Strange little dustup yesterday at the Muck involving my friend David.
An aggressive but good player on my immediate left, in Seat 6, raised a kill pot ($8/16 for this hand), and a couple players called, including David in Seat 1, who had the kill button and therefore already had posted $8.
The flop came ace-ace-something, with two of the same suit, and David raised Mr. Raiser, who called.
As this was going on, my neighbor was talking on his cell phone, playing half on autopilot, it seemed to me. He check-called the turn, which was a blank. The river brought another non-flush card, and Mr. Aggressive checked again, all while continuing his phone call. David bet out and Mr. Aggressive, looking right at him, said "Yeah."
Taking that for a call, David turned over his hand, ace-king, for triple aces and, barring some unlikely, weirdly played full house, the winner. But now Mr. Aggressive tried to throw his hand away, without ever having pushed his $16 call into the pot, and David just about came out of his chair in protest.
"He said 'yeah,'" David said. "He called!"
My neighbor insisted that he hadn't called -- "I missed my flush," he said, "why would I call?" -- and had just said "yeah" into the phone. It was all a big misunderstanding!
The floor supervisor was summoned, and after hearing a replay of the action with lobbying from all parties, she chastised Seat 6 for talking on the phone, the dealer for letting him do so (a violation of house rules) and David for flipping his cards before chips went into the pot. And then she decided in David's favor, ruling (correctly, I thought) that the verbal "yeah" was binding as a call. If you don't want to be misunderstood, she said, don't talk on the phone. That's one of the many good reasons cell phones aren't allowed at the table.
Here's where David blew it. Not satisfied, apparently, with winning the argument and the nice pot, he continued jawing at the floor supe and the offending player. He kept saying yeah, yeah, yeah, David said.
Well, wait a minute then, the floorwoman said. That sounds more like he was talking into his phone. She ended up reversing her ruling, allowing the phone guy to take his $16 back, and putting David on irreversible tilt.
I don't blame him for being miffed. He lost a double-big bet on a bogus play and a seemingly bad floor call to boot. But David didn't help his own cause. It's a good reminder, if nothing else, to slow down and wait for the chips to cross the line.
