The scene
I had the afternoon off, and was looking forward to an enjoyable few hours of playing cards.
We had just opened up a new $3/5 NLH game – one that usually has a mandatory $10 straddle. Everybody was getting settled in, buying chips, jockeying for seats, the usual preparations. I had $1,000 neatly arranged in front of me – six stacks of $5 chips and four $100 chips on top where nobody could miss them.
Early doors, less than an orbit in, we somehow get a hand where the straddle wasn't on. Obviously that was when I wake up with aces. But I call an audible, and say, "I'll just pretend the straddle is on," and make it $30. I'm so clever. I'm in the #9 seat, to the dealer's immediate right. So I hear, but don't see, the kid in the #2 seat, say "$130." Music to my ears. It folds back around to me.
I glance around the dealer and see that the kid has maybe $600, including a couple of $100 chips in front of stacks of nickels. I say, "$320, please," and put out three $100 chips and four $5 chips. Back to the kid, who starts muttering. Between the dealer blocking me, and the general cardroom chaos, I can't hear what he's saying. But at some point, I'm pretty sure I hear him say, "All-in." Then I see the dealer throw the all-in button in front of him. As soon as he does that, I know it's binding (and the cameras can see that). I immediately say, "I call," and put out a stack of nickels to make my intent clear.
The dealer runs out a jack-high board. I look inquiringly at the #2 seat – it's his turn to go first. He tables pocket queens – I have the winner. I immediately turn up my aces. The kid slams his palm on the table in disgust/disappointment. I lean back in my chair, and wait for the dealer to push me the pot.
Things go sideways
The dealer pushes the kid's chips over to me in a beautiful messy heap. I'm sorting through them, as you do when you've won a big pot, to get re-arranged. Recall that three of my $100 chips went out as part of my $320 bet. So I'm plucking the $100 chips out of the pile of nickels and...
Just a frigging minute. There's exactly four $100 chips here – the same number I started with. The dealer is already pitching the next hand. I raise my voice, for the dealer and everybody to hear:
"Hold on. There's chips missing. I know that Seat #2 had at least two $100 chips."
This is when things turn weird. Out of nowhere, the kid tosses two $100 chips to me, and says something, which I don't catch. To my shock, the dealer says nothing, and continues pitching cards. I go up another decibel or two.
"Oh no, no, no. Call the floor."
At this point, some of the other players at the table are reacting to this whacky turn of events.
The floorman arrives. I know that they always want to hear the story from the dealer, so I tell the dealer to tell the floorman what happened. I quickly learn that the dealer doesn't really understand what happened, but he does manage to get out the part about the kid randomly tossing two $100 chips over to me.
I can tell that the floorman can't really believe what he's hearing. He turns to me, and asks me what happened. I say that I'm not sure, except that the kid had two (?) $100 chips when the hand started, I covered him, and I won an all-in pot. But then the two $100 chips weren't in the pot. But then they magically got tossed to me.
In the meantime, the kid has gone to the cage to get more chips.
First, stop playing poker
I knew that I was in no shape to play poker at that moment, and if the kid was coming back into the game, there was no universe where I was going to sit at a poker table with him. I racked up my chips (putting my six $100 chips in the lower of the two racks), left them at my #9 seat, and walked to the lobby area of the casino.
After a bit, the shift manager came and found me. "We looked at the tape – when he slammed his hand on the felt [Remember that?] he palmed two $100 chips. When you caught him, he tossed them back to you. He told us he was just joking with you."
You misstated, "was just trying to steal $200 from me."
"We've sent him home."
The aftermath
I took half an hour off, got something to drink, and cleared my head. I was pretty sure they weren't going to pick up my chips for a while. It was a good game, and I don't always have time to play. Once I was sure that my equilibrium was restored, I sat down, and got back to poker. Two or three players congratulated me on catching the cheat. But I took no pleasure in it – I don't want to spend mental energy watching out for bad actors like that.
I don't know if there will be longer term consequences for the kid. I'm of two minds about it. I have no tolerance for poker cheaters (and let's be clear – there's no other word for what the kid did). On the other hand, everybody does stupid things, and certainly I did my share of stupid things at that kid's age. Should the kid get a permanent ban (or worse, a police record) for what he did? IMHO, no. I like to see a significant time-out dropped on him. Apparently he's a regular in this room, and for instance, a one-month time-out would really put a crimp in his style – perhaps that would drive home an important lesson.
My lesson
I guess I'll just have to be that much more careful in the future. And I got to wondering how often I'd been a victim of similar moves in the past. As a friend of mine noted, "The excitement and buzz of winning a giant pot – you're probably not paying close attention to things." No, you're not. Fortunately, a huge majority of poker players are square, and don't try to cheat you. It would be miserable to play in a game where you have to constantly watch for cheating. I know that the old time rounders used to do that, and if you play in underground games, you have to do it, even today.
Me, I'll be a little more aware, a little more careful to know exactly how many chips my opponent has, and do some math to be sure that if I win a monster pot, I get everything to which I'm entitled.
But I'm not going to take it to an extreme. That would spoil the entire point of going down to the casino – to sit in a comfortable chair, and pass a few pleasant hours playing cards.
