Hang up and call!

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.

Check the camera!

Well, I never saw this one before.

Just back from a week in the juicy Southern California cardrooms (report on that adventure to come), I decided to get reacclimated here with an afternoon trip to the Muck.

Shortly after I sat into the $4/8 kill game, in Seat 4, the young woman on my immediate left raised from the button and got called in a couple of places (I wasn't in the pot). She bet the flop, bet the turn, and by the river was heads-up with a middle-aged, yellow-sweatered woman in Seat 9. I forget the flop, but the turn was the jack of clubs and the river was a king, and the third club on the board.

Now Yellow Sweater bet out. Seat 5 sat staring for a second at the board. Finally she flipped over her cards -- pocket jacks, for three of a kind -- and muttered something about her Seat 9 opponent getting there on the river. But she didn't put any chips out as she showed her jacks, so the dealer scooped her hand and Yellow Sweater's unexposed cards into the muck and began to push the pot to Seat 9.

Wow, I thought, what a laydown. There's no way I muck a hand that strong in this situation, not on the off-chance of a single opponent hitting a runner-runner flush draw. I looked past my neighbor to Seat 7, where Judy, a very good player and frequent opponent, shot me a raised-eyebrow look. She would have called too.

"Wait!" Seat 5 interrupted. "What does she have? She never showed her cards!"

The dealer looked stunned, and several of us, including me, informed the player that she never called the river bet.

"Call the floor," she said. "Check the camera! Why would I fold a set of jacks?"

The floorman came over, interviewed the dealer and then directed her to "impound the pot" while the game continued and technicians checked the security-camera recording of the action.

Seat 5 continued to protest and explain, but I had little doubt how the challenge would turn out. I wondered, though, what would happen if the camera showed somehow that my neighbor had in fact slid her eight chips forward as she claimed. How could they possibly determine who would win the pot, since Yellow Sweater's cards were never exposed and the cards were long-since shuffled?

By the time the case was settled -- no, the camera confirmed, Seat 5 never called the bet, the impounded pot would go to Seat 9 -- a new dealer was in the box and didn't even know the back story. So I asked my question, and he informed me that Seat 5's triple jacks, as the only exposed hand, would have been declared the winner.

OK, fine.

But what really should have happened, Brysen continued, is that the dealer should have asked Seat 5 whether she intended to call or fold.

Wow, what a horrible policy, I thought. And then I remembered that this was the very scenario that cost Michelle that big pot a couple weeks back and led to our vow to never again tip the offending dealer, "Triple H."

And who do you think dealt today's disputed hand? That's right, HHH. Looks like she's out to piss people off on both ends of the same play.