.

I wasn't in the hand and don't remember all the particulars, but I know she raised pre-flop with A-K, hit a king right away and didn't slow-play. I think the flop was K-9-7. One of the other players in the pot was a friendly, extremely loose, not very knowledgeable and heavily drinking Tracy Morgan look-alike in Seat 9. He kept playing back at Michelle, but she didn't back down, reraising confidently and forcing the dude to pay if he was drawing.

By the river there was a possible straight on the board -- something like K-9-7-10-6. Again, Tracy Morgan bet, but now Michelle, smart enough to slow down with one pair only on a board like this, just called him.

"Ah," Tracy Morgan said, "I just have the 9," and he gave his cards a dispirited, disinterested flip toward the middle. He knew he was beat.

The cards bounced, landing face down -- not in the muck, but on top of the shuffling machine and touching the giant pile of chips.

Here's where the dealer, a woman we've known a long time, made the move that will cost her all future tokes from both Michelle and me. She asked Tracy, "Are you sure you want to muck that," and as he reached in robotically to turn over his cards she announced: "straight." Tracy looked at his cards -- A-8, no 9 -- and literally counted out the 6-7-8-9-10 on his fingers to confirm he had a straight.

"Oh, I didn't even know I had that," he said.

How Michelle kept from leaping across the table and knocking their two heads together I'll never know. She didn't even call the floor for a ruling, although she asked a supervisor about it later and was informed she would have lost the appeal since Tracy's cards never touched the muck.

Still, very bad play by the dealer known as Triple-H. This also strikes me as a bad policy by the Muck. The man surrendered his hand and miscalled it to boot. The dealer, who may have seen the player's cards as they tumbled feltward, should not assist him in reclaiming his hand and dragging the pot. In many other rooms this ruling would go in Michelle's favor.

Michelle said that next time she plays she might table-change around the room, following Triple-H, just so she can make a point of not tipping her whenever she wins a hand. I don't blame her.